Crown Point falls to defending state champ Cardinals 52-37 at Regional Semifinals

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith
03-12-2008

Saturday, 03-08-2008 - Michigan City Regional Semifinal game at MICHIGAN CITY, IN

EAST CHICAGO (52) Angel Garcia 4-0-8, Kawaan Short 4-0-8, Derrell Conner 2-1-5, Matt Julkes 1-0-2, Bryce Walker 7-0-19, Henry Davis 2-0-4, Michael Harris 2-0-6, Tremel Cooley 0-0-0. DeMarko Johnson 0-0-0, Creon Harper 0-0-0.  TOTALS:  22-1-52.

FREE THROWS:  CROWN POINT (0-0, 0%);  EAST CHICAGO (1-4, 25%)  Short 0-2, Conner 1-2.

REBOUNDS:  CROWN POINT (21) Cecich 5, Alavanja 5, Burkholder 5, Albrecht 3, Lipton 2,   Hanaway;  EAST CHICAGO (24) Short 8, Walker 3, Garcia 3, Davis 5, Conner 2, Harper.

ASSISTS:  CROWN POINT (10) Hanaway 7, Albrecht, Lipton, Burkholder;  EAST CHICAGO (10) Conner 5, Walker 3, Julkes, Harris.

STEALS:  CROWN POINT (2) Alavanja, Lipton;  EAST CHICAGO (7) Conner 3, Walker 3, Short.

TURNOVERS:  CROWN POINT (5-4-2-2) 13;  EAST CHICAGO (1-1-1-4) 7.

3-GOALS:  CP (3) Stephen Albrecht 3, EAST CHICAGO (7) Bryce Walker 5, Michael Harris 2.

MICHIGAN CITY, IN (3-08-2008)  I'd like to complain about the fact that Crown Point played a quick team like East Chicago for 32 minutes Saturday and did not get one free throw. Not One.  I'd also like to complain that two obvious fourth-quarter goal-tending calls were not made against East Chicago' 6-foot-11 senior Angel Garcia.  Two.  Obvious.  I don't know what the referees were watching.

I'd like to complain about those things, but the reality of it is that Crown Point did not play well enough to beat a superior team at Saturday's Class 4A Michigan City Regional semifinals.   The finals score of 52-37 was not indicative of how most of the game was played, but it was indicative of who should have won.  The Bulldogs were not able to step up to the big stage of a midday crowd of almost 7,000 in the giant Michigan City gymnasium and East Chicago, the defending 4A state champion, seemed to love the regional semifinal spotlight displaying some rare (for them) intensity on defense in holding CP to a season-low 37 points.

"Our guys have played on the big stage," said EC first year coach Abe Brown, who seemed relieved with the win over a team that defeated EC 75-69 in mid-January.  "From down in Indianapolis to over at Northwestern (Evanston, Illinois).  We played in Toledo (Ohio) and they're prepared for whatever comes."

Crown Point quickly fell behind 6-2 and 10-6 in the first quarter, but two field goals by Albrecht, who averages 17 per game, tied the contest 10-10 after one period.

The Bulldogs began the game in a 2-3 zone and switched to a 1-3-1 in the second half.  To be fair, both defenses worked as the Cardinals were not effective offensively.  But the EC guard line of 5-foot-10 speedsters Derrell Conner and Bryce Walker bothered CP with their speed.  They had trouble with simple passes and committed nine first half turnovers when the game was truly lost.  The Bulldogs had chances to take the lead in the first half which would have forced East Chicago to be less patient on offense and could have created permanent foul trouble that could have swung the game.

The Bulldogs defended Conner (15.5 ppg.), Garcia (16.1 ppg.) and 6-foot-5 260-pound Kawaan Short (16.2 ppg.), but they could not also get out on Walker, who sank three three-pointers in the first half.  And when sophomore Michael Harris hit a three-pointer from the corner at the half, EC (20-3) led 27-21, much to the delight of approximately 3,000 EC fans in the crowd of over 6,500.

Crown Point immediately cut the lead to 27-26 with 5:50 left in the third quarter, but Walker sank another three-pointer and EC jumped into a trapping press which accelerated the game into a wild sequence where the Cardinals stole the ball twice.  When CP's Zach Cecich scored on a fast break pass from Kyle Hanaway to cut the lead to 34-28 with 3:30 left in the third quarter, EC went into a stall game against the Bulldog zone.

Conner and Walker exchanged the ball near the time line as the big crowd howled, but CP did not come out of the zone.  As time ran down to the end of the period, Conner was isolated on the left wing in front of the East Chicago bench.  He passed off to little-used sophomore Henry Davis on the baseline and Davis hit a 12-foot fade away shot, his only two points of the game, bringing a roar from the red-clad EC fans as the lead was rebuilt to 36-28.

CP's second year coach Clint Swan was very emotional after the game as his first CP team (the same players started basically for two years) fell after winning the school's first sectional championship in 10 seasons.  It was a definitive moment in the game.

"They wanted us to rush the shots and we didn't have to," said the Cardinals' coach Brown.  "All my staff wanted to hold the ball.  They gave me the confidence to do it and we did it.  Henry hit that baby 3 at the end of the third quarter.  Michael did it at the end of the second quarter.  We hit some shots."

"I had to chuckle at that," said Swan of the effective strategy.  "If you'd have stopped people on their way in and asked them which team might hold the ball, I don't think anybody would have said them.  We realized they were holding because Short was on the bench.  The last couple of minutes we got out there and challenged them a bit, but they made the play.  I thought the end of the third quarter and the start of the fourth was where they really put it away."
 
In the fourth quarter, CP was within 42-32 with 4:45 left when the Cardinals went on an 8-0 run that included three-point goals by Walker and Harris.  Albrecht scored at least three points in every quarter, but no one else took many shots and it was obvious there wasn't going to be any late rally.

"I thought we kept Conner and Walker away from the basket," noted the Bulldogs' coach Swan.  "We held Garcia and Short to just eight.  We did a phenomenal job on them.  But they just have so many weapons.  Walker hit a lot of shots.  We just cold not get the ball where we wanted it to go on offense."

Swan, to his credit, did not comment on the fact that Crown Point, for the first time in several years, did not shoot a free throw.  To be fair, EC only shot four foul shots themselves.  Other than EC holding the ball, at the end of the second and third periods, there was no delay offense.

In the 75-69 CP victory at East Chicago, a total of 69 free throws were attempted and CP hit 34 of 46, but that game was done by Northwest Indiana officials.  In a reverse of the traditional officiating patterns, the non-NW Indiana officials allowed much more physical play than the local officials did in January.  The officials clearly missed two second half goal-tending calls against EC's Angel Garcia, but EC had a sizeable lead by that time.  Saturday's group allowed a lot of hand checking and that clearly favored the faster EC boys.

Crown Point, on the other hand, reverted to their December form where they depended on Zach Cecich and Stephen Albrecht to score the points.

Swan pulled his regular players with 1:09 to go and let his seniors walk off to the cheers of the red-clad CP crowd.

"I just said 'Thank you' to them," he reported.  "I'm sorry we couldn't do better today.  They put a charge into our program and a lot of coaches put a lot of effort into making them a special program.  They were undefeated as freshmen.  To see the painted faces everywhere.  People you don't even know wishing you well.  They thought that was pretty cool.  It'll be up to the underclassmen now to keep the program here as it is."

DOG NOTES:  East Chicago lost a 16-point third quarter lead and lost the regional championship 61-60 to South Bend Riley later Saturday.  Riley (22-5) scored the final 10 points of the game as the Cardinals refused to hold the ball as their lead dwindled.  The title game ended with an unfortunate display as EC fans threw trash at the Riley players and fans who celebrated on the Michigan City floor.

Seven-time state champion Marion would beat South Bend Riley on March 15 to advance to the state finals.

For the first time in the history of the Indiana high school basketball tournaments, no team from the six county area we call Northwest Indiana (Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton, Jasper and Starke) advanced beyond the regional level in either the boys or girls playoffs.

East Chicago had, by far, the most fans at the Michigan City Regional.  CP's turnout was about 1,500 but EC had 3,000 or more.  The Cardinal fans brought signs and danced to the music in the big Michigan City gym.  CP fans had funny costumes and painted faces.

Derrick Garletts' brother Donovan, who played for Crown Point in 2003, is now an assistant coach at third-ranked Bloomington South for veteran 400-win coach JR Holmes.  He was in Michigan City to watch his younger brother because unranked East Central beat Bloomington South 33-30 in a sectional semifinal game.  Top-ranked New Albany would later beat East Central.

In EC's home loss to Crown Point in January, Kawaan Short, Derrell Conner and Angel Garcia combined for 44 points, but Stephen Albrecht scored 32 for CP.  Albrecht finished the season with 91 of 102 (89.2%) from the foul line, breaking the 40-year-old record of Joe Kacmar who sank 60 of 68 (88.2%) in the 1968 season.  Albrecht finished his career with 1,090 points.  The all-time CP career record is believed to be held by Jim Liss, who scored 1,315 points in 70 games from 1968 to 1971.

Zach Cecich, who was 5-of-10 from the field against East Chicago, failed to set a CP single-season record for shooting from the field.  Cecich finishes 2008 with 126 baskets in 204 attempts (61.8%), which falls short of what had been the long-standing record of Bob Bieker, who sank 80 of 135 (59.3%) during the 1966 season.

But the record Zach did not break was his own.  Cecich broke Bieker's record last season when he sank 133 of 195 (68.2%) from the floor.

Aleks Alavanja (75-of-146, 51.5%) was one of three CP starters who shot better than 50% from the floor.  Jake Burkholder (51 of 85, 60%) was the third.

Crown Point made 252 turnovers in 24 games, an average of 10.5.  Kyle Hanaway finished with 173 assists, an average of 7.2 per game.

Providing hope for the future is junior guard Michael Lipton (3.6 ppg.) who was 7-of-20 from three-point range and 21-of-26 from the foul line (80.8%).  Lipton only played 15 minutes a game and 7-of-20 is not a legitimate sample of anybody's shooting.  But you can't shoot 21 of 26 from the foul line because it's your lucky day.  Junior CJ Mantel made all six of his foul shots in very limited duty.