Author: Dave Kindred

Union Ryle 62, Morton’s Lady Potters 51

Let me vent first. I propose a new IHSA rule. Any fan who believes he is a coach and shouts instructions from the bleachers can be removed from the gym. I propose this rule because tonight I sat five feet in front of a fan who never shut up, as in not ever, not once, not for a minute. His voice was its own thunderstorm. His primary genius advice to the Union players was “BOX OUT!!!” It was delivered at jet-engine decibels with three exclamation points.

He also specialized in “SHOOTER!” And “CORNERS!” And “TWO SHOTS! SHE WAS SHOOTING!!,” at which point I turned to the fan/coach/referee across the aisle and said, “She was thinking of shooting, but she wasn’t shooting, and thinking doesn’t get you two shots,” but by then the fan/coach/referee was back to roaring, “BOX OUT!!!”

How an Union fan/coach/referee wound up sitting in the Morton section is a mystery that I made no attempt to solve. And I hurry to apologize for being grumpy. I long ago decided I should never criticize sports fans. They made my job possible. Sportswriting got me cars and houses and all the golf balls I could hit into all the world’s oceans. But now? Now I’m paid in Milk Duds. Milk Duds just get me fat. I am free to say these fan/coach/referee people are obnoxious to the max. They should be voted off the island and invited back only as prey for venomous creatures.

I suppose my grumpiness rose in direct correlation to the Potters’ problems on the court tonight. Morton led by as many as eight points. It led, 36-30, two minutes into the second half. But even then there were signs of trouble ahead. I made a note that said, “Unwilling to shoot.”

It was strange. Even up by six points and, you’d think, high on a 10-game winning streak that included a thrilling comeback victory the night before, none of the Potters wanted to shoot on this night. Against the Union zone defense, they did little but pass the ball around the edges until, as these pass-pass-pass things inevitably go, someone coughed up a turnover with a careless pass or a fumbling catch.

The Union defense was standard-issue OK, quick and smart and long. It certainly wasn’t aggressive the way Chicago Simeon’s had been or the way Richwoods’ zone will attack Morton’ shooters in today’s third-place game at the State Farm Holiday Classic. The Union defense was just there. Morton’s problem was, its offense wasn’t there. It disappeared. From 36-30 ahead, Morton was beaten, 32-15, in the game’s last 14 minutes.

“Confidence is such a fragile thing,” the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, said afterwards. “If you’re going good, it can be contagious.” (One could remember such a good night. It happened yesterday against Simeon.) “But if you’re not, it can be contagious that way, too.” (One hopes a good night’s sleep will rid the Potters of whatever loss-of-confidence bug moved through the team tonight.)

Truth is, the Potters played superbly for about a minute tonight. From 5:07 of the first quarter to 3:56, they went on a 12-0 run for a 14-7 lead. At that point, it seemed to be Morton’s kind of game – a real basketball game played by real basketball players, done smoothly and elegantly in contrast to the Morton-Simeon mud-rasslin’ match the night before. The run began with three straight 3-pointers – by Courtney Jones, Tenley Dowell, and Lindsey Dullard. It ended with Dowell’s and-one on a slash to the basket.

So that’s good. The Potters had scored 12 points in one minute and 11 seconds. But there’s really bad in that: in the game’s other 30 minutes and 49 seconds, Union won, 62-39. Yikes.

Union gained a 36-all tie at 3:26 of the third quarter. It took the lead for good at 42-40 in the quarter’s last minute and went up by eight at 48-40 in the fourth. Dullard’s 3-pointer with four minutes left cut the lead to 50-46. But the Potters’ offense again went missing. They scored only twice more as Union consistently outran them from end to end, scoring on breakaway layups and free throws.

Union is now 14-1 for the season. Morton is 14-2.

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 16. Dullard had 15, Katie Krupa 11, Peyton Dearing 5, Jones 4.

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.”

Morton’s Lady Potters 50, Team with really long name 27

The Potters were not particularly sharp tonight in their victory over Wheaton Warrenville South to open defense of their State Farm Holiday Classic championship – and I know the feeling. For reasons that made sense at the time, I got out of bed at 2:15 a.m. Saturday. That’s 2:15 a.m., as in are-you-out-of-your-mind with this 2:15 a.m. thing? Exacerbating the crazy, I then drove to Walmart 18 mile away. (I am near no living thing except deer, raccoons, and a lone, feral cat prowling for mice.) A sane person’s question: Why did you go to Walmart at 2:15 a.m. on Saturday morning December 22? My answer: I was awake and I needed Christmas lights.

Turns out that 3 a.m. on a Saturday is good time to shop at Walmart. Most Walmartians are asleep in their alien-planet pods. I had clear sailing in the Christmas lights section. Of course, the Sam Walton Law of Merchandising makes it illegal to enter a Walmart and escape with only the stuff on your list. Done with a garland or two, done with lights for uses I’d never before imagined, done with the cash-register impulse buy – Snickers! – I was home and in bed at zero-dark-thirty. I believe that’s the same time our Special Ops people rang Osama Bin Laden’s wake-up bell. Among civilians it’s known as are-you-out-of-your-mind with this 4 in the morning thing?

Point is, I was not particularly sharp the rest of that Saturday. Seventeen hours later, I had to write about a Lady Potters game. By then I was spectacularly dull. A constellation of historic Potters stars made the Potterdome glitter that night with story possibilities. I should have asked what they thought of this year’s team. But did I hustle to get Brandi Bisping on record? Did I chase down Chandler Ryan? With Jadison Wharram and Kassidy Shurman in the house – my go-to quote machines back in the day!! – did I do any more than type their names into my story?

No, and here’s why. In 21 hours, I had slept three. Last Saturday night, I was the zombie sportswriter. I’ve been hooked up to typing machines a long time and I can make it sound like I worked my tail off. But I knew better. I’d mailed it in. The only thing to do in that case is the same thing the Lady Potters now will do – forget what just happened and tee it up again as soon as possible.

It’s not like a 23-point victory is a bad thing. It’s a good thing. A win is a win is a win. It was the Potters’ ninth straight, all by double figures, none closer than 17 points. It raised their season record to 13-1 going into Thursday night’s 8:30 p.m. quarterfinal game against Chicago Simeon at Normal Community High School. And yet, for all that, the Potters were truly good – championship-good – for less than seven minutes of the game.

Because he has been at this for 20 seasons now, the Morton coach, Bob Becker, believes he knows exactly what happened to cause instances where, at least twice, Potters made passes to people who weren’t there. At least three times, they missed point-blank layups. Who knows how many times they passed up wide-open mid-range shots? Good heavens, they outscored the Wheaton Warrenville people, 21-1, in 6 minutes and 40 seconds of the first half – which is spectacular until you realize it means that in the other 25 minutes and 20 seconds against that same team, they won only 29-26.

Becker blames the not-particularly-sharp night on “three days off.” He gave the team three days with no practice around Christmas. ‘Twas an educator’s gift to his students. They’re high school kids. It’s time with their families. They won’t always be teenagers, they’ll be gone. Give ‘em time around Christmas. The educator in the coach knows it was the right thing to do, but the coach in the educator gets antsy with three days off. He wants his team razor-sharp all the time, not some of the time. Three days off? It’s an eternity, and Becker himself felt its effects.

“I must’ve gained five pounds over Christmas,” he said. He wears one of those devil’s-workshop watches that counts your steps. He says his usual day, as an elementary school phys ed teacher and high school basketball coach, comes to 25,000 steps. “This week,” he said, with a smile born of pleasure and seasoned by regret, “about the only steps I took were from the couch to the food counter.”

To further his analysis of the three-days-off syndrome, Becker said, “They know this tournament is tough, and they know they’ve got to run the gauntlet of good teams to win it. And what happens after the time off and a game like this is that they’ll come back the next night and play well.”

I mentioned a 21-1 run that was essentially the ball game. It began with a Megan Gold fast-break layup at 2:44 of the first quarter and ended with a Courtney Jones move inside at 4:04 of the second. It was done with aggressive defense that forced the Wheaton Warrenville offense to set up two steps behind the 3-point arc. (The WW’s made only 2 of 21 shots in the first half.) Morton’s offense was its usual blend of transition layups off its trapping press, Tenley Dowell and Lindsey Dullard slashes to the rim, and the occasional 3-pointer (four tonight) loosening up the defense inside.

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 13. Jones had 10 (including a catch-and-release 3 at the third-quarter buzzer), Katie Krupa 7, Dullard and Peyton Dearing 5 each, Gold 4, Maddy Becker 3, Olivia Remmert 2, and Addie Cox 1.

It is now 9:38 p.m. If you see me at Walmart at 3 a.m., please call my keeper. I have a game to write tomorrow.

Morton’s Lady Potters 71, St. Joseph-Ogden 34.

So now the Potters are 12-1, winners of eight straight, one by 50 points, one by 37, two by 30, two by 29, one by 18, the other by 17. (Notice a trend?) They’re playing so well that Bob Becker said, “They’ve got a chance.” Then he said it again, “They’ve got a chance.” And what he meant by that – that this team has a chance to win a state championship – wasn’t as important as where he said it and to whom he said it.

He said it in the locker room. He said it to his 14 players. And he said it in front of Brandi Bisping, Chandler Ryan, Jadison Wharram, Caylie Jones, Kassidy Shurman, and Josi Becker. Those old Potters, all now in college, were home for Christmas, meaning they could sneak away from the family for a couple hours in the Potterdome this afternoon.

Public address announcer Brian Newman spotted them in the bleachers and asked, “All Potter alumni, please stand.” He might as well have said, “Potter state championship history, please stand,” for those young women played for Potters’ teams that won the school’s first state basketball championship ever, in 2015, and won the championship the next two seasons as well.

So Becker’s choice of setting and audience is worth our attention because it’s high praise to say this year’s team has “got a chance” for a state championship when the locker room is full of Potters who have been there, done that, and know what it takes.

Those old Potters certainly saw enough in today’s Potters to agree with Becker. St. Joseph-Ogden is accustomed to winning. It came in with a 12-1 record (albeit in Class 2A). Yet Morton dominated every possession at both ends when it mattered. After three quarters, the Potters led, 65-34. Once again it set off the fourth quarter’s merciful running clock (the sixth time in their last seven games).

When I say “dominated every possession,” I mean the Potters caused discomfort, discombobulation, and (probably) dyspepsia. In seeming defiance of physical laws, their defenders were everywhere all at once. The worst thing that could happen for a St. Joseph-Ogden ball-handler was to have the ball in her hands. That poor girl would find herself surrounded by a swarm of previously invisible Potters. Two things happen then: 1) the poor girl makes a poor pass (Chandler Ryan, in the third row, might have caught one such pass, except her dad, Bo, intercepted it) or 2) the poor girl would have made a poor pass except she no longer had the ball because one of the Potters, all of whom work with a pickpocket’s heartless guile, had taken the ball and run off with it.

As for offense, here’s a note I made after the third bucket the Potters made in 26 seconds of the third quarter: “I DIDN’T SEE IT.” Tenley Dowell had put back a rebound at 5:57. At 5:41, Dowell dropped in a layup off an in-bounds steal. At 5:31, a Peyton Dearing steal and layup. (A neighbor reported the event that I didn’t see, Dearing being one of those invisible pickpockets.)

For the magical fun of it, here’s another moment on third-quarter offense: Dearing misses a layup, Courtney Jones bats the rebound to the top of the key where Dowell catches it and throws it to back to Dearing on the left side who gets it into Jones in the paint who flips it to Dowell slashing down the right side. All done faster than I can type it.

The only worrisome news of the day was the ankle sprain suffered by freshman Katie Krupa. Because she had missed practice yesterday, she didn’t start the game. (A long-time Becker rule.) In her first two minutes of play today, she tweaked the ankle. She stayed on the bench the rest of the way with ice on the ankle.

Dowell again led the Potters with 18 points, 16 of them in the middle two quarters. Lindsey Dullard had 14, Bridget Wood 10, Jones 9, Raquel Frakes 7, Dearing 7, Maddy Becker 4, and Megan Gold 2. (The Culver’s Report: Six 3’s. Again no FREE CUSTARD!)

The Potters now have three days off before beginning defense of their 2017 championships in the State Farm Holiday Classic in Bloomington-Normal. There they are seeded third, meaning they will be tested thoroughly.

Morton’s Lady Potters 51, Limestone 22.

At halftime, when Morton led, 40-11, a friend sent a text: “Are you bored?” My reply: “So far the most exciting thing I’ve seen is that Bob Becker’s tie talks – or plays Christmas music – he just held it up to a player’s ear – full investigative report to come.”

What happened is that the Potters’ coach went into his closet this afternoon to choose a tie for tonight’s game in the Potterdome. It’s winter. It’s practically Christmas. He saw a red tie with a snowflake pattern. “It was just hanging there,” he said. “I don’t know how long I’ve had it. There’s stuff in there that’s been there a long, long time.”

If I were to put an age on Becker’s tie, I’d say it’s something the young Santa Claus might have rejected as too old to wear to his senior prom. It’s kinda dullish and kinda wrinkly. It’s for sure older than any of Becker’s players and perhaps two of his assistant coaches. It’s the kind of tie sportswriters wear because its look will be improved by mustard stains.

The coach’s wife, Evelyn, cited her man’s history of wardrobe malfunctions: 1) the Inside-Out Sport Coat that he couldn’t get fully off in protest of a zebra’s utter blindness, and 2) the Two Pair of Cheap Pants ripped in the backside area by vigorous sideline maneuvers. She mentioned those cases by way of disclaiming any responsibility for The Tie That Maybe Sings Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Evelyn Becker said, “I don’t know anything about it.”

Four minutes into the game, with Morton up 7-0, one of Becker’s assistant coaches, Megan Hasler, was seen laughing on the bench. She said something to the boss about hearing music. Was his tie making music? To which the coach said what any grown man would say when told his tie was a jukebox. He said, “Huh????,” only he said with maybe five question marks because he had heard nothing.

Becker then turned from the action and held the end of the tie up to the ear of the nearest player on the bench, the junior guard Peyton Dearing. She was seen smiling and afterwards she reported, “Music, like, Christmas carols.”

Apparently, as Becker paced in front of the bench, he had brushed the tie flat against his shirt and in the doing had pressed a music button sewn into the tip of the tie. Soon enough, through various experiments, the coach learned that each time he pressed the button, the tie played a different Christmas carol. He held it against my ear and I believe I heard it say, “Be cool, Bob. It’s only Limestone.”

A 15-0 run at the start of the second quarter put Morton up, 32-6. The run began with back-to-back 3’s by Tenley Dowell and Maddy Becker that suggested it might be another Culver’s FREE CUSTARD! night. Alas, no freebies this time, for those were the Potters’ only 3’s. (With no official shot chart, I’m guessing Morton went 2-for-23 on 3’s.) In that run, Dowell and Becker scored all 15. (After Katie Krupa scored the game’s first seven, Dowell with 16 and Becker with 11 scored the next 27.)

Playing less than half the game, Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 18. Becker had 11, Krupa her 7, and Dearing 4. Five Potters scored 2: Lindsey Dullard, Courtney Jones, Raquel Frakes, Megan Gold, and Kathryn Reiman. Bridget Wood had 1.

The Potters are now 11-1 for the season and 5-0 in the Mid-Illini Conference where they have won their last 38 league games. Limestone is 1-4 in the conference and 4-8 overall.

Morton’s Lady Potters 68, Second-best team in league 39

The Lady Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, wrote two notes on the whiteboard he took to the bench before tonight’s game.

The first:

HARDER LONGER TOGETHER

The other:

RELENTLESS

A minute into the game, I made my own note. Like those doctors who aren’t doctors but play doctors on television, I am an expert who isn’t an expert but I play an expert on this blog. Here’s my note, scribbled in the second minute when Metamora led, 3-0.

“Morton leaner, quicker, will impose its will.”

One minute later, Morton led, 7-5. After that, the Potters never trailed. What it did was rip Metamora’s heart out and stomp that sucker flat. (Somebody write some music, we got some country lyrics going here.)

This was supposed to be a Big Game. Both teams had 9-1 season records and both were undefeated in three Mid-Illini Conference games. The problem with that is that Morton’s too good for the M-I these days. The victory was the Potters’ 37th straight in conference play. They last lost in the conference on January 22, 2016. (I refuse to say who beat them.)

Early in the second quarter, when it was still kind of a game, Morton’s lead was 21-18. But leaner and quicker is a good thing, and it’s a really good thing when combined with better athletic talent and greater basketball skills. Less than six minutes later, the Potters completed a 16-5 run that gave them a 37-23 lead at halftime.

That run began auspiciously when Lindsey Dullard made a 3-pointer from a full step behind the left-side arc. At the same time, Morton’s defense had rendered Metamora’s offense ineffectual. As they’ve done consistently of late, the Potters’ defenders seem to be everywhere all at once, jumping dribblers, jumping into passing lanes, jumping anyone so unfortunate as to have the basketball in her hands. I believe the adjective best applied to such persistent, aggressive, attacking defense is RELENTLESS.

Following Dullard’s long 3, Raquel Frakes’ drive to the rim brought her two free throws. Tenley Dowell added a free throw, again the result of a slash into the paint. Katie Krupa’s put-back of a missed free throw made it 29-18. And here came Dullard again. Barely had the ball touched her hands at 2:50 of the quarter before she re-directed the pass into a 3-pointer from the left side. A minute later, on the right side, she did another catch-and-shoot for her third 3. Courtney Jones capped the run with two free throws.

As for Dullard’s daggers, the 6-foot-1 junior said, “My confidence was pretty high. As soon as I make one, I feel good.”

Here a shooter’s smile.

“And I keep shooting.”

Whatever hope Metamora had of a second-half comeback ended a minute into the third quarter. That’s when something happened that caused me to make another of my expert notes. I even circled the note to remind myself of that moment. The note was all full of expertise. It went, “HOW???” Yes, your blogging expert had no idea, none at all, about what he had just seen – or not seen, or couldn’t explain if he had seen it. I mean, HOW did Katie Krupa do that thing she did?

The 6-foot freshman, Morton’s best post player in a longgggggg time, had made a layup of sorts from the right low block – only it was more of a soft, right-handed, 4-foot hook shot, or something (??) that I am yet not able to describe, it happened so quickly and with such apparent ease, as if the 15-year-old had been doing such stuff for a longgggggg time.

Anyway, that Krupa bucket was the start of an 11-4 run that sent Morton to a 48-27 lead. And it wasn’t even the most memorable Krupa move. That one came two minutes later – and your blogging expert did in fact see that one and he can describe it and even give you some history on it. (Earning my Milk Duds here.)

With the ball on the low left block, Krupa saw she could move across the paint. She did. Then she put up a reverse layup – only she did it with her back to the rim and used her left hand to spin it in from the right low block. Yes, her left hand this time. Envision that. Going away from the rim, her back to the rim, twisting in the air, using her left hand to toss the ball behind her and off the board. (If all that sound expert-y, trust me. I have no real idea what I saw. For that matter, neither does Bob Becker, who in wonderment matching mine said, “I didn’t teach her THAT.”)

Steve Krupa did teach her that. He’s Krupa’s father. “My dad has been my coach forever,” Krupa said. “I was in the fifth grade when I saw a girl do that reverse layup. I thought, ‘Cool,’ and I asked my dad, ‘Can I learn to do that?’” The answer was beautifully seen tonight.

Anyway, with Dullard from outside, Krupa inside, Dowell everywhere, and defenders doing their RELENTLESS best to scare the bejabbers out of every Metamora ball-handler, Becker needed only three words in his post-game summary: “That was fun.”

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 17, Dullard had 16, Frakes 10, Krupa 9, Maddy Becker 7, Jones 5, Megan Gold 2, and Addie Cox 2.

Morton’s Lady Potters 65, Washington High 48.

For a minute and a half tonight, the Potters were perfect. Ninety seconds on the game clock. Doesn’t seem like much. I’m here to tell you it’s 87.6 seconds more than most basketball teams ever get. In those perfect 90 seconds, the Potters caused me to make two notes: “Killing ‘em” and “Like 7 guys.”

In those 90 perfect seconds of the third quarter, the Potters’ killing-‘em offense was so good it scored every which way on a 12-0 run that produced a 49-20 lead over a decent team (7-2 coming in). In those 90 perfect seconds, the Potters’ like-7-guys defense was so good that Washington must have felt like just handing the ball to the nearest Potter rather than be embarrassed by having it stolen yet again.

Actually, that last thing – handing the ball over – kinda happened. In the second quarter, a Washington player had the ball out of bounds at midcourt. She could find no one open. She had the clever thought of bouncing it off a Morton defender. Only instead of doing the clever thing of bouncing it off Tenley Dowell’s knee, she chucked it at Dowell’s mid-section. Dowell caught it. Just caught it. Here’s what Dowell thought at that moment, “OK, easy layup.”

Sometimes, in practice, coaches will run six or seven defenders against the offense. The idea is to make life miserable for ball-handlers. That’s what the Potters did to Washington tonight, only they simulated the seven-defender defense with only five players. But those five were everywhere, stopping dribblers, cutting off passing lanes, deflecting passes, knocking the ball out of everyone’s hands, generally picking their pockets in broad daylight. Life was made miserable for any poor Washington girl who ever thought she liked basketball.

“In the second quarter and part of the third,” Dowell said, “we were OK on defense. But earlier we didn’t have enough intensity.” Such are the thoughts of a team that is 9-1 for the year, 3-0 in the Mid-Illini Conference (and on a 35-game M-I winning streak). Sometimes, after all, 90 seconds of perfection is just not enough.

The Potters led after one low-intensity quarter, 15-10, and were up 33-16 at halftime. Intensity arrived with 5:40 to play in the third quarter when Katie Krupa’s rebound bucket made the lead, 39-20.

Then it happened, Morton killing ‘em on offense, making life miserable on defense.

Dowell sprinted the length of the court, made two long sidestepping moves between two defenders for a powerful, elegant layup.

Lindsey Dullard, working in the post, scored in close.

Twenty seconds later, on a nifty entry pass by Bridget Wood, Dullard did it again and added a free throw.

Wood then made a 3-pointer with 4:10 left in the quarter.

Suddenly, Morton led, 49-20.

“We turned our defense into offense,” Dowell said, meaning that every good thing defensively led to a good thing at the other end, a transition game that when it’s running smoothly is a beautiful thing to see.

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 17. Krupa had 12, Dullard 9, Peyton Dearing 7, Wood 6, Maddy Becker 5, Raquel Frankes 4, Courtney Jones 3, Claire Kraft 2.

As for FREE ICE CREAM! or even FREE CUSTARD! from Cukver’s, the Potters did not reach the magic 10 3’s tonight. They had seven, two apiece from Dullard and Wood, and singles from Dearing, Jones, and Becker.

Incidentally, it was 57-27 after three quarters, again making the fourth quarter a running-clock quarter. It’s an Illinois High School Association rule this season – a 30-point lead after three means there’s no clock-stopping in the fourth save for timeouts and injuries. Morton has played running-clock games now in four of its last five games, the exception being a game in Wisconsin, a state so unusual they play 18-minute halves instead of four eight-minute quarters. They also wear cheese on their heads.

The running clock, by the way, did give Morton’s coach, Bob Becker, a talking point for his reserves who generally work those fourth quarters.

“We gave up 20 points on a running clock,” he said, meaning the Potters lost the fourth quarter, 20-8.

It is a trend, perhaps not a worrisome trend, but coaches of 9-1 teams who build 30-point leads need things to worry about, so Becker does have one troubling, trending statistic to consider. In six running-clock fourth quarters this season, the Potters have lost the quarter five times. They have been outscored, 62-36.

Morton’s Lady Potters 68, Pekin 18. It really wasn’t that close.

From my perch in the third row of the bleachers, right behind the 5th and 6th graders Heat team, I texted a friend a note that was not-at-all mysterious: “M 53-0 at the half.”

Being a girls basketball fan, she understood perfectly. She knew the Morton High School Lady Potters were Culverizing the poor Lady Dragons of Pekin High.

She texted back: “Go home. No story there. Go directly to the State finals.”

Duty demanded that I stay to the foregone conclusion. Besides, at the time of our correspondence, the Potters were three short of the 10 3-pointers that would cause the local Culver’s fast food restaurant to give away FREE ICE CREAM! to everyone in the Potterdome.

You’ve seen major league ballparks where they hang K’s to keep track of strikeouts. They were hanging 3’s on the Potterdome’s south-end stage. When it got to eight 3’s, Phil Skinner got on the phone. He owns the Culver’s franchise in Morton.

He said, “I told ‘em to get ready, we might have 300 customers coming in for FREE CUSTARD!”

Oops, yes, my bad. It’s FREE CUSTARD! Or, as the man in charge explained, “It’s premium ice cream!”

I’m old school. I thought custard was like yogurt or tofu or some dainty delicacy. Look, I remember the Good Humor wagon ringing bells. I want FREE ICE CREAM! With sprinkles! In a waffle cone! Handed to me by a Mr. Rogers look-alike in one of those brilliantly white Good Humor uniforms.

But, OK, I defer to greater wisdom here. I happily accepted a coupon for custard handed out by a Lady Potters’ freshman, Maggie Hobson, who on this night was a busy young woman. She played very well in the jayvee game, helped hang the 3’s on the stage, and admitted the varsity game was “a little stressful.”

Stressful?

“I ran the spotlight,” Hobson said, meaning the light that is turned on the each of the Potters starters as they hustle out during pre-game introductions in the darkened Potterdome. “It has to be right on time on each player.”

Safe to say, I believe, that Maggie Hobson did all of her jobs perfectly because, on this night, everything the Lady Potters touched turned not to gold but to … FREE CUSTARD!

Speaking of gold, why was Megan Gold running through the high school parking lot in uniform at 5:23 p.m.? She’s one of the Lady Potters’ seniors. A bunch had been hanging out at a player’s house when they realized they better get to the gym. “Hi,” she shouted while running, and later dropped in a mid-range jumper that gave Morton a 21-0 lead, and even later said, “It was an historic night.”

Historic?

“53-0,” she said, and was kind enough to not include a duh.

“Truly a clinic,” head coach Bob Becker said. “Relentless. High energy. At both ends.”

“Never seen a halftime shutout,” assistant coach Bill Davis said.

However mediocre Pekin is, and whatever their record is means nothing to this story, because on this night the Potters would have made even a good team beg for tender mercies. In fewer than three minutes of the first quarter, Morton scored 18 points in every way points can be scored: a powered-up layup by Katie Krupa, a pair of 3’s by Lindsey Dullard, a mid-court steal and breakaway by Tenley Dowell.

Six points a minute for a game makes it 192-0.

It was so one-sided that one side of my notebook was empty. I split the pages, Morton’s scoring down one side, the opponents scoring down the other. When the opponents do not score, it gives a wise-guy sportswriter plenty of white space to fill with wise-guy notes, such as:

“Let the Heat take over.”

“Somebody get the 10th. I’m hungry.”

The blessed somebody became Raquel Frakes. Her 3 from the top left of the arc at 1:12 of the third quarter gave Morton a 62-7 lead and set off the loudest cheer of the Potterdome night. To be fair, it was perhaps only a decibel or three greater than the cheering, some of it no doubt sincere, when Pekin first scored a minute and 39 seconds into the second half, a 3-ball cutting Morton’s lead to 53-3.

Morton is now 8-1 for the season and 2-0 in the Mid-Illini Conference (in which it has won 35 straight games and 44 of its last 45.)

Thirteen Potters scored. Dowell, Dullard, and Bridget Wood all had 11 points. Maddy Becker had 6, Frakes 5, Olivia Remmert 4, Courtney Jones 4, Gold 4, Krupa 3, Kathryn Reiman 3, Peyton Dearuing 2, Claire Kraft 2, and Addie Cox 2.

Morton’s Lady Potters 69, Pontiac 39. It wasn’t that close.

That sound you heard, ker-LUNK, was the back of Bridget Wood’s head ker-LUNK’ing against hardwood. The Potters’ senior guard had been run over by a truck disguised as a Pontiac player. Wood rose quickly and felt around on her head to see 1) if it was still there, and 2) was it still in one piece? Happily, it was and it was. That one piece soon had a bump growing out of it alongside her blonde ponytail.

On the bench, an athletic trainer shone a light into each of Wood’s eyes. He talked to her in hopes of getting responses in English, which concussion test she passed easily. In the fifth row of the bleachers, Wood’s mother, Shannon, had said only, “Ooooh.” Then, satisfied that no significant damage had been done, the trainer did what any mother might have suggested. He gave Wood a big bag of ice to press against her noggin.

Later, Wood was run over again. No call of charge that time, either.

Even later, Wood was on a drive toward the basket when she was tripped and fell face forward down the lane. I’m not sure ker-LUNK is the proper characterization of the sound her body made that time. I leave it to the reader to imagine the sound of the inside edge of your elbow striking hardwood. I know the sound my mouth would make, which would be, “#$%@!!”

Anyway, poor Bridget was bumped and bruised by the game she loves, and what does the mother say about the suffering daughter?

“Tough week so far for Bridget,” Shannon Wood said. “She had duty Sunday morning, and she got battered around there, too.”

She showed me a picture of a humongous airplane. Early Sunday morning Wood got on that plane. She was doing her Air National Guard duty. This was after a 3 ½-hour bus ride got her home Saturday at midnight following the Potters’ game in Wisconsin. On duty, Wood strapped herself into a seat on that giant Air Force cargo plane on a training mission. By training mission, the Air Force means the pilots do stuff that simulates the maneuvers necessary to deliver cargo in combat zones.

“Dives and stuff,” Bridget Wood said. Cargo planes are flying tin cans that shake, rattle, and roll. With the tail open to dump cargo, they become wind tunnels. Even strapped into a seat, as Wood and a dozen buddies were, the wind and vibrations beat up on the passengers.

Add the dives and stuff, the sudden turns, the roller-coaster ups and downs, the whole tilt-a-whirl thing, and Bridge Wood is here to say, “Everybody threw up . . .”

A smile.

“ . . .except me. I decided I was not going to throw up. And I didn’t.”

By then, an hour after the events, the bump on her head had gone down some and the bump on her elbow had come up some, and I asked her about the second time she was run over by a Pontiac truck. To the old guy safe in the bleachers, it seemed a little much for Wood to risk another ker-LUNK’ing.

“If I’d stepped out of the way,” she said, and then practically defined unselfish team play by adding, “that would have hurt more than hitting my head again.”

Wood didn’t score on this night, but who cares? Morton was a zillion times the better team, even if it showed its superiority only in rapid bursts that caused the coach, Bob Becker, to say, “They have to learn there’s no on-off switch. To be a great team like the other great Morton teams they have to play great all the time, not some of the time.”

One sensational burst opened the third quarter. Morton stretched a 16-point halftime lead to a 33-point lead in 6 ½ minutes. It did it with beautiful passing and a transition game that quickly turned rebounds, stops, and steals into layups at the other end. In a 22-5 run, seven Potters scored – Tenley Dowell had seven of those points, no one else had more than four.

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 18, Lindsey Dullard had 9, Maddy Becker 8, Peyton Dearing 7, Makenna Baughman 5, Courtney Jones 5, Megan Gold 5, Addie Cox 4, Katie Krupa 4, Raquel Frakes 2, and Olivia Remmert 2.

I’d tell you how I got to Monroe, Wisconsin, except I don’t know. It was 189 miles from my house. Exited off I-39 somewhere near Rockford, drove through fog and rain and the gloom of night descending at 3:30 in the afternoon, did a couple U-turns in answer to that I’m-lost-again feeling, thought unkind things of Google Maps, inquired at two gas stations, and delivered my sorry wandering soul to the Monroe High School gym in time to see the Morton Lady Potters defeat the Cheesemakers, 57-40.

The old guy sitting beside me all night was a Cheesemakers fan. As to why he was in the Morton section, he said, “Like to see the other team closer.” He came to love the Lady Potters. “They’re just out-hustlin’ our girls. We got size on ‘em, but your girls are qui-eek.” I believe that means the Morton girls are double-quick if they’re so quick it takes two syllables to say how quick.

I asked him, “Do you know Monroe’s record?”

“Undefeated,” he said. “Other night, we let some team have nine points in the first half and nine in the second half. We didn’t look that good. That other team, it wasn’t like your team. Your team is good.” Then he asked, “You see ‘em play a lot?”

“Every game.”

“You take notes all the time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long since we scored.”

I looked at my notes. “It was 24-23, Morton. Now it’s 39-23. That’s 15-0 in 7 minutes and 16 seconds.”

“Over,” he said.

There were 11 minutes to play in the second of the 18-minute halves that are Wisconsin’s unusual rule. But the old guy had it right, for on this night one of Illinois’s best girls basketball teams was a lot better than one of Wisconsin’s. That 39-23 lead soon became 50-28. Such was Morton’s superiority that the old guy said, “Hope we get 40. Look respectable.”

Morton won easily because its offense performed at a standard only slightly higher than its defense. Twice sensational – in the game’s first eight minutes and in the second half’s first 10 minutes – the Potters offense created any mid-range shot it wanted and consistently moved the ball into the paint for close-up work at the rim. In those collective 18 minutes, Morton scored 36 of its 57 points. Meanwhile, the Potters’ defense caused such discombobulation among the Cheesemakers that the poor girls threw as many passes to nobody as they did to somebody. In those 18 minutes when the Potters scored 36, the Cheesemakers (I just like to type that!) scored 12.

When I say Morton’s offense was perfect in the first eight minutes, I mean it was without flaw to a layman’s eye. The Potters led, 22-9, with Katie Krupa turning nifty entry passes into powered-up layups and Tenley Dowell dropping in mid-range jumpers as well as slashing to the rim.

The Potters’ 14-3 run starting the second half was more of the same: Dowell a 3-pointer, Courtney Jones an 12-footer, Krupa a layup, Dowell an attack on the rim, Raquel Frakes a free throw, Jones two free throws, and Peyton Dearing a 3. That made it 42-26 – and Dearing, a little left-handed guard, had just begun.

The 3 was the first of her 12 straight points in three minutes. After the 3, she scored on back-to-back fast breaks of the very best kind, which is to say the freshman Krupa ripped down a defensive rebound each time, sprinted up-court on the dribble each time, and each time threw beautiful long bounce passes to the flying Dearing for layups – and when I say flying, I mean she is  a D-1 soccer player and when those people get in a hurry, they fly.

Dowell led Morton’s scoring with 14. Dearing had 12, Krupa 11, Jones 6, Raquel Frakes 4, and five players had 2 each: Lindsey Dullard, Maddy Becker, Bridget Wood, McKenna Baughman, and Claire Kraft.

And how, you ask, after wandering north, did I get home?

Maybe the only thing I learned in college was that you don’t need to know everything, you just need to know how to find it out. So I asked people for help on Google Maps. I asked: 1) Bob Becker’s mother, 2) Tenley Dowell’s mother, 3) the old man in the bleachers, 4) Bob Becker’s daughter, Josie, 5) and my ace co-pilot, John Bumgarner, who said, “Don’t ask me, I’m not smart enough to have a smart phone.”

Sunday, about noon, Courtney Jones texted Bob Becker. She wanted to go to the Morton High School gym and shoot. Most Sunday noons, most girls basketball coaches snooze through Sunday afternoon football. Becker was at the gym, doing whatever a coach does when his two decades of teams have racked up a zillion W’s and three state championships. He sent a text back to Jones, a junior, saying, “I’m here, come on over. Do me a favor, Court. Bring me a Number 12 from Jimmy John’s.”

Jones had already commandeered her father as rebounder for the shooting session. Then she said, “And bring your credit card, Dad. Coach wants a Number 12.”

Don’t you love it when things work out? The junior, a two-year starter, comes to the Potterdome for an hour of shooting on Sunday. Two days later, she is a shooting star in the Lady Potters’ 57-52 season-opening victory at Normal Community. And not just an ordinary victory – on the road against a team that is state-ranked in Class 4A (with three D-1 commits) and was undefeated in four games.

“That’s a good one,” Becker said. “I’m proud of these kids.”

Maybe the Potters win it without Jones throwing in four 3-pointers, one in each quarter. Maybe they come from 12 points down late in the third without her. Maybe they create momentum with something other than her back-to-back 3’s that told Normal Community trouble was on the way.

Or maybe not. Anything less than what Jones did when she did it, Normal Community might have extended that 12-point lead to 20, Game Over.

The Potters were down, 42-30, with a minute and a half left in the third quarter. The junior forward, Lindsay Dullard, made a 3 at 1:21, and then Jones squared up at the top of the key for a 3 with 27 seconds left. Suddenly, it was 42-36, and in the first minute of the fourth quarter Jones made another 3 from out front. Now, at 42-39, it was Game On.

Jones made two free throws at 3:27 of the fourth to give Morton a 47-46 lead, its first since the score was 8-6. From there, the Potters’ senior star, Tenley Dowell, took over. She scored on three straight trips, first from 15 feet, then on a slashing drive for a layup, last with a steal near mid-court that she converted into a breakaway layup and a 53-51 lead with 55 seconds to play. She had not scored since 1:54 of the second quarter.

Twice in the game’s last 30 seconds, Normal Community was forced to foul Dullard. She all but raced to the free throw line, eager to get the ball in her hands. “Oh, I was confident,” she said. “I wanted to make them and win the game.” Which she did, four in a row, two at :27.9, two more at :18.2.

All W’s are beautiful, true. It’s also true that some of the beauties come with more sweat than others. Becker used 11 of his 14 players in the first half, looking for someone to make something happen and finding no one. That half was an especially sweaty 16 minutes of basketball. That said, it’s only fair to note that three of the Lady Potters’ starters – Dullard, Jones, and Katie Krupa – moved from volleyball to basketball only 10 days ago.

Speaking of Krupa, let’s speak of Krupa. The 6-foot freshman can flat play. She’s strong, quick, and agile. She can score inside with either hand, she has a nice touch from outside, she’s aggressive defensively and on the boards. At the back of the :Potters’ press against Normal Community, she anticipated a long pass, tipped it away, and gained control long enough for Becker to call a timeout. One second later, fouled on the in-bounds pass, Dullard made the game’s last two points.

“I was really nervous about my first official high school game,” Krupa said. “But as soon as I hit the court, it was all gone.”

She was one of four Potters scoring in double figures. Dowell led with 16, Dullard and Jones had 14 each, and Krupa 11. The Potters made six 3’s to Normal Community’s 3. The losers’ star, Maya Wong, scored 14 points – but had none in the game’s last 12 minutes while defended by Dowell and Jones mostly. In those same 12 minutes, by the way, Dullard and Dowell combined for 17 points.

One more thing. That Number 12 at Jimmy John’s? It’s turkey breast with provolone and avocado, dressed with cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, and mayo.

An hour before, Kassidy Shurman twirled the edges of her Rubik’s Cube. The mystifying puzzle had become a thing for her basketball team. “Maybe eight of us do it,” she said. She sat on the Morton High School Lady Potters bench, waiting to suit up in the locker room. It would be the season’s 33rd game, the 141st for Shurman’s senior class, three times running the state champions, looking for a fourth straight.

“How long does it take you to solve it?” I asked, knowing the answer would shame me, for my encounters with Erno Rubik’s invention mostly ended with the thing flying across the room, followed by words such as #$%@&#!

“I can do it under two minutes,” Shurman said. Then, smiling, “My goal is under one minute.”

Two weeks ago, Shurman said she’d never had so much fun on a basketball team. They were Rubik’s Cube nerds, twirling the thing on the bench even in the hour before Thursday night’s sectional championship game. Have you heard of Nerf Guns? Me, neither. But the Potters also turned those toys into team-bonding devices. Best of all, they had won 31 games this season, most of them laughers built on sustained excellence, and if a guy were to write a book about these girls, he had a title: “Laughing All the Way.”

From the seventh grade on – they won a state championship there, too – Shurman moved with teammates Josi Becker and Caylie Jones to achievements unheard of in Illinois girls basketball. In six years of competition, those three played on teams that had won 183 games and lost 10. How good is that? The answer is in another question. If life throws you 193 puzzles, how many of us are good enough to solve 183 of them?

Four minutes into the game, Shurman, a 5-foot-3 shooter, made a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give Morton a 3-2 lead over Peoria Richwoods. There came a great roar from the standing-room-only crowd at Dunlap High, maybe 2,500 people there to see Morton, ranked No. 1 in the state, against Richwoods, No. 2, both teams with 31-1 records, both convinced that the winner would go on to become state champions. Shurman’s shot set off a chant in the Morton student section, “I believe that we will win, I believe that we will win.”

Too early, kids, too early.

Forty-five seconds later, Richwoods scored on an offensive rebound. That bucket was a signal of the storm to come. Of Richwoods’ 19 field goals this night, 16 came at the rim or a step away. The Peorians were the bigger, stronger, faster, and more aggressive team. Defensively, their 2-3 zone’s outside people pushed Morton’s offense so far behind the 3-point arc that the Potters seldom earned even a decent look. Inside, Richwoods’ 6-foot-1 Camryn Taylor emphatically swatted away at least three layups and all night dared anyone to drive into the paint.

Using the same zone defense, Richwoods had beaten Morton in the season’s fourth game, 53-45. This time, instead of finding a solution to that puzzle, the Potters were confused. At the end of the first quarter, his team down 11-3 and having put up only four shots, the Potters’ coach, Bob Becker, looked at his players on the bench and shouted, “WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?”

Momentarily, the Potters rallied. They gained a tie at 13 with 2:57 left in the half.

But that was it. In the 11 minutes of play, Richwoods scored the game’s next 22 points. In short, Richwoods did to Morton what Morton had done to so many teams this season. It went on an extended run of dominance at both ends. Richwoods led at halftime, 20-13, and crushed the Potters in the third quarter.

As helpless as Morton’s offense had been in the first quarter – Shurman’s 3 was the only field goal – the Potters disappeared in the third. For the first time all season, they came undone on offense. A scribble in my notebook: “Can’t make silly turnovers against R’woods.” They did not score in the quarter. If that has happened in my eight years watching Becker’s teams, I don’t remember it. At the end of three, Richwoods led, 33-13. Game over.

For Richwoods’ coach, Todd Hursey, the victory was sweet for many reasons. “This team is on a mission to win the program’s 1,000th game,” he said. “We’re two away now.” He was thrilled, too, that the victory came against Morton. “Bob’s teams have set the bar, not only in the last three years winning the state, but for a decade.” Hursey, who has four starters returning next season, also said, “Now maybe it’s our turn.”

Bob Becker said the only thing he could say: “They took us out of everything we tried to do. . . . They guarded the heck out of us. . . . They got us rattled a little bit. … We got beat by a better team. … We ran into a buzzsaw.”

In the game’s last minute, Becker sent in substitutes for his three seniors, Jones, Shurman, and his daughter, Josi. As each came to the bench, they stopped for a long, quiet hug with the coach. Later, coming from the locker room, tears in her eyes, Josi Becker said, “We just didn’t execute our offense.” I asked how it felt, the four years over. “It sucks,” she said.

I asked Kassidy Shurman what happened in the game. ”I have no idea,” she said. “They were just the better team tonight. They played phenomenal.” Now, the end, four years done? “It sucks,” she said, and she wept, and she said, “I’ve never felt like this. This isn’t anything I’ve ever felt. This sucks.”

Surprising myself, for I have been at this sportswriting thing a long time without ever doing such a thing, I hugged the little watch-charm guard that I’ve seen running hellbent-for-leather since she teamed up with Jones and Becker to win in the seventh grade. And I told Kassidy what a lot of us would say to every one of the Potters, “Thanks for giving all of us more than we ever gave you.”