The Moon Area boys' basketball team opened the season with victories on consecutive nights against two of the best teams in the area.

But it wasn't so much the wins against Hopewell and Peters Township, ranked No. 3 by the Post-Gazette in WPIAL Class AAA and Class AAAA, respectively, that impressed coach Jeff Ackermann. It was the manner in which they came.

"We played two different kinds of games," Ackermann said. "The first game was kind of a slow-down defensive battle, and [Saturday] was a little more up-tempo, run-and-gun. It made me happy showing we can play either type of game and win both of them. We can play a slower style of game, and we also proved we can go up and down. I wasn't even sure we could do that, to be honest with you. They showed me they could."

Moon (3-0), which began the season ranked No. 3 in Class AAA, defeated Blackhawk, 61-47, Tuesday. At the Tigers' own tournament last weekend, they beat Hopewell, 54-49, Friday and Peters Township, 76-71, Saturday.

These Tigers fancy themselves on being able to beat you any which way you choose.

"I think the more styles you can play, the better you are, because you're going to get different styles from teams," said Ackerman, who is in his ninth season at Moon.

"If you're an up-and-down team, you're going to have teams slow it down against you and make you play a half-court game. And if you're a slow-down team, you'll have teams try to go up-and-down to make you play aggressively. If you play both ways successfully, you'll have a better chance of being better."

Illustrating that point, Moon has clearly played different styles over the course of seasons. The Tigers averaged 58.7 points per game last season but have averaged as many as 73 during a season during Ackermann's tenure.

"It shows we're pretty diverse, and we have Aaron [Johnson], who's a great player who can get out and run with us, too," said guard Zack Korzi, the lone senior in the starting lineup. "That doesn't limit us."

Johnson, a 6-foot-3 junior forward, is one of two returning starters along with junior guard Brett Hoffman from last season, when the Tigers were a WPIAL semifinalist.

That was not a surprising result, considering Moon has now gotten that far in six of the past seven campaigns.

Two other juniors, 6-2 forward Angelo Aletto and 5-10 guard Julian Spinosi, also start, and the top players off the bench include post players such as 6-7 senior center Dan Murray and 6-3 junior center Kyle Henderson as well as a guard in 5-9 junior Drew Dandrea.

The bench quickly showed it is able to contribute. Against Hopewell, Murray scored eight points (second-highest on the team), and on Saturday Dandrea had 12 points.

"That had a lot to do with the style of games," Korzi said. "As a center Murray was more suited for the half-court game, and in the second game, we were able to get out and score more points, and we had a guard come in and do well. We have plenty of diversity off the bench, too, which is good."

Johnson is unquestionably the Tigers' go-to guy. A co-captain along with Hoffman, he averaged a team-high 18.7 points per game last season and scored 19 and 30 points in the first two games of this season.

But Moon is clearly more than a one-man show. Already, the improved Korzi and athletic Hoffman have scored in double figures for a game, and last season Henderson did at least once as well in limited action.

"The thing that impressed me the most about my team was the fact that we had different guys step up each night," Ackermann said. "That's good to see that.

"That's when you know you're going to be good, when different guys step in every night. There's always one or two guys, depending on the circumstances, who take on a bigger role, and we have confidence in their abilities. I really think that's what makes you a better team."

Mike White's "High School Sports Edition" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.