Happily, during the jayvee game, I got a text message that kept me occupied for much of the second half, or, having been witness to the first half, I might have sworn off basketball for a century or so. The Peorians’ defense was of the hack-and-claw variety. Their offense was throw the rock in the air and hope. "Goodgawdamighty,” Adolph Rupp, the great Kentucky coach born in the 19th century, said to me in a text. (I wish.) I am forbidden by a sense of decency to speak of the purblind referees.

So, before the varsity game, I scribbled a note on the Morton side of my notebook: “Better leave nothing to chance.”

And yet, having allowed Manual a 9-0 run early in the third quarter, the Potters found themselves behind, 29-27, in Manual’s gym, in front of a few hundred raucous Manual fans. Not only that, Morton seemed to have no answer for any of Manual’s frenzied imitations of basketball at either end of the court.

Oh, forgive me, please, but I hate it when I go to a basketball game and rugby breaks out. (Count 'em: 37 turnovers, 36 fouls.) Small wonder, after the game, that Morton’s very good sophomore, Paige Selke, was puzzled by my question. She had 24 points, scoring from everywhere this side of the popcorn stand. So we talked. Better to say, I made a word salad of a question.

“You all played so smoothly the other night, then tonight, y’know, (me, mumbling) it was like hack, hack, hack, chop, stop-go, stop-go, everybody getting shoved around, not even, really, basketball. What was it like for you out there?”

Reporters, young and ancient, are happy to have athletes provide intelligent answers to dumb questions. Paige Selke, bless her, said, “In games like this, with a lot of people getting hammered physically, you have to be there for each other, pick up each other, and just keep pushing.”

Keep pushing, they did. The Potters came from behind four times in the last quarter and a half to win this one. They did it the last two times with Selke scoring five of her 10 fourth-quarter points. Down 41-40 with 5:35 to play. Selke put up a high-arcing 3-pointer that became a nothing-but-net beauty. It pushed the Potters ahead, 43-41 at 4:47. Two minutes later, her layup gave Morton the lead for good, 46-44.

They were there for each other, as Selke said, and at no time was help more meaningful than with 1:18 to play. The Potters’ Julia Laufenberg, in the game to play defense, played it so well that she stuffed a Peorian’s layup try to preserve a 46-45 lead.

Then, at the other end a half-minute later, Laufenberg broke open in the lane and took a pass from Payton Hays for a layup and a 48-45 lead with 43 seconds to play.

“Everything didn’t go well for us tonight,” she said, “but to be able to overcome it . . .”

She didn’t finish that sentence, but its meaning was made clear by coach Bob Becker’s remarks later.

“As much as we want winning to be easy, winning is hard,” he said. “We had a highlight reel the other night (a running-clock victory over Lincoln), and this one was ugly for the most part. . . .The big thing out of this game was just toughness, mental and physical toughness. Holy cow, Julia Laufenberg, diving for balls, she was playing gritty, tough, championship-level basketball. She was competing.” The coach put an italics spin on that last word, as if it were a word to live by, which for his teams it is.

Here's competing: in the fourth quarter, the Potters were 6 for 7 on field goals, 4 for 5 on free throws -- two misses in eight hectic, decisive minutes. The losers were 4-11, 6-10 = 11 misses.

Morton, now 5-1 for the season, plays Metamora on Friday night at Illinois Wesleyan’s Shirk Center, the opener of an event in which both the Morton girls’ and boys’ teams play on the same court the same night.

Morton scoring tonight: Selke 24 (and 9 rebounds), Ellie VanMeenen 9, Abby VanMeenen 7, Laufenberg 7, Katie Brock 2, Penelope Drake 2.