Morton’s Lady Potters 74, Bloomington 38

About 3 o’clock this afternoon, Courtney Jones made five straight 3-point shots from the deep right corner. The Lady Potters were doing a shoot-around before getting on the team bus to Bloomington. I’d say they were meaningless shots, except they meant everything to Jones. On the fifth 3-pointer, she told her shooting partner, Kathryn Reiman, “I’m going to have a day.”

About 10 minutes after 7 tonight, Jones began having that day. From a foot outside the arc on the left side, she made a 3-pointer. By game’s end, the 5-foot-8 junior had made two more 3’s and racked up 19 points, a career high. I need to tell you about the second of her 3’s because what she did that time down the floor was typical of what she did all night every time down.

First she missed a wide-open layup at the low left block.

“Oh, my gosh,” is what she thought, “I gotta get the rebound.”

I know what she thought because Courtney Jones can talk you some talk and when a reporter asks her a question he better be ready to take some seriously fast notes because Courtney Jones – well, the great old basketball player, Curley Boo Johnson, one day told me, “That Courtney Jones, she’s going to be a lawyer,” by which Curley Boo meant that Courtney Jones can talk the leg off a table.

“And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maddy,” Jones said, meaning she grabbed the rebound of her own missed shot and got a pass out to the top of the key where Maddy Becker put up a 3-point shot that missed, and the long rebound went flying toward the right sideline where . . .

“I see the girl is not going to go all-out for it,” Jones said, meaning a Bloomington High player thought she might lollygag over there and catch the missed shot on the first bounce, which she might have done if she’d been playing against a team of lollygaggers. Instead, here came Jones from the low left block sprinting at a 30-degree angle all the way to the right sideline, leaving that Bloomington lollygagger wondering what that zooming sound was she just heard, that sound being Courtney Jones zooming past her to grab her second rebound of the trip downcourt, after which she . . .

“Passed it to somebody,” Jones said, for by then she cared only about getting it to somebody in a Morton red uniform, and that person did the smart Lady Potters thing of giving the ball back to Courtney Jones, the hot hand, and from the top of the key, 20 feet away from where she’d missed the wide-open layup five seconds earlier, Jones made her second 3 of the night.

“Courtney Jones had a great night,” the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, said.

Oh, wait. I forgot one thing.

The smile.

In the nano-second following her missed layup and pass out to Becker, Courtney Jones allowed herself a shy little smile saying the same thing that she thought, which we know was, “Oh, my gosh.”

This is a smiling team. And why not? They’re 19-2, they’re winning games by 30 a night, and their coach thinks they can win a state championship. So what if Bloomington trailed at the quarter only 19-15? It’s only a matter of time. The Potters do so many things so well and do them relentlessly at both ends for all 32 minutes that every opponent is turned into a weary bunch of gasping lollygaggers. At halftime, Morton led, 38-26. After three quarters it was 60-35 and the Bloomington public address announcer said, “Morton wins . . . ” before realizing there was another quarter of pain to go.

Speaking of smiles, here’s Katie Krupa. She’s a freshman, a 6-foot post player. With the other starters, she was on the bench early in the fourth quarter. Then Bob Becker called for her as part of a five-player wave of subs.

He said to her, “You’re 4,” meaning she wouldn’t be in the post, she’d be outside somewhere, and here, verbatim, with a smile suggested, is what Katie Krupa said then, “YES!”

And what does she do from outside?

Of course.

She puts up a 3-point shot.

Her first of the season.

It’s nothing but net.

Of course.

Next time down, the ball in Krupa’s hands out there again, she looks at the rim, raises on her toes ever so slightly, and . . .

“I had to look for somebody to pass it to,” she said. “I didn’t want to look selfish or something.”

And after the pass, she allowed herself a little we’re-just-girls-having-fun smile.

Morton made three big runs to win this one: 11-0, 12-0, and 13-0. That’s 36-0 in 10 minutes and 29 seconds.

Jones led Morton’s scoring with 19. Lindsey Dullard had 17 (also with three 3’s). Tenley Dowell had 13, Krupa 7, Bridget Wood 5, Raquel Frakes 5, Megan Gold 4, Becker 2, and Olivia Remmert 2.

By the way, the Potters had 10 3’s tonight. Alas, because they were on the road, far away from Culver’s, it was not a FREE CUSTARD! night.