When the coach shows up in a suit and tie, as Bob Becker always does, and when he decorates the look with red and white sneakers – RED and WHITE kicks shouting, “LET’S DANCE! – well, sooner or later, the guy’s gotta dance, doesn’t he?

“Casual,” Bob Becker said of his wardrobe on this season-opening night at Peoria High.

He says he’s done with dress shoes and done with his old-time thunderous stompings of hard leather on hardwood.

So, with about three minutes to play, I made a note.

“B’s dancin’!”

The coach was 10 feet out on the court, suit coat tail flying, those shoes a candy-stripe blur, everything going every which way in a defensive-crouch flash dance as the Pottters refused to let Peoria High run away.

Peoria had led most all night. Defensively, they were astonishing. It was bad enough for the Potters that the Peorians were quick, strong, aggressive, relentless, and every ball-handler’s pick-pocket’ing nightmares. Worse, they also had the all-everything guard, Aayliah Guyton, an Iowa commit who’s already using NIL money to buy her school lunch. She had 21 points when Peoria led, 47-36, with those three minutes left.

Then came the Potters.

At 2:20, a freshman forward, Paige Selke, scored inside with her left hand. At 1:59, a senior guard, Izzy Hutchinson, worked through traffic for a layup. At 47-40, Peoria, puzzled by the Potters’ scrambling defense, needed a timeout.

During that timeout, Becker told his team, “We’ve got four fouls to give,” meaning there’d be no let-up on defense, they’d trap the ball-handler out front, they’d go for steals, they’d play Peoria's kind of gambling, risk-reward defense. Three times this night, Peoria built a double-digit lead, and each time the Potters cut those leads to a single-digit.

But, finally, they ran out of time. In the last minute, the Potters scored four times, but Peoria answered three of those buckets.

Losing is never to be celebrated, of course, but when you’re coming off a 19-11 season without your top scorer from the season past – that's the Potters’ situation – and you’re playing a team that went 29-4 and can beat most people by just letting its NIL superstar do whatever she chooses –well, losing by five on that 29-4 team’s homecourt is a promise of good things coming. Listen to Bob Becker:

“I’m not one to declare ‘moral victories,’ but now we KNOW we can compete with THAT team. And we’re going to get better and better.”

Addy Engel led Morton’s scoring with 17. Izzy Hutchinson had 12, Paige Selke 6, Abby VanMeenen 5, Ellie VanMeenen 4, Katie Brock 2, and Anja Ruxlow 2.