Jomard Valsin played only his second basketball game of the season Tuesday and scored 10 points in 5A fifth-ranked Port Arthur Memorial’s 94-43 home win over Vidor to open District 22-5A play.

Eighteen days earlier, the recently named 22-5A football defensive player of the year was suited up in a helmet and pads in Memorial’s 5A Division I Region III semifinal against Temple. After taking a week off following the season-ending loss, the linebacker and forward began getting into basketball shape.

“It’s just more of a conditioning factor and getting acclimated into the system,” Valsin said. “I give it all to the teammates. They help me. They push me. Couldn’t do it without them.”

Valsin is one of three football players on the basketball Titans’ varsity roster, along with fellow seniors Jamal Dorsey and Elijah Hines. Dorsey had two points against Vidor.

“I try to explain it to them: ‘Don’t let people put you in a box. We know you play football, but you’re athletes,’” Titans coach Kenneth Coleman said. “Come out here and perform and expect to perform, and they’re doing that. I’m excited about them.”

Thailan Wesley scored a game-high 22 points, and Darion Chatman and Jyson Butler each added 14 for the senior-laden Titans (10-5, 1-0 in 22-5A). The Titans trailed just once, 3-0, and after going on a 17-0 run from the 1:57 mark of the first period to the 4:40 mark of the second, they were never threatened again.

“They’re incredibly quick and athletic, and with the way they shoot the ball now, the way they move the ball, continue to spread you out and attack the basket relentlessly, and then having a 6-7, 6-8 guy (Nate Clover) the way he can play, that kind of makes it really hard to stop,” Vidor coach Nate Smith said. “Especially when you’re a little undersized like we are, you try to take something away and they’ll just expose you somewhere else. They’re No. 5 in the state for a reason.”

Ten of the 12 Titans scored, a sign of the defending 22-5A co-champion team’s depth. They made 12 three-point baskets, with Jamyus Jones (11 points), Butler and Wesley each canning three of them. Chatman had two treys. “You have to bring more energy.”

Depth is part of Coleman’s plan for the program.

“They’re a part of this team because I know they can help contribute, every single person,” he said. “The guys who came off the football field, they’re working hard and they added some energy and stuff like that.”

As Chatman said, one of the Titans’ team policies is “next man up.”

“The person who comes off the bench has to come with more fire than the person he’s taking out the game,” Chatman said.

Nate Clover added nine points for Memorial. For Vidor (8-9, 0-1), William Fawcett had 11 points and Ashur Fondren had seven.

Memorial will have nine days of rest before hosting the three-day James Gamble Classic.

I.C. Murrell: 549-8541. Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews