On March 4, 2017, after his team’s shoot-around before it played that afternoon for a third straight state championship, the Morton High School coach, Bob Becker, gathered the Lady Potters at midcourt in the Potterdome. No matter what might happen in five hours, he said, “I love you.” And he said, “The highlight of my day, every day, is coming to practice and being with you.”

Tonight, nine months later, I reminded Becker of that moment and said, “Still true?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Forever.”

Then, with a smile, “It’s never been a job for me. It’s what I love to do.”

I didn’t expect much of a game tonight. It wasn’t. A 19-0 run across the first two quarters jump-started the Potters to a 60-34 victory over Limestone. So let’s talk first about Becker. This week, late to the party, the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association announced what most of us have long known. Robert Cantley Becker III is a Hall of Fame coach.

He has created teams with poise and guts. He preaches “consistent excellence” built on a culture of confidence and belief. He wants his players to move with “humble swagger.” He maximizes strengths, minimizes weaknesses. His teams master fundamentals. (That last-game morning of March 4 he had the Potters doing first-day ball-handling drills.) That mastery, limiting mistakes, allows Becker’s teams to put constant pressure on opponents at both ends of the floor. Now in his 19th season as the Potters’ head coach, Becker has become a superb in-game strategist and tactician.

Wait. Go back a couple paragraphs. He said the “love” word. It reminded me of my all-time favorite summary of the coach’s work. It came from his wife, Evelyn. (“The perfect coach’s wife,” the coach said tonight.) Evelyn Becker can tell you she gave birth to their daughter, Josi, on Nov. 21, 1999. That was the day after Evelyn watched her husband’s first Potters team won its first tournament championship at Eureka.

I had asked Evelyn if Bob liked basketball.

“He doesn’t like basketball,” she said. “He loves it.”

She counted the ways.

“He loves it all. The homework. The video watching, the strategizing, x’s and o’s, the scouting. He just loves the game. He loves basketball.”

Before Becker, the Lady Potters had not won a regional championship in 15 seasons. They had never won a sectional, and the idea of earning a trip to Redbird Arena for the state finals was the stuff of fools. After Becker, surprise moved to astonishment to the unbelievable. In the last 13 years, Morton has won 11 regionals. In the last 10 years, they have won six sectionals. Out of those six sectionals, they reached the Final Four five times. They finished fourth in ’07 and again in ’13 before winning it all the last three years.

Players keep showing up, thanks to Morton’s youth basketball program, the Heat, which has produced a line of talented athletes eager to become Potters. Those players work at the game through summers just as the high schoolers commit summers to AAU programs.

“We’ve got great parents, great players, and great coaches,” Becker said. “This team, these are the best kids a coach could have. They’re an elite group, academically, socially, on the court and off the court.”

Here are Becker’s career numbers: 422 victories, 145 defeats. His teams have won at least 30 games in a season six times and at least 21 11 times. They have had 15 consecutive winning seasons. In the last eight seasons the Potters have won 221, lost 28. The last three seasons and eight games this year, they are 107and 9.

Now, tonight’s game which moved the Potters’ season record to 7-1 and made them 2-0 in the Mid-Illini Conference . . .

One minute, 39 seconds into the game, Limestone led, 3-2.

Eight minutes, 48 seconds later, Morton led, 21-3.

That 19-0 run started with a Tenley Dowell floater in the lane and ended with a Dowell layup off a steal. In that run, Dowell scored 10 points her way to a game-high 18.

She had help in there. Kassidy Shurman swished a 3. Lindsey Dullard and Caylie Jones put back rebounds. Maddy Becker scored on a breakaway layup.

Soon enough, because one team was much better than the other in every regard, the score was 42-11.

By the game’s merciful end, 11 Potters had scored: Dowell 18, Shurman 9, Maddy Becker 8, Bridget Wood 5, Caylie Jones 4, Dullard 4, Josi Becker 3, Katharine Reiman 3, Olivia Remmert 3, Courtney Jones 2, Claire Kraft 1.

With three minutes to play, en route to a 64-37 romp tonight, Bob Becker suddenly remembered “Pickle.”

The Morton High School Lady Potters had practiced the play Friday and Becker had waited for the right moment to use it.

But all night against Bloomington, lost in his coaching bubble where nothing matters except what’s in front of him, the coach had forgotten about the special play created for this game.

So he called timeout.

He looked over the heads of his players on the bench. He looked up into the second row of the bleachers.

He called out to a girl there, “C’mon, Gaby, draw it up.”

Gaby Heer took a deep breath. She didn’t move. Maybe she couldn’t move.

“C’mon, Gaby, come down here,” the coach said.

Gaby Heer, a 7th-grader 13 years old, climbed over the varsity’s bench. She took the whiteboard from a coach whose team has won three straight state championships. Kneeling on the court, surrounded by Lady Potters paying attention, Heer used Becker’s Sharpie to make some X’s and squiggly lines that, if you know basketball, wound up looking like an out-of-bounds play.

Why did Heer name the play “Pickle.”

“I don’t know,” she said. (A year ago Becker said that same thing when I asked why one of his team important drills was called “Raytown.”)

“Pickle” was part of the deal the Lady Potters made with the Morton Community Foundation. The high bidder for a package called “The Potter Experience” would get to attend a team practice, meet the team in the locker room before the game, operate the spotlight for starters’ introductions, sit in the bleachers directly behind the team, and eat pizza with the varsity after the game. All that in addition to drawing up a play that the Potters would run.

A group of parents donated $400 to the Foundation. They helped make a memory for their 12 daughters, all 7th and 8th grade basketball players: Gaby Heer, Molly Shook, Abby Moore, Taylor Barnard, Abbey Pollard, Katie Davis, Julia Keith, Emma Skinner, Maggie Hobson, Paige Griffin, Paige Chapin, and Emma Fonseca.

Alas, “Pickle” didn’t result in an easy basket. But Becker took the blame for that.

“Honestly, I just forgot it,” he said. “We’d practiced it with the starters and they knew the play. But by the time I remembered it, we had reserves in the game.”

So “Pickle” got a little scrambled, as Coach Heer reported to the press later. “They didn’t set the down screen for the wing,” she said, and the press made a note reminding itself it’s not as smart as a 7th-grader.

Anyway, by then the Lady Potters had done enough things perfectly that the slightest of imperfections went unnoticed as they won for the sixth time in seven starts.

Bloomington scored the game’s first four points, but Morton scored the next 10 – five each in less than two minutes by Tenley Dowell and Lindsey Dullard. At quarter’s end it was 19-8, at halftime 32-15, and in the last minute of the third quarter it was 49-22.

The Potters did it with defense that reduced Bloomington’s offense to out-of-control drives and 3-pointers put up by people who had trouble scoring from under the basket.

The Potters’ offense left Bloomington in tatters. If not coasting in on transition baskets created by full-court pressure, they scored from long distance. From all points of the compass, they threw in 3-pointers, a dozren of them. Kassidly Shurman had 4, Dullard 3, Dowell 2..

Dowell led the scorers with 20, Shurman had 12, Dullard 11, Caylie Jones 6, Courtney Jones and Josi Becker 5 each, Katherine Reiman 3, and Bridget Wood 2.

 

 

 

 

 

MLP Interview Series – Volume II ‘JUNIORS’

Lady Potter Studios is excited to present the MLP Interview Series for the 2017-18 Season.

To watch Volume II of this series click here: ‘Juniors’ (Class of 2019) 

This video interview series will interview players, coaches and alumni throughout the season.

 

Watch Video of: Josi Becker Signing Day

Josi Becker has had her eye on Illinois Central College (ICC) for some time now, and ICC has had a lot of eyes on Josi as well.  ICC’s head coach Karrie Redecker made Josi aware of their interest quite a awhile ago and have been watching her closely throughout the summer and through the first 6 games of her Senior season.  Josi decided it was high time that she made it official and on Saturday, December 2nd, just hours before the Lady Potters played Monroe at the ICC CougarPlex, Josi signed her Letter of Intent to attend ICC in the Fall of 2018 and play basketball on scholarship for Redecker’s Cougars.

Josi is a pretty private person and didn’t want to make big to-do about the signing, but she expressed  how grateful she is for this opportunity and thanked all her teammates, coaches, fans and most importantly her family for helping her to become the person she is now.

ICC is getting a great player and an OUTSTANDING person.  ICC has won 6 National Championships in their history and if anyone can help win them a 7th, it’s Josi Becker.  If Josi knows anything, and she knows a whole lot, it’s how to win Championships!

You can watch the signing day highlights here:  Josi Becker Signs with Illinois Central College

Congratulations to Josi!!!!

The Morton Lady Potters bounced back big time from their loss over Peoria Richwoods last week, in the Championship game of the Thanksgiving Classic.  Three days of practice in the Potterdome, concentrating on improvement and refocusing their commitment to excellence, had the Potters ready and revved up to face another opponent.

Unfortunately for Metamora, they had the misfortune of having ‘Next’.  The Lady Potters took out some of their frustration at Metamora 50-27, in their first Mid-Illini contest of the season, on Thursday night.  Metamora was down 10-0 before they knew what happened in that game and Morton got a little of their swagger back.  The Potters were powered offensively by balanced scoring attack, with four players in double digits (Lindsey Dullard 12, Tenley Dowell 11, Josi Becker & Caylie Jones with 10 apiece).

On Saturday night, the Lady Potters hosted the mighty Monroe Cheesemakers from Monroe, WI on a neutral court (Illinois Central College).  The Cheesemakers return 3 starters from their 2017 State Final 4 team, including University of Wisconsin recruit, 5′-9″ All-State Jr. guard Sydney Hilliard (19.2 ppg, 8.3 rpg), 6′-1″ All-Conference Sr. forward Sydney Mathiason (11.6 ppg, 7.9 rpg) and 5′-8″ All-Conference Jr. guard Emily Benzschawel (12.7 ppg, 5.3 rpg). Monroe is well coached, disciplined and talented. Much like our Lady Potters.

In fact, Monroe shares a lot of similarities with Morton.  The towns and schools are about the same size, both teams are red and white, both teams have two sets of sisters, both teams have coaches with two daughters on their team, both teams have been perennial powerhouse teams, with multiple trips to the State Championship game in recent years and while Morton is the “Pumpkin Capital of the World”, Monroe is the “Swiss Cheese Capital of the U.S.”.

On this night, the Potters were better than the Cheesemakers, but the outcome was not decided until the final seconds and the lead changed several times in the final minutes of the game.  It was a fun game to watch, with two talented teams going at each other, back and forth on every possession.  These were two State Championship level teams going toe to toe on December 2nd.  Every shot was a BIG shot and every possession was crucial to the outcome of the game.

The Lady Potters lead 29-23 at the half and had leads of 10 points at different times in the 2nd half, but the Cheesemakers made big shots of their own, particularly their star big shot guard (Hilliard).  Monroe took the lead 53-52 with 1:21 remaining in the game.  With Both teams in the bonus, most of the final quarter, Tenley Dowell hit 2 free throws to give Morton the lead back, then Monroe hit 2 on the next possession for a 1 point Monroe lead, then Courtney Jones sank 2 more with 28 seconds left to put Morton up 56-55.  Game winner right?  Nope.  10 seconds later, Hilliard drives and hits a pull up jumper to put Monroe up 57-56.  Not over yet though.  On the next possession (the final scoring possession) Morton gets the ball knocked out of bounds with 9 seconds left.  Monroe Head Coach (Sam Mathiason),  calls a time out to instruct his players what he wants to do to stop the Potters.  The Potters used the timeout wisely and Coach Becker had the perfect out of bounds play drawn up, which the Lady Potters executed to perfection, with Lindsey “Lefty” Dullard scoring, with a left hand layup, with 8 seconds on the clock and the Potters applied 8 seconds of defense to cause a turnover by the Cheesemakers that sealed their fate and a 58-57 Potters victory.

Dullard finished with 18 points, Dowell 16, Caylie Jones 10, Josi Becker 5, Courtney Jones 4, Peyton Dearing 2, Megan Gold 2 and Kassidy Shurman 1 on a night that every point, assist, rebound, screen, steal and hustle play mattered.  On this night, the Lady Potters learned  when they play as one, execute their roles, communicate, play hard, and compete, they can be pretty good.  Hats off and good luck to the Cheesemakers, who I expect will make a return trip to the Wisconsin State Tournament this year.  If the Lady Potters use this game as a stepping stone to improvement, I expect their chances are pretty good to do the same in Illinois as well.

 

 

Three times in the last minute and five seconds, the Morton High School Lady Potters came from behind and won tonight, 58-57, on a layup off an out-of-bounds play with :08.2 showing on the clock. Be still my heart.

Afterwards, in a cafeteria, the weary Cheesemakers, from Monroe, Wisconsin, scarfed up cheese pizzas, some with sausage and mushrooms, before boarding a bus for the three-hour ride to their little town eight miles above the Illinois border that calls itself “The Swiss Cheese Capital of the United States.” (Tasty. But I prefer“The Pumpkin Capital of the World.”)

What a game. Monroe had asked for it sometime last summer. The Cheesemakers reached the Final Four of the Wisconsin state tournament in March. They were looking for stern competition and discovered a virtual twin in the Lady Potters – school enrollments near the same, both with strong basketball traditions for a decade, both good last year and expected to be good this time. Morton came in with a 4-1 record, playing well only intermittently. Monroe was 4-0 and averaging nearly 70 points a game.

“They challenged us,” Bob Becker, the Morton coach, said. You don’t win three straight state championships, as the Potters have, unless you’re willing to take a dare from a school that won its state championship in 2006 and ’08 and reached the finals three times in the last eight years. So the teams met on a neutral floor tonight, at Illinois Central College.

To tell you the lead changed hands 16 times is to tell you nothing about the game’s beauty, as free-flowing as any high school girls basketball game you’ll ever see. Both teams played strong defense, moved well with and without the ball, contested every rebound, and played at a pace that left witnesses, if not themselves, breathless.

Three times in the second half, Morton led by 10 points. Each time Monroe stopped the Potters’ momentum. Still, with 3:14 to play, Morton led by seven, 52-45. That lead vanished in fewer than two minutes. Monroe went on an 8-0 run and led 53-52 at 1:21. The rest of it deserves play-by-play attention because every possession was fraught with possibility.

At 1:05, Tenley Dowell’s two free throws put Morton up.

At :40.6, Monroe took the lead back with two free throws.

At :28.8, pushed down by a defender, Courtney Jones rose to make two free throws to give Morton a 56-55 lead.

At :18.4, Monroe’s star, the junior point guard Sydney Hilliard, a Division-1 prospect recruited by five Big Ten schools, did a court-length drive through Morton’s defense for a layup and a 57-56 lead.

When Monroe’s defense slapped the ball out of bounds with 9.7 seconds to play, the Cheesemakers’ coach, Sam Mathiason, called his team’s last timeout.

In the Morton huddle, Becker told his team to run “24,” an out-of-bounds play that starts with point guard Josi Becker handling the ball on the right side of the lane.

Tenley Dowell is to set a screen straight out from Becker. Courtney Jones is to come around the Dowell screen. Becker is to bounce a pass to Jones for a layup.

But here, with the game on the line, the sophomore Jones had an idea.

“She told me to switch with her,” Lindsey Dullard said.

Jones explained: “If it works right, the layup is on the left side, and I’m right-handed and Lindsey’s left-handed, and she’s taller than me.”

So now Dullard is to come off the Dowell screen – if Dowell, in fact, can set an effective screen at the lane’s right side, which is a major question because her screen is to be set against Monroe’s biggest player, a 6-foot-1 senior with maybe 30 pounds on Dowell.

Given the ball, Josi Becker sees the play in movement. She sees Dowell succeed with the screen – and succeed so sensationally that she stopped the big girl in her tracks. Think, a truck running into a tree.

Dowell later said, “I…(here a smile)…NAILED her.”

And here comes Dullard running free . . .

“I passed it when I saw her come off the screen,” Becker said.

The ball arrives when Dullard arrives, undefended, and she goes up . . .

“I thought I missed it,” Dullard said, “but then I saw it go in.”

She laughed. “And I was happy. And I hurried to get back on defense.”

With 8.2 seconds to play, and out of timeouts, Monroe’s only hope was to fly downcourt. In the hurry, against Morton’s defense, the Cheesemakers lost the ball out of bounds near midcourt with :00.1 showing. Game over.

“A great game,” Bob Becker said. “Two teams playing great all night, a great crowd, and a buzzer-beater at the end, and we came out on the right side, so I can smile.”

After losing to Peoria Richwoods in the Thanksgiving Tournament championship game, Becker had said his team needed “to develop grit.”

Well, you may ask, what, exactly, is grit?

Let’s say your team builds good leads against a strong team but then it loses those leads. Yet it comes back to go ahead. And they do that more than once or twice. Let’s say they dot three times. And they do it all three times in the last minute and five seconds.

Such is grit.

Dullard led Morton’s scorers with 18, Dowell had 16, Caylie Jones 10. Becker had 5, Courtney Jones 4, Peyton Dearing 2, Megan Gold 2 and Kassidy Shurman 1.

Next year, by the way, Morton will make the drive to Monroe. I will be there, the good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

Same Old News: Morton’s Lady Potters beat Metamora again, this time 50-27.

New News: I can get to Metamora.

From my house, you turn left, right, left and right again to reach Rt. 117. There you go north in the night past cornfields emptied by monster combines. One will come at you raising a dust storm because its right-side wheels are off the road, and in the night’s blackness its blinking lights make it look like a scary Battleship Galactica. You roll through downtown Eureka and its snowflake Christmas lights hung with good cheer. Take a left at Rt. 116 past a farmhouse with Christmas trees downstairs and upstairs. In Metamora take a right on Lafayette Street down to Madison Street and the high school’s parking lot.

At last, after seven years lost in the Mid-Illini wilderness, I now can leave home and get to Metamora. I no longer worry about winding up in Roanoke. I no longer wonder if I should’ve gone left on Rt. 24 at Eureka’s town square. No, no, Christopher Columbus, that gets you to Washington. (I think.)

Anyway, $2 for a hot dog, $2 for water, $2 for a ticket and I’m in the fourth row in Metamora’s spiffy little gym. I’m such an old hand now – hey, I found the place! – I’m expecting to see what I’ve seen every year for seven years. By my count, the Morton High School Lady Potters had won seven straight times at Metamora. With seven more victories in the Potterdome, Morton came to this night having beaten Metamora 14 straight times.

Make it 15.

Morton 50, Metamora 27 was what we have learned to expect,which is to say we don’t expect much of a game because one team is usually better than the other in every respect. The only difference this time was that the Potters usually make their first Metamora game part of a season-opening winning streak, streaks that have reached 13, 11, and 14 in the last three seasons. But tonight the Potters came to Metamora off a 53-45 loss in their fourth game of the year, beaten by Peoria Richwoods last Saturday.

So how would the Potters respond?

They responded by pitching a shutout for a quarter. They led, 10-0, and Morton coach Bob Becker told his team, “Hey, great defense. Anytime you hold ‘em to zero, that’s pretty good.”

Meanwhile, the Potters’ full-court press left Metamora so frazzled it committed nine turnovers in that first period. Lindsey Dullard began Morton’s scoring 20 seconds in with a driving 6-footer. She followed with a layup created by a Tenley Dowell steal. Josi Becker made two free throws. After Dowell dropped in an 8-footer, she converted another steal into a breakaway layup.

It was 10-zip when, from my fourth-row seat, I noticed the Morton coaches laughing.

Shouting to their players simultaneously, they had called out different timing of a play to run at quarter’s end.

Becker: “Run ‘snap’ at 12 seconds.”

Davis: “Run ‘snap’ at 11.”

Becker looked at Davis, Davis looked at Becker, and they broke up. After 18 seasons together, they’re so much on the same page that when they disagree, they disagree by one second.

A desultory, poor-shooting second quarter left Morton with a 19-12 halftime lead. They came to life in the third quarter, beginning it with a 12-0 run. Caylie Jones started with a layup, Dullard followed with back-to-back 3’s (one from the deep left corner, one from the top), Josi Becker added another 3, and Dowell a free throw.

That 12-0 run was the kind of game-decider that was the signature of the Potters’ state championship teams the last three seasons. In less than 5 minutes, they’d thrown in 3 3-pointers that had Metamora reeling. It was, however, Morton’s only bright moment of the night offensively. A team with five or six good 3-point shooters managed only four 3’s against a team it has beaten 15 straight times and is likely to beat another 15 straight times.

Dullard led Morton’s scorers with 12, Dowell had 11, Josi Becker and Caylie Jones 10 each, Maddy Becker 5, and Courtney Jones 2.

Morton is now 4-1 for the season, Metamora is 3-3.

The Morton Lady Potters (3-1) were beaten by Richwoods (5-0)  45-53 in the Championship game of the 2017-18 Morton Thanksgiving Tournament.  As expected, Richwoods was big, and long and quick and made very few mistakes against the Potters.  They attacked Morton throughout the game on both ends of the court.

 

Tied at haftime, Richwoods quickly put up 7 unanswered points,  early in the 3rd quarter, which separated them from the Potters, and made big shots to sustain that lead through the 2nd half.  While all of Richwoods’ starters are very good, headline player, Cameron Taylor, may be the best post player Central Illinois has seen in many years and she played a big role in the outcome of the game.  She is a player that no other team in Class 3A can boast.

 

What could Morton have done better?  Well, to start with, they could have been more patient and efficient offensively.  They shot 5 for 25 from the perimeter.  Let me repeat that… 5 for 25 from the perimeter.  Now Richwoods’ harassing defense probably contributed, to some extent, to the low shooting percentage from the arc (20%), but if they shoot 8 for 25, they likely win the game.  This was also the first time the Lady Potters had faced the Richwoods zone and the Lady Potters had spent most of their practice time, the prior week, preparing for their first game (Normal Community) of the four game round robin tournament.

This was a great tournament to start the season for the Lady Potters.  Rarely, if ever, have the Lady Potters had the opportunity to play two teams, in November, that have as much talent as Normal Community and Richwoods.  While they passed the test against Normal Community, I think they learned more about themselves and their opponent in the game against Richwoods.

 

They had the chance to see what they need to work on most throughout the next 3 months, to get where they ultimately want to go.

Nothing gets Morton’s attention more than a loss.  So while losses always fuel the verbiage of pessimists, critics and haters (3x State Champions always have plenty of those), they also pump energy and focus into Coach Becker’s Lady Potter teams.  Look for Morton to rebound from this loss and begin the process of continuous improvement.  Next game for Morton is Thursday, November 30th at Metamora High School (7pm).

Sometimes I will make a note just to be sportswriterly. (A guy’s gotta earn his Milk Duds.) Most often the notes are early observations that are rendered meaningless by the game’s movement. But in the tradition of blind-squirrels-finding-acorns, sometimes a guy gets it right. Sometimes he is even prophetic.

In the Potterdome this afternoon, I made five notes at the end of the first quarter of the Thanksgiving Tournament championship game. These notes . . .

“Fast pace”

“R forcing action”

“R dominating physically”

“R attacking at both ends”

“Hell-bent”

Those notes came at the end of the first quarter. The Morton High School Lady Potters led Richwoods, 12-11. That lead was a mirage, for in the early going Richwoods was the faster, bigger, stronger, more aggressive team. Unless the Potters did something quickly to change the game’s tenor – say they began a rainstorm of 3-pointers . . . say their full-court press stole every pass . . . say they got every rebound of shots Richwoods missed – unless they made those events happen, trouble was coming the Potter’s way..

Well.

Trouble arrived.

It was a 53-45 loss.

The defeat ended the Potters’ 16-game winning streak built over two seasons. They last lost 10 months and nine days ago, on January 16. They won their final 13 games of the 2016-17 season and had won their first three this year in the two days of their Thanksgiving tournament. (They beat St. Thomas More, 67-39, this morning.)

The loss was also the earliest in a season in four years. The Potters opened the 2014 season by winning 13 straight. The next year, 11 straight. Last season, 14.

As foreboding as the early going had been for the Potters, they yet managed a 23-all tie at halftime. They’d done that largely thanks to mistakes by Richwoods’ big people inside. The 6-footer Jaida McCloud and 6-1 Camryn Taylor owned the paint, but they clanged as many shots as they made.

That changed quickly in the new half. In the first 3 1/2 minutes of the third quarter, McCloud and Taylor each scored twice from point-blank range. Richwoods moved ahead, 31-25, and stayed there. When the Potters made a little run to get close at 35-33 with 3 minutes left in the third quarter, Richwoods again asserted its dominance inside, Taylor scoring on two put-back rebounds and a free throw.

Richwoods’ lead grew to 40-33 with 2:10 to play in the third quarter.

“Game over,” a note read.

‘Twas.

In that third quarter, Richwoods scored eight field goals at the rim – six layups, two put-backs. Morton had three such buckets. For the game, Richwoods had 17 layups and rebound baskets to Morton’s 9 (two of the put-backs done, somehow, by 5-foot-3 Josi Becker).

Richwoods came in with a simple defensive game plan against the Potters.

“We wanted to limit them to two 3-pointers a quarter,” coach Todd Hursey said.

They did better than that. They did it, as Hursey said, with athletes who are “big, long, and athletic.” Their constant, hyper-quick, hands-everywhere movements on defense gave the Potters no time to square up on 3’s and forced the ball to the corners as often as not. After making 13 3’s in the morning romp over St. Thomas More, the Potters managed only 5 for 25 attempts against Richwoods – and none, zero, nada when it mattered most, in the game’s last 11 minutes.

Morton’s coach, Bob Becker, cast the defeat as a learning lesson that showed his team what it needed to work on. To match a team such as Richwoods, it would help if each Potter grew six inches this week, added 20 pounds, and learned to jump over people for offensive rebounds. With those developments unlikely, the coach would settle for what’s possible: “We need to develop grit.” Meaning: his team lost too many contests for rebounds, lost too many contests for loose balls1, and lost too many opportunities to make a late-game comeback.

Josi Becker led Morton’s scoring with 13, Lindsey Dullard had 11, Tenley Dowell and Caylie Jones 8 apiece, Kassidy Shurman 3, and Courtney Jones 2.

I once wrote a football game story in which I didn’t tell who won until the 11th fat paragraph. I was about to commit that literary crime again here. Tempted by one play that provoked a touch of amusement, I began typing away on it.

Then stopped.

C’mon, kid, tell who won.

Morton 55, Normal Community 49.

Morton 76, Champaign Central 29.

The Morton High School Lady Potters, three-times-running Class 3A state champions, began the 2017-18 season with victories on the first day of their Thanksgiving Tournament in the Potterdome. They play again Saturday morning at 11:45 against St. Thomas More, then play Richwoods at 5 in a game almost certainly for the round-robin championship.

Now, about that play . . .

Ever get into the middle of doing something wonderfully graceful that you’ve done a hundred times and on the 101st time you remember something . . . like, Oh, no, I forgot to send Aunt Mabel a get-well card . . . and right when you’re thinking about poor Aunt Mabel, you step in the dog dish, flip your scrambled eggs off the ceiling, and ker-rash on your keester? (Kids, ask grandma, she’ll tell you about your keester.)

Which brings me to Kassidy Shurman, who is a wonderfully graceful little senior guard for the Lady Potters. She is four times a state champion, first in the seventh grade, three times in high school.

She has the ball.

She is driving to her left.

She sees someone open, Courtney Jones, she thinks.

Being a nifty little ball-handler, Kass will slip the ball past a Champaign Central defender. She’s done this thing to bamboozled defenders a hundred times. Nothing to it. Could do it blindfolded.

Except this is the 101st time.

As she picks up her dribble and is about to make a simple bounce pass, Shurman realizes – no, no, she doesn’t have an Aunt Mabel — she realizes that if she passes now, it won’t work. She realizes she needs to take another dribble to close the distance.

But another dribble would be a double-dribble violation, so she can’t do that, and she can’t make the pass, and what she does is she takes an extra step or two, and while she didn’t step on a dog dish at any point in this fancy dance, and didn’t fall on her keester, she is called for a walking violation.

Well, what’s a girl to do in a situation like this?

“I had to laugh,” Kassidy Shurman said, which she did on the court and did again reliving the moment for a guy whose German grandmother told him long ago, “David, I’m going to tan your little keester.”

Of course Shurman had to laugh, for in fewer than four minutes the Potters had built an 18-1 lead over Champaign Central that would grow to 48-10 at halftime. It was 71-22 after three quarters. Here’s about all the more you need to know about this game . . .

The Potters played 13 people, 12 scored (Shurman had seven) and 12 got rebounds. Near game’s end I tapped an old friend on the shoulder, one row down from me in the bleachers, asking if she was ready to play because she might be able to score in this game.

“They called us ‘the 49ers,’” Joyce Domnick said.

Which meant?

“We graduated in 1949,” she said.

She still might’ve got a rebound.

If that game was the day’s comic relief, the Potters’ opener against Normal Community was high drama. It was easily the best 3A game you’re likely to see in November. It would be no surprise to see both teams go deep into the post-season.

That said, it’s noteworthy that Morton never trailed. It led at halftime only 25-20, but began the third quarter on a 14-3 run. Tenley Dowell scored on a driving layup, then added four free throws before Josi Becker threw in a 3-pointer, Caylie Jones finished a fast break layup, and Dowell hit a 3-pointer.

At 39-23, Morton seemed to have the game in hand.

It still led by 15 early in the fourth quarter. But as well as the Potters had played, they could not put away a quick, skilled Normal Community team.

Their 44-29 lead dwindled to 51-49 with 2:14 to play – meaning Normal Community had outscored the state champs 20-7 in 5 ½ minutes. Of those 20 points, 12 came from sophomore guard Maya Wong, whose two 3-pointers in the run gave her five for the day. (And five 3’s, it says here, is not likely to happen to the Potters again this season.)

By then running a delay offense to slow Normal’s momentum, Morton controlled the game’s last minutes. Dowell’s free throws – two with 27 seconds to play, and two more with four seconds left – closed the door.

Dowell, scoring from the arc and on slashing drives, led Morton with 26 points, 10-for-10 on free throws. Josi Becker was the only other Potter in double figures with 13. Sophomore Lindsey Dullard had five points in the first three minutes and none thereafter, yet was sensational throughout with nine rebounds and a defensive presence that accounted for five blocked shots and a series of deflections in full-court pressure and against Normal’s set offense.

The Potters’ game Saturday afternoon against Richwoods will be a strong test of another kind. Normal Community came with ball-handling skills and shooting. Richwoods comes with size, speed, and rebounding.

So cancel your Saturday afternoon plans.

Get to the Potterdome.

Joyce will be there, ready if needed.

Morton Thanksgiving Classic

Game 1 – Morton vs. Normal Community

Talk about baptism by fire for your first game of the season.  The Morton Lady Potters opened the 2017-18 season facing, arguably, one of the most talented teams they will face all season, in the  Normal Community Lady Iron.  Normal Community is very talented and came into the game 4-0, having won the Bloomington/Normal Intercity Championship for the first time in 14 years.  They have three underclassmen that already have D1 offers in Maya Wong (soph), Kylee Schneringer (soph) and Abby Feit (Junior).  Athletic and long and can shoot the ball with the best of them.  As well as a bevy of experienced seniors.

 

Luckily the Morton Lady Potters have some talented players of their own, and a Hall of Fame coach to go with them.  On this day, the Morton Lady Potters were the better team, winning the game 55-49.  The Lady Potters outplayed the Lady Iron through 3 quarters, more than matching Normal with their own high octane offense.  Lindsey Dullard, Tenley Dowell and Josi Becker took turns shredding the Lady Iron defense and the rest of the team made things tough on Normal throughout the game.

Morton pulled out to a 14 point lead to end the 3rd quarter, but Normal’s superstar (Maya Wong) came alive in the 4th quarter bringing her team back to within 2 points (49-47) late in the game.  Morton took care of the ball and made their free throws though to close out the game.  It was a very good game to start the season for the Lady Potters.

 

 

Game 2 – Morton vs. Champaign Central

In their second game of the season, Morton unleashed their offensive and defensive fury, on their guests from Champaign, from the opening tip.  Morton outmatched Champaign Central at every position and cruised to a 76-29 game.  Most of the people sitting around me thought the Lady Potters could have scored twice as many points in this game if Coach Becker had wanted to keep his foot on the throttle, but instead he took the opportunity to get his less experienced players major minutes.  As the game was in hand about 3 minutes into the game, the starters played together sparingly from the second quarter on.

Morton was impressive in this blowout win and looked like they had used the last three weeks of practice time very well.  They will need to get their rest tonight though and be their best for Saturday as they will face two more teams including the Richwoods Lady Knights, that also looked good today in taking down Normal Community by 9 points.  Richwoods is very talented, tall and quick with a predominantly Junior lineup.  They have three D1 prospects as well and will give Morton a good opportunity to see where they are right now as a team.  Morton faces Richwoods at 5pm on Saturday night.

Brian Newman, the Potterdome’s public address announcer, hit the words with a sledgehammer . . .

“And now . . . your . . . BACKKK! to BACKKKK!! to BACKKKKKK!!! . . . State champion Morton Lady Potters!”

And this was just an introduction during an exhibition, a practice session, really, an intrasquad scrimmage on a Red-White Night (or Cherry-Gray, if I must) a week before the Morton High School girls and boys begin their real basketball seasons.

Still, Newman was in mid-season form, more than once filling the building with his banshee-in-the-night cry celebrating a Potter shot made from beyond the arc, such as “Dowell, a threeeeEEEEEEEEEE!”

I liked every ounce of Newman’s energy, and I also liked the small, subtle, silent announcements high on the back of the Potters’ jerseys.

Under a line that read “State Champions,” there were these numbers . . .

2015
2016
2017

For all that, what I liked most is what I saw of the Potters on the court. The question the coach, Bob Becker, is asked most often is: Four in a row?

Once upon a time, Becker dreamed of getting a team to Redbird Arena. Then his team won a state championship, which was amazing. Then it repeated, astonishingly. And three-peated last year, which is why my third book in this unbelievable trilogy is entitled “The Unbelievables.” (The book is available at Eli’s, Potters’ home games, and at Mortonladypotters.com. Christmas is coming.)

As to what I saw – I saw good reason to think a fourth straight championship is possible.

I mean, why not? Yes, the Potters lost an all-stater, Brandi Bisping, a Division-1 recruit, the team’s fiery, combative heart. And they lost Jacey Wharram, a formidable, veteran force inside.

But one thing I’ve learned in watching the Potters for seven seasons now is that high school players are so young that with every passing year they become practically different people. They grow up. They get stronger in every way, mentally and physically.

So we might expect Tenley Dowell, a junior, to be more than she was last season, when she was sensational. Already four or five D-1 universities have her in their recruiting sights. Lindsey Dullard, a sophomore, grew in confidence at the end of her freshman year – and I’ve now seen her in a full-scale practice game against a pick-up team of high school boys, and I’ve seen her in last night’s scrimmage – and I can say it won’t be long before people who came to see Dowell will also take note of Dullard.

They’re both 6-footers who can shoot the threeeEEEEE!

“We’re going to score this year,” Becker has said.

And by that he means score a lot, which may be necessary because without Bisping and Wharram the Potters’ defense and rebounding may suffer. The good news is that he has a team of shooters. Four of the likely starting five – Dowell, Dullard, Josi Becker, Kassidy Shurman – are 3-point threats at any stage of a game. The fifth, Caylie Jones, is a good mid-range shooter.

Becker has been pleased with practices so far. “A great week,” he said after the Potters’ very first week. His only concern is building depth. He went eight deep last year. Right now, with Courtney Jones as the sixth man, Becker is looking for people to step up for the important seventh and eighth man roles.

Becker’s admitted search for depth tells you all that you really need to know about the Potters. Most high school girls teams are lucky to have two good players, one outstanding. To have three starters back from a state championship team, with three key reserves back from that same team, is to have an embarrassment of riches. To be worried about who’s your seventh and eighth man . . . well, that’s to be worried about very little, indeed.

Look at this. Out of habit, I started keeping notes of the first team’s scoring last night. In seven minutes of the first quarter, each starter had scored: Dullard from 15, Dullard a 3, Dowell a layup, Shurman a layup and free throw, Caylie Jones two 12-footers, Dowell a 3, Josie Becker a layup, Dowell a 3. It was 22-4.

They open at the Potterdome the morning after Thanksgiving. They’re ready.

 

MLP Interview Series – Volume I ‘SENIORS’

Lady Potter Studios is excited to present the MLP Interview Series for the 2017-18 Season.

To watch Volume I of this series click here: ‘Seniors’ (Class of 2018) 

This video interview series will interview players, coaches and alumni throughout the season.

 

As the Fall sports seasons wind down, basketball open gyms have began for the Morton Lady Potters.  The sound of basketballs bouncing, shoes squeaking, nets swooshing and players chatting it up can be heard in the gym again and it’s a beautiful thing.

All of the returning Varsity players worked hard this past off-season, playing with their respective AAU teams, working summer open gyms and camps and with their individual workouts and training programs with a single goal in mind.  To get back to Redbird Arena for a 4th consecutive year.  No program in the State of Illinois has been as successful as our Lady Potters have been the past three years, with three State Championships and 100 wins.

With each successful year comes a mountain of expectations for the next season and the target on your back grows larger and larger.  Our three returning seniors (Josi Becker, Caylie Jones and Kassidy Shurman) have been through this before.  Every year in fact.  So they know what to expect and will be vital to passing on the ‘Tradition’, expectations and work ethic to the underclassmen.  I can’t think of three better people to lead the team through this season than these three seniors.  They are strong, focused, committed, unselfish winners.  They have been to the State Championships every year they have suited up in a Morton uniform, going back to Jr High Basketball, and have a record of 152-9 in their MJHS and MHS careers. They certain know what it takes and are aware of the pitfalls that can get in their way.

I was told that after the State Championship last March, the team was staying in a hotel in Normal that Saturday night with several of the other Class 3A and 4A teams.  While there the players were given some advice about how to approach this season from an interesting source.  Jason Nichols, the Head Coach of the powerhouse Lombard Montini program was there and was willing, at that moment, to share some valuable insight with the Lady Potters about how they could get back to Redbird Arena a 4th time in a row and win it all again.

Coach Nichols had been there before, in the same situation that the Lady Potters are in now (winning three consecutive State Championships 2009, 2010 & 2011), and was probably the favorite, certainly among the Chicago press, to win it all in 2012.  Winning 4 in a row, was, and still is, something that has never been done in IHSA history in girls basketball and only once on the boys side of things, by the Peoria Manual Rams (before our current Lady Potters were born). I’ll get back to them in a minute.  Coach Nichols warned of complacency, over confidence and players following the beat of their own drummer.  Something that he felt doomed his 2011-12 team from accomplishing 4 in a row.  Speaking directly to the girls, he said the number one thing is to completely “BUY IN” (to what the coaches are trying to do).  He went on to compliment Coach Becker as one of the best in the business and that he could take them to the “promised land” once again if they all buy in to his vision.  He also said it is important to not take anything or anyone for granted and to stay hungry.  He said he thinks they have the talent to do it again, but it takes more than talent.  It takes a totally committed team.  Humble Swagger, as Coach Becker likes to phrase it, remains a very important factor in making the dream of 4 a reality.

I think these Lady Potters teams that have won three in a row, have some things in common with the Four-Ever Manual Rams.  They have done it with a string of talent in multiple classes, passing on tradition, work ethic, team pride, stayed hungry, put ego aside and bought in to what their coach (one of the best ever) was selling.  Stars would graduate and new stars were born as the mantle was passed to the next season.   Sound familiar?  We will reflect on the comparison of these two teams once again after the season if the Lady Potters are to pull off a FourEver performance this season.

The focus this season, I’m sure, will be on one game at a time, and the team will probably suffer a few setbacks along the way.  As they have proved over and over again however, I believe they will find a way if they Buy In and do what they have done every year.  Win together.  The Lady Potters start the season off in their own Thanksgiving Tournament (November 24th-25th) against two of the best teams in the area, if not the State this year, in Normal Community High School and Peoria Richwoods.  All three teams should be State ranked this year and include some of the best talent in the state.  Champaign Central and St. Thomas More are also featured at the Morton Thanksgiving Tournament, both very good programs with a strong tradition.

Anybody ready for some Lady Potters Hoops yet?  I know I am!!!!

 

Magically, it happened without him believing it had happened. Even when it had been made real, he couldn’t believe it was real. From hundreds of students came a chant, “THREE-PEAT . . . THREE-PEAT,” and even then Bob Becker walked in small circles, head down, as if searching for proof that, yes, it had happened. The Morton High School Lady Potters coach could be heard whispering, “You dream of just making it here . . .”

Here, Redbird Arena.

Here, where they play for the state championship.

Here, where today the Potters won a state championship for the third straight year.

Becker had coached the game of his life. When a coach was all that separated victory from defeat, he was a master. When it was over, when Morton had beaten Rochester, 43-37, for the Class 3A championship, Becker hugged each of his players, all 13, one by one. He had called them “smart” and “tough” and “resilient,” and they were all of that today when they most needed to be all of that.

Now the coach walked in small circles on the Redbird Arena court, no one with him, a man in a dreamer’s walk.

Close enough, you could hear him.

Whispering . . .

“Unbelievable.”

Might as well call this team The Unbelievables. All around Redbird, celebration. Becker found his wife, reprising an embrace they shared in March of 2015 when he whispered to her a rookie’s version of the words whispered by an old master today: “I can’t believe it.” Fathers wept with daughters. Benchwarmers danced with stars. As players and coaches stepped onto a small stage to accept medals, the students’ chant began anew, “THREE-PEAT … THREE-PEAT.” It’s not a Super Bowl and it’s not a World Series and it’s not LeBron defying gravity. It’s better. It’s 13 small-town girls making memories. They held high a big trophy that forever will bear their names: Brandi Bisping, Jacey Wharram, Josi Becker, Kassidy Shurman, Tenley Dowell, Caylie Jones, Lindsey Dullard, Courtney Jones, Olivia Remmert, Megan Gold, Bridget Wood, Clarie Kraft, Maddy Becker.

They’ll come home to Morton today for a parade that begins at the Farm & Fleet store and winds it way through town to the high school. At 1 o’clock there’ll be a public reception for the team at the Potterdome. At such a reception a year ago, assistant coach Bill Davis first said aloud, on the public address system for all to hear, the word that became this team’s goal: “Threeeeeeee!”

How bold a goal that was, and how boldly the Potters rose to it – even in today’s game, or, I should say, especially in today’s game. Rochester was strong, quick, and experienced. It was good at both ends, the best 3A team the Potters played all season. Morton led at halftime, 16-15, but had been unimpressive.

During halftime warmups, Becker called Brandi Bisping over. He wanted to know what his senior all-stater thought of his locker-room decision to go a trapping 1-3-1 zone press. “If the leader buys in, everybody buys in,” Becker said. Bisping had bought in immediately. “It was a good idea,” she said, “to give Rochester something they hadn’t seen.”

Quickly, Caylie Jones made the decision work. Her diving steal of a Rochester dribble gave Morton a jump-ball possession that Jones herself cashed in with a 17-foot jumper. Then, anticipating a lazy Rochester pass, Jones stole the floating thing to set up a Tenley Dowell 3.

Morton’s lead was four points, 21-17 – but, as suddenly as it was built, it was lost. Rochester went on an 8-0 run in 86 seconds. It led 25-21.

At that point, I scribbled a sentence on the Potters’ side of my notebook and put an asterisk by it as reminder of a moment that can turn a game . . .

“*How tough are they?”

The Potters had fought to take a 4-point lead, then lost it in half the time it took to build it. Some teams might find that dispiriting. For some it could be killing. I’d seen the Potters be tough all season, and I’d heard Becker proclaim their heart and resiliency and “burning desire to succeed,” and I’d seen him write on his coach’s whiteboard a pre-game reminder: “TOUGHNESS.” But that was against inferior opposition. This was against the best team they’d played all season with the state championship at stake.

So how tough are these Potters, really?

Unbelievably tough.

They scored the game’s next 12 points.

They took the battle to Rochester. They dared to shoot 3’s. Brandi Bisping moved outside and put up her first long one of the game. She made it. “Nobody came out on me, so I shot,” she said. Thirty-two seconds later, she did it again. Bold now and running hot, the Potters dared to be physical. We saw Bisping pumping both fists in celebration while flat on the floor after drawing a charge. Out of their press, the Potters stole the ball, forced bad passes, and drove Rochester to distraction. By the time another Dowell 3 opened the fourth quarter and gave the Potters a 33-25 lead, the Morton students had recognized what was happening. They chanted, “I BELIEVE WE WILL WIN . . . I BELIEVE WE WILL WIN.”

A couple minutes later, I made another asterisked note . . .

“*Becker manage the game?”

Hah. He hadn’t won 414 games in 18 years by being a potted plant on the bench. Before Becker, Morton girls basketball was nothing special. Now, in his 18th season, it is extraordinary. His teams have won 415 games. In the last three years, Morton has gone 33-3, 33-3, and 34-2. Do the math: it’s 100 victories, 8 defeats. Following the Potters’ 56-41 semifinal victory on Friday, a Chicago Tribune headline reported that Chicago Simeon had fallen to “Mighty Morton.”

Here’s how Becker managed the game when it most needed management . . .

Morton’s lead was 35-30 with 4:07 to play when Becker began a series of situational substitutions. When he needed ball-handlers, he sent in Lindsey Dullard and Jones. Defense, he sent in Kassidy Shurman (against a 3-point shooter who didn’t scored on her) and Jacey Wharram (against a post who got one shot, scoring only down 7 with 14 seconds to play).

Ten times in the last four minutes, Becker made those platoon substitutions. Rochester moved to within 36-33 but never closer.

Bisping led Morton’s scoring with 17 (and 11 rebounds). Dowell had 12, Dullard and Jones 5 apiece, Josi Becker 3, and Wharram 2.

And now that these 13 girls have done what no small-town girls had ever done, the question becomes . . .

“Can you win it again next year?” I asked the sophomore Tenley Dowell, who raised her chin a click, smiled, and said, “Yeah!”