Suddenly, delightfully, even surprisingly, these Potters now have won eight straight games, have won 19 of their last 21, have won the Mid-Illini Conference championship, will go into state tournament play as a #2 seed, and here I ask anybody and everybody my favorite boy-reporter question, like, Hey, everybody and anybody, didja imagine this happenin’?

“We knew we had it in us,” Izzy Hutchinson said.

“We had this game circled,” Addy Engel said, athlete talk for taking aim at one you must win.

“So fun,” Ellie VanMeenen said.

“We knew what we had to do,” Abby VanMeenen said, “and we did it.”

A month ago, they lost at Washington, 45-34, a defeat that the Potters remembered as a terrible, horrible, and ugly excuse for basketball.. Also, they said, it marked a turning point in their season. “After that,” Hutchinson said, “we became the team we are now.”

Some good basketball teams are silky smooth. They move through you and around you without you much noticing they are slicing you up. The Potters are silky and smooth, sometimes. Most times, to quote their coach, Bob Becker, they are “gritty and tough.”

The good thing is, Gritty and Tough show up every night. “Defense and rebounding,” Becker said, “wins games,” especially, as he did not say, when silky and smooth stay home pampering themselves. The Potters made only two 3-point shots tonight. (Washington, 6). By attacking on offense, Morton drew enough fouls to go 17 of 27 at the line. (Washington 7 of 11).

Gritty and Tough, sisters in pain, showed up best in the game's last 36.2 seconds. The Potters were up seven. They had the ball. The game should have been over. Instead, those 36.2 seconds became a test of Gritty and Tough's favorite cousin, Resolve.

Thirty-six.point.two seconds was time enough to undo all the good done in a 19-6 rally that brought the Potters from six points down in the third quarter to those seven points up.

Of course, that GT&R rally began on defense. It began when Ellie V, on the left side, blocked a 3-point attempt by Washington’s best shooter, Avery Tibbs.

A minute later, Ellie made a free throw. Then Abby V made two, Engel scored on a layup, and Ellie worked through defenders in the paint for a layup-and-one. Now the Potters trailed after three, 34-33.

As good as all that was, they did better in the first 7 minutes and 23.8 seconds of the fourth quarter. An 11-3 run – Engel had 4 points in there, Ellie V 3, Paige Selke 3, Hutchinson 1 – gave the Potters a 44-37 lead.

Thirty-six.point.two seconds to play.

You know how time flies when you’re having fun.

It moves slowly when you’re missing five of six free throws in a half-minute.

The Potters lead fell to three with 17.1 seconds to play.

Here, if Washington springs Tibbs for a 3-pointer, this game could go into overtime.

Then, at 15.8 seconds, Ellie VanMeenen was fouled on an in-bounds pass.

VanMeenen missed her first. Uh-oh.

Her second was no more beautiful in flight. It caught the back edge of the front rim, flew to the support, ricocheted forward to dance against both sides of the iron, rattling around in there long enough that it was the only sound in the Potterdome.

Then it fell into the net, at last a beautiful thing that put the Potters out of 3-point danger.

With a foul to give, Morton did not allow Washington even a desperation shot.

I love numbers. These support Becker’s belief that rebounding and defense win games. Rebounding, Morton 24-14; deflections/steals/blocked shots, Morton 19-12; assists Morton 10-3; turnovers, Morton 12-13.

Now 23-5 for the season, the Potters won the Mid-Illini with a 13-1 record. Washington, with a game to play, is 20-6, 11-2.

Ellie VanMeenen led Morton’s scoring with 12. Selke and Engel had 11 each. Abby V 6, Hutchinson 5.