The next morning, the score was up there. Every day for a while, those numbers were on the scoreboard. Practice didn’t start until those numbers were lit up. No one remembers exactly how long the numbers were up there except they were up there a longggggg time. Every day, every practice, maybe for two weeks, the scoreboard’s bright red lights showed a “40” and a “37.” Or, as junior forward Caylie Jones called it, “That score.”

Thirty-five days ago, the Morton High School Lady Potters lost to Galesburg in Galesburg’s gym by that score. Even that night, the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, reckoned his team would see the Silver Streaks again – probably in the sectional tournament, probably late in February when games come with more meaning. So, 35 days ago, Becker started lighting up the Potterdome scoreboard with a reminder of what had happened.

By tonight, those red lights had burned themselves so deeply into the Potters’ brains that Jones said her team played with “a sense of revenge.” Or, as senior all-stater Brandi Bisping said in anticipation of joy to come, “Them again.”

This time the Potters’ number was 54.

Them had 24.

This time when the Potters scored their 37th point, Them had 12.

As one measure of Morton’s superiority, the Potters had enough points at halftime, 26, to win without ever scoring again. There is also this: Galesburg came in as a regional champion with a 24-7 season’s record that included that 40-37 victory 35 days ago and yet never had a chance tonight, beaten every way a team can be beaten. The Potters’ lead was only 19-10 midway through the second quarter when I scribbled a note: “4:35 – M just the better team.”

Morton was the better team for many reasons. It has good athletes with size. Yes. It has eight, nine, maybe 10 players who could start for any other team they’ve played this season. Yes. But it is 30-2 for the season – and now two victories away from another trip to Redbird Arena — because all its people know how to play basketball. They know how to take care of the ball, they know how to shoot. Yes. They learned that in the third grade. More important, they know how to move on offense and defense, and they know to anticipate movement, their opponents’ and their own. Peoria High coach Meechie Edwards said the definitive words after his team fell apart under Morton’s relentless pressure at both ends: “They’re a smart team.” The Potters do almost nothing dumb and they do almost everything with a purpose – as illustrated in a wonderful little scene early in the third quarter.

Morton’s Tenley Dowell had two free throws to put the Potters up 28-16. Bisping was on the lane. Becker shouted her name. When she turned to see what he wanted, she saw the coach deep in a defensive crouch, arms spread wide.

“Telling me to ‘get low,’” Bisping said later.

She saw the coach getting low, so she turned fully away from her spot on the lane, faced Becker, and, smiling all the way, dropped into her own defensive crouch. Done with a purpose: Yes, Coach. I’ll get low.

“Might as well have fun,” she said.

On his coaching whiteboard, Becker had scrawled four pre-game messages for his team:

Make every play like your last
D it up
Dominate the glass
Toughness

Might as well have all that fun, and the Potters did. Last month, they lost to Galesburg by those 40-37 numbers. But that was January, and this is Win-or-Go-Home. Back then, Brandi Bisping was recovering from mono. “Struggling,” she said. She had 12 points, but only 4 in the last 15 minutes when Morton could not come back from 26-16 down at halftime. Tonight, no struggle – she scored Morton’s first two baskets, both 3-pointers, and had 10 points by quarter’s end, the Potters ahead for good at 13-7.

I loved it when Bisping made her second 3-pointer. She was also fouled on the shot. Or seemed to have been fouled. Anyway, she went falling backwards and a referee called a foul on Galesburg. Even as Bisping went to the line to finish a rare 4-point play, Galesburg coach Evan Massey was in a referee’s ear. Lip-readers at the far end of the gym saw him telling the referee that Bisping “flops.” Ear-witnesses near Massey heard him use the flop word and characterized the coach’s tone as “whiny.”

Galesburg still had a prayer when Morton’s lead was 17-10 midway in the second quarter – except it was becoming obvious that the Streaks could not score against a Morton defense that Becker called “awesome, just awesome.” So awesome, in fact, that when Galesburg was forced by defensive pressure into a traveling violation, Becker came leaping off the bench, pumping a fist in giddy celebration. “Defense is fun for these kids,” Becker said.

Meanwhile, the Potters scored every which way. Caylie Jones made a 12-footer and a layup. Josi Becker a 3. Jones another move inside. Dowell’s two free throws during the Becker-Bisping act. Bisping a 3 from the top of the arc followed by a 17-footer, two free throws, and a put-back of her own blocked shot.

Suddenly, on an 18-2 run in 9 minutes and 40 seconds, the Potters had come to that lovely score: Morton 37, Them 12.

My favorite piece of the Potters’ defensive work came at the start of the fourth quarter. After playing man-to-man to that point, Becker’s team surprised Galesburg with a full-court trapping defense that featured its longest players up-front: Bisping, Dowell, and Lindsey Dullard, the team’s so-called “Condor Line.” When the three girls jumped at a Galesburg ball-handler, it was, like, Whaaa, where’d they come from???? Soon enough, Galesburg’s offense became desperate cross-court passes leading nowhere.

“They didn’t know how to play without running their sets,” Dowell said.

I asked Massey about his team’s offensive troubles. For one thing, the Streaks were 0-for-13 on 3’s. (After making zero 3’s in that loss at Galesburg, the Potters made 5 3’s this time.)

“We never got comfortable,” Massey said, which is a losing coach’s way of acknowledging the success of Becker’s third whiteboard point: D it up.

Bisping led Morton’s scoring with 23. (She also had 13 rebounds and became the Potters’ all-time rebound leader with 1,060, 11 more than Cindy Bumgarner.) Jones had 10 points, Dowell 8, Dullard 5, Josi Becker 4, Kassidy Shurman 2, and Bridget Wood 2.

The Potters next play Thursday night for the sectional championship against the winner of Tuesday night’s U High-Richwoods game. They have beaten U High twice this season and Richwoods once.

Because they’d seen those 40 and 37 numbers more often than they wished to see them, some Potters had asked their coach when he’d turn them off.

“When we win,” he had said.

So, I asked tonight, when will he put up the 54 and 24?

“Was that the score?” Becker said, and he smiled, and he said, “Maybe I’ll go in there tonight.”