BASKETBALL: Indians take Tip-Off title with three straight wins
What a difference a year makes. Du Quoin needed almost three months and a total of seventeen games before they got their second victory in 2013-14, yet after just four games in six days of the current season, the Indians sit at 3-1 and on Saturday night claimed the outright championship of the Tip-Off Classic with a dramatic 74-70 overtime win over Sesser-Valier.
The victory over the Devils was the 196th for Wendell Wheeler as head coach of the Indians, putting him four wins behind Ray Saunches on the Du Quoin High School all-time wins list for boys varsity basketball.
"It's the same kids (as last season), but it's not the same kids," said Wheeler. "We joked in the preseason that the good news is everybody's back, but the bad news is everybody's back. What we were saying with that is that if we come back as the same type of players and we don't improve, we're going to go through this again."
"We won three close games and were one shot away from winning another, so I think we're better players. And our chemistry - all of my coaches have played for me, those guys had great chemistry on their teams - this team has chemistry as good as any we've had. These kids don't care who got what little trophy because we got the big trophy."
The Indians erased a ten-point halftime deficit and trailed by as many as fifteen points in the final game of the round-robin tournament, and also had to overcome a phenomenal individual performance by Tip-Off MVP Nick Marlo, who scored 51 of Sesser-Valier's 70 points.
Marlo had 27 of the team's 32 points at the half, and the Red Devils were up 32-17 with a minute to go in the second quarter when the momentum started to turn in Du Quoin's favor.
Tucker Kuhnert hit a jump shot with 42 seconds to go, and Jarred Thomas - playing at much less than 100% after a knee injury suffered in Friday's game - buried a three-pointer with a couple ticks remaining to cut Sesser-Valier's advantage to ten at the break.
The Devils still led by nine late in the third quarter after Marlo's fourth three-pointer of the night made it 50-41, but Caleb Vogel answered with a four-point play at the other end with 1:42 remaining in the period. Four free throws by Thomas cut the Indians' deficit down to a single point, but Marlo buried his fifth three ball before the end of the third and Sesser-Valier was up 53-49 heading to the fourth.
Brock Bullar was fouled on a three-point attempt just fifteen seconds into the final quarter and sank all three at the line, then added two more free throws a minute later, the second giving Du Quoin their first lead since the tail end of the opening period.
The two teams fought back and forth for the final six and a half minutes, and the game was tied at 64-64 with 1:46 left in regulation after a rebound and putback by Du Quoin's Levi Brening for his only points of the entire tournament.
"That stick-back was big," said Wheeler. "He's a kid that's never played basketball, we think he's got a lot of upside. He's strong, he's physical, that's a kid we didn't see coming."
Marlo struck again with an off-balance jumper to give the Devils a two-point lead, then Thomas made one of two free throws to cut it back to one, and Du Quoin had an opportunity to hold for one shot and go for the win with an inbounds play coming and 40.1 seconds on the game clock.
The Indians ran off all but 17.9 seconds before calling timeout, then didn't get the look the wanted and had to burn another timeout with 3.9 seconds left. This time the ball found its way to Vogel, who collided with a Sesser-Valier player to draw a foul with 1.6 seconds remaining.
Vogel missed the first of the double-bonus free throws, but gathered himself and tied the game with the pressure-packed second attempt, sending the game to overtime.
"Up and down the lineup, everybody contributed for us," Wheeler said. "From Vogel hitting that free throw, to (Brening) getting that stick-back and giving us good minutes, to (Jordan) Carson coming in and covering the out of bounds pass there at the end of regulation, to the team attitude that (Hunter) Behm, (Cole) Hopkins and (Chad) Heatherly help create, not everybody sees all of those little things, but my assistant coaches and I do."
After DHS ran off over a minute of the clock to start the overtime, Thomas finally started the scoring with a driving lay-up with 2:29 remaining. Kuhnert made one of two at the line a minute later, and the Indians never trailed again.
Marlo had Sesser-Valier's four points in the OT before fouling out in the closing seconds. Vogel and Thomas, who shared the team lead in scoring with 21 points apiece, also added free throws for Du Quoin in the extra four-minute period.
"I thought for A.J. (Smith) and (Bullar) both being in foul trouble, they did a great job in the second half (guarding Marlo)," Wheeler said. "The kid did a great job, he hit his shots, he did a lot of good things, but we got stops when needed them down the stretch."
Bullar made it three Indians in double figures with a dozen points. Kuhnert added eight, Nolan Showalter six, Smith four and Brening two. Showalter and Thomas were named to the Tip-Off's all-tournament team.
"What a great effort Jarred gave us," Wheeler said of Thomas, who labored most of the game with the knee injury he sustained in the win over Hamilton County on Friday night.
"Foul trouble hurt us as much with Marlo scoring as it did with our ball handling, because very seldom did Brock and A.J. get to play at the same time. Jarred would have given us another ball handler, but we couldn't ask him to do that tonight. We really tried to put him in positions where he didn't have to do too much, put him in the right places at the right times. If he's healthy, he handles the ball a lot more."
Du Quoin (3-1) will look to build on their three-game winning streak this Friday night when they begin conference play at home against Carterville.
<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Du Quoin 43, Hamilton County 37</span>
Thomas, who had 78 points for the tournament, scored 18 of those in Friday night's 43-37 win over Hamilton County that put the Indians in position to contend for the championship. Du Quoin led 22-12 at the break and held on in the second half despite being out-rebounded and committing thirteen turnovers.
Showalter added nine points against the Foxes, Vogel had six, Bullar five, Smith four and Kuhnert three.