About 7:15 p.m. tonight, there surely came a  sickly little “whoooop” from Brandi Bisping. It would have come in celebration after she read a text from her father reporting that the Lady Potters had won their opener in the State Farm Holiday Classic, 62-59 over Normal West.

Bisping was stuck at home in Morton. She has mononucleosis, diagnosed over the weekend. She is likely to be out for a month. It is all but impossible to imagine the warrior Bisping staying in bed when a battle is at hand. So, an hour before tip-off at Bloomington’s Central Catholic High School, I had a question for her father, Todd:

“Did you have to handcuff her to a water heater or something?”

“Oh, she wanted out,” Todd Bisping said. “Yesterday she had dressed for practice and I wouldn’t let her go. Today she told me, “You can’t make me NOT play.” I said, “Between me, Coach Becker, and the doctor, I bet we can.”

Mono calls for complete rest. Part of the danger is an enlarged spleen, which, if ruptured, can cause death. That’s why doctors advise/order/demand that mono patients avoid contact sports until the infection is past. Bisping can play basketball with great finesse. She also plays with great enthusiasm, as when she realizes something good has happened and she goes, “WHOOOP! WHOOOP!” Most important to know in these mono days, Bisping also plays with small regard for corporal punishment, including her own. For the 5-foot-11 all-state senior more than for most high school girls, basketball is not only a contact sport, it is a collision sport.

So while Bisping was wrapped safely in blankets at home, unbeaten Potters won their 12th game of the season, their 25th in a row reaching back to last season’s state championship run, and their 78th in 84 games. Unlike the previous 11 victories this season, achieved by margins of 15 points or more, tonight’s came hard. Without Bisping’s scoring, rebounding, defensive mastery and on-court command of her team’s movements, the tournament’s second-seeded Lady Potters had a long, anxious, and scary night against the number 15 seed, Normal West, a 5-5 team.

Morton was beaten badly in departments it usually dominates. For one, Normal West scored six put-back field goals to Morton’s zero. For another, the Potters’ defense failed to shut down Normal West the way it has shut down everyone else. In addition to the six put-backs, the losers scored 11 more buckets daring the Potters to stop them driving to the rim. That’s 17 field goals from point-blank range to Morton’s 10 (with 7 of those coming in the first quarter when the Potters sprinted to a 19-5 lead).

Happily for the Potters, they can score from everywhere. They made 9 3-pointers (giving them 94 for the season). Morton’s biggest little player, 5-foot-2 guard Kassidy Shurman, had four of the long ones. She also had the two most important 3’s. They came early in the fourth quarter after Normal West had moved within a point at 46-45.

With 5:18 to play, Shurman made a 3-pointer from the left corner to make it 49-45. Fewer than 30 seconds later, again from the left side, she threw in another 3 for a 52-45 lead. That seven-point margin was good for four minutes until Morton seemed to lose its poise under pressure and allow Normal West to tie it at 58 with 26 seconds to play.

Nine seconds later, the Potters’ 5-foot-3 Josi Becker found herself in foreign territory, stuck with the ball in the paint. She did about the only thing that made sense. She shot it. From 12 feet. She made it. Normal West had a chance to tie with two free throws with 6.9 seconds to play, but made only one. With 5.7 seconds left, Tenley Dowell’s two free throws gave Morton reason to breathe again.

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 17. Shurman had 15 (13 in the second half), Lindsey Dullard 14 (all in the first half), Josi Becker 8, Courtney Jones 4, Caylie Jones and Jacey Wharram 2 each.

Tomorrow night the Potters play Wheaton Warrenville South, 7 o’clock, at Normal Community High School.