LaPorte capitalizes on Bulldogs' cold shooting to win Sectional opener 56-46 in Boys Basketball

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith
03-04-2010

CROWN POINT (46) Jared Smoot 4-2-10, Sean Crary 2-1-5, Dejan Stefanovic 3-3-11, Michael Albrecht 6-2-16, Evan Langbehn 1-1-3, Zak Bostian 0-1-1, Peter Parks 0-0-0, Tommy Bardeson 0-0-0, Billy Brown 0-0-0.  TOTALS:  16 (10-16) 46

LaPORTE (56) Dustin DeMuth 9-5-24, Jake Craft 2-4-8, Rich Leslie 3-4-11, Pat Spence 3-0-8, Evan Jurjevic 2-0-5, Scott Vaughn 0-0-0, Emerson Cooper 0-0-0, James Snyder 0-0-0, Chris Webb 0-0-0, Jake Eaton 0-00, Jacob Carnes 0-0-0.  TOTALS:  19 (13-19) 56.

FREE THROWS:  CROWN POINT (10-18, 55.6%) Albrecht 2-3, Langbehn 1-2, Stefanovic 3-4, Zak Bostian 1-3, Crary 1-2, Smoot 2-4.
LaPORTE (13-19, 68.4%) DeMuth 5-9, Craft 3-4, Leslie 4-4, Vaughn 1-1, Jurjevic 0-1.

REBOUNDS:  CROWN POINT (26) Smoot 12, Albrecht 4, Stefanovic 3, Crary 3, Parks 2, Langbehn 2; LaPORTE (19) DeMuth 8, Jurjevic 4, Vaughn 2, Craft 2, Spence, Carnes, Snyder,.

ASSISTS:  CROWN POINT (7) Stefanovic 2, Albrecht 2, Langbehn, Bardeson, Crary; LaPORTE (12) Craft 5, Jurjevic 4, Leslie 3.

BLOCKED SHOTS:  CROWN POINT (6) Jared Smoot 5, Sean Crary; LaPORTE (4) Dustin DeMuth 4.

3-GOALS:  CROWN POINT (4) Dejan Stefanovic 2, Michael Albrecht 2; LaPORTE (4) Pat Spence 2, Rich Leslie, Dustin DeMuth.

Crown Point_vs_LaPorte_Sectional Statistics_03-02-10.pdf

Crown Point_Season_Statistics-Final_03-03-10.pdf

MICHIGAN CITY, IN (03-02-2010)  The Duneland Athletic Conference (DAC) seems determined to end use of an age old basketball cliche: "It's hard to beat a team three times."

In the DAC, all teams must play all other teams twice during the regular season, and with seven DAC teams in 4A Sectional 2, there are a lot of 'third' meetings.

Tuesday night in the giant Michigan City gym, two teams faced a foe for the third time in 4A Sectional Two on opening night of the 100th Indiana state tournament.  Both times, the team that won the first two games, also won the third meeting.  Valparaiso defeated Chesterton for the third time this season and LaPorte went 3-0 against Crown Point, eliminating the Bulldogs 56-46 in front of a slim Tuesday night crowd.

As has been the case in most games this season, Crown Point (8-13) created enough shots to win, but failed to make them.  CP was officially 16 of 52 from the floor, a painful 30.8%.  The Bulldogs were 4 of 17 from three point range.  The polite thing to say is that LaPorte's defense had something to do with it and certainly that's true as far as it goes.  But no Bulldogs shot 50% or better in the game.  Not even 1-out-of-2.  CP played well enough to win.  They out-rebounded LaPorte 26-19.  The Bulldogs committed only 10 turnovers.  But they never led after the first four minutes because they just couldn't shoot.

"In the first half," I thought we were aggressive," said CP coach Clint Swan.  "But we shot 7 of 24.  You can't do that against a team like LaPorte.  In the second half, they were more aggressive.  Instead of fighting back, we backed down a little.  A team like LaPorte, they are always on the attack.  If they sense the slightest timidness, they are going to jump on it and they did."

Crown Point led 4-3 when LaPorte started an 8-2 run that included three baskets by 6-foot-3 senior baseball star Dustin DeMuth.  CP junior Michael Albrecht led an 8-3 run to tie the game 14-14.  CP used a 2-2-1 press to slow LaPorte's pushing the ball up the floor and they had the Slicers stalled on offense.

The Bulldogs created open shot after open shot in the second quarter and just couldn't hit very many of them.  Pat Spence hit a three-point shot at the buzzer to give LaPorte a 22-19 halftime lead.  LaPorte led 26-25 with 5:58 left when the Slicers started a 14-2 run as DeMuth did what he wanted to do, scoring 11 third quarter points.

The Slicers hit enough three-point shots to spread the Crown Point defense and attack the basket and CP center Jared Smoot.  Smoot blocked five shots, but LaPorte did score on some slashing layups.  The Bulldogs cold not consistently respond.

Smoot's final game of the regular season ended with 10 points, 13 rebounds and five blocked shots.  In his first season as a starting center and just his fifth year (he didn't begin playing until junior high) the junior showed significant improvement.

"He came a long way in a relatively short period of time," Swan said.  "Now the leaps and bounds that he made... he has to make those same leaps and bounds between now and the start of next season.  If he does that, he'll be a force."

"I think that a very positive aspect of that is that, by the end of this season, people were asking me why we don't throw it into him more.  That's a measure of how much he improved. Hopefully, he'll continue to get better."

CP guard Michael Albrecht, the leading CP scorer (18.9 ppg.) all year, scored 16 with two assists and one turnover in his final game of the year.  Visibly, Albrecht, who is only about 160 pounds, seemed to tire late in the season.  He played all 32 minutes (the entire game) eight times and over 33 minutes twice, largely because CP could not function without him.  Swan didn't think Albrecht tired.

"No," said the coach.  "I think he was a victim of the double round-robin.  Not just him.  But everybody gets scouted against and again.  In the first half of the season, I thought he went against some one-on-one situations.  As the season went on, he never saw a one-on-one situation.  When he tried to take his man off the dribble, there was someone else there.  He was trying to take two or three guys off the dribble."

"How do we combat that?"  Swan answered his own question, saying, "We have to shoot higher than 29% from the floor in the first half.  That's how we get him one.  Jared come back better.  Evan (Langbehn) comes back better.  We all come back better and it takes the pressure off him."

TOURNAMNET NOTES:  Crown Point players Brent (Scooter) Jacobus and Jordan Jurasevich were declared ineligible for Tuesday's Class 4A Sectional quarterfinal by the IHSAA Tuesday due to their participation in a pickup game over the weekend.  Coach Clint Swan said the pair would have been eligible had CP defeated LaPorte and advanced.  No one made a public statement, but the boys apparently did not know that a pickup game played against other Crown Point students not in the basketball program could affect their eligibility.

The late Tuesday night quarterfinal was highly unpopular with Crown Point people.  Less than 200 fans showed up from Lake County.  LaPorte, just 10 miles east of Michigan City, has maybe 400 fans.

In 21 games in the 2010 season, Crown Point scored less than 50 points 10 times.

Michael Albrecht was credited with only 41 turnovers all season, playing over 31 minutes a game in 21 games.  Albrecht was 45 of 138 (32.6%) from three-point range.  The CP junior was 105 of 136 (77.2%) from the line and he had 73 (3.4) assists.

Jared Smoot (7.5 ppg.) ended the season with 202 rebounds (9.6) and 51 (2.4) blocked shots.  Evan Langbehn (4.7 ppg.), a sophomore, started in all 21 games.  Junior Sean Crary (10.4 ppg.), who transferred in from Andrean, played in all 21 games.

The most telling statistics for CP's 8-13 season:  It's no secret to anyone.  The Bulldogs were 76 of 292 (26%) from three-point range and 380 of 1,062 (35.7%) from the floor as a whole.  There's no way to win championships in big school basketball with shooting percentages that low.

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Revised: March 13, 2010 .