Morton’s Lady Potters 64, Chicago Simeon 54

How in the world? Did you see that thing? I saw it and I won’t soon forget it. There they were, nine points behind and going the wrong direction. Those big, tough Chicago people were JUST ALL OVER the poor little girls from the pumpkin patches. When what happens? Those poor little girls picked up a John Deere tractor and whacked the Chicago people upside their heads. Or something. You tell me.

I mean, they were nine points down halfway through the third quarter. Nine points is a bunch. Nine points behind a Chicago Simeon team that was big, quick, aggressive, and deep enough that it sent in fresh players five at a time. Only five points up at halftime, Simeon moved up 39-30 in the first three minutes of the third quarter – a time that Morton’s coach, Bob Becker, always cites as critical to establishing just who’s in charge here.

So, uh-oh. Trouble in a quarterfinal game for the third-seeded Potters defending their 2017 State Farm Holiday Classic championship. Trouble against a sixth-seeded team about to run the champs out of the gym. When what happens? Bob Becker calls a timeout.

I made notes of earlier timeouts. One word appeared in two of those early-game notes. The word was “irate.” Becker wore a red shirt. His face was redder. He didn’t like it that Simeon’s rebounders got every rebound at both ends. Coaches really get disturbed by that. It was as if Simeon got three shots every time down. That, coaches really dislike. Loose balls in the paint, Simeon got ‘em. Irate, on the way to volcanic. “Right now,” Becker once shouted to his players and bouncing off ears 10 rows up in the bleachers, “we’re SOFT.” Coaches hate soft.

So, nine points down, Becker calls a timeout with 4:50 left in the third. This time no shouting, a timeout only to remind his team that the roof is falling in. And what happens? Maybe you blinked and missed it. If you stopped to take a breath, you missed it. That bigger, tougher team I mentioned? It turned out to be the Potters. Here’s what happened . . .

They went on a 24-4 run in the next 8 minutes and 3 seconds.

I will wait while you read that again.

Down nine points to a good team beating them severely, the Potters went on a 24-4 run.

Suddenly, they led, 54-43, with just over 5 minutes to play.

Here’s Morton’s scoring in that amazing run: Katie Krupa a layup, Maddy Becker a 3, Tenley Dowell a 3, Dowell two free throws, Courtney Jones a layup (more on that one in a minute), Lindsey Dullard in close, Becker another 3, Becker a put-back rebound (as to when the 5-foot-4 guard last scored on an offensive rebound, she said, “Uh, never?”), Becker yet another 3 (she had 11 points in the run), and Dullard a fast-break layup off a court-length left-handed pass from Dowell over Simeon’s press.

Simeon made one more strong move. It scored the next seven points. Morton’s lead was 54-51 with 3:54 left. When what happens? The best thing all night happened.

Maddy Becker happened. Not that she hadn’t been happening. She made two 3-pointers in the game’s first minute and a half. In the game’s fourth-quarter crunch time, she wanted the ball. “I was feeling it,” she said, “and for some reason I was always open. I wanted to shoot, and . . .” Here, a smile from the coach’s daughter. “I knew I’d get yelled at it if I didn’t shoot.” Best of all, Becker really happened when the Potters needed a champion’s thing to happen. The littlest Potter came up huge. At 3:42, from deep in the left corner, she made her seventh 3-pointer of the night to stop Simeon’s rally.

I will wait again while you read that last sentence. It was not Becker’s third 3 of the game or her fourth or her fifth 3 or even her sixth. It was her seventh. It spoke even more loudly than her father had spoken. It shouted, “Hey, Chicago people, we’re here and we’re not going away. Bring it on.”

Simeon caved. The Becker 3 began a 10-3 run that ended only at the buzzer.

Back to that 24-4 run for a second. Every bucket mattered. But one gave Morton the lead for the first time since the first quarter. It came when Courtney Jones heard someone call for “fist,” the Potters’ code word for a trap on the ball-handler. In the last seconds of the third quarter, Dowell forced Simeon’s star, Jada Thorpe, to back up near the midcourt line. She turned her left and here came Jones from Thorpe’s blindside. Jones simply took the ball off the dribble – just reached in with both hands and took it — and sprinted down-court, the only question being if she could score before time expired.

“I saw there were 7.6 seconds left,” Jones said later.

No problem. Her layup at :04 gave Morton the lead, 42-41, and it never trailed again.

Becker led Morton’s scoring with 23. Dowell had 17, Dullard 9, Krupa 7, Jones 5, and Raquel Frakes 3.

Last season and this, as his team has won 45 of 48 games, Bob Becker’s one niggling concern has been about “grit.” Did this team have the competitive will of some previous Potters’ teams? If the victory over Simeon is not a definitive answer to that question, it will do for the moment. Now on a ten-game winning streak and 14-1 for the season, the Potters play a semifinal game tonight against second-seeded Union (Ky.) Ryle.

Oh, one more thing. Becker didn’t think he had been irate in those early-game timeouts during which the word “soft” was spoken loudly. With a smile: “I’d say I was ‘firm.’ I told them I didn’t have time to coddle them. Let’s say I ‘challenged’ them. It was now or never.”