Nonconference - Saturday, 1-17-2004  at Crown Point

ADAMS (41)  Lee Booker 1-1-3, Kevin Hill 3-2-10, Ryan Wentz 2-0-4, Cordell Suggs 4-5-13, Steve Newson 1-3-5, Armone Neely 1-0-2, Brian Carter 2-0-4.  TOTALS: 14-11-41.
FREE THROWS: 11-12, 91.6 percent - Booker 1-2, Hill 2-2, Suggs 5-6, Newson 3-3.
FOULED OUT: none
3-POINT GOALS (2) Kevin Hill 2.

CROWN POINT (43)  Aaron Miller 4-3-12, Mark Patrick 0-2-2,  Brian Maloney 2-1-5, Kyle Ernest 4-1-9,  Ryan Brown 1-0-2, Seth Henderson 1-0-3, Sam Henderson 4-1-10, Jordan Ham 0-0-0, Mike Smith 0-0-0.    TOTALS: 16-8-43
FTS: 8-12, 66.7 percent - Miller 3-3, Sam Henderson 1-2, Maloney 1-3, Patrick 2-2, Ernest 1-2.
FOULED OUT: none
3-POINT GOALS (3) Seth Henderson, Sam Henderson, Miller.

Duneland Athletic Conference (DAC) - Friday, 1-16-2004  in St. John

LAKE CENTRAL (67)  Scott VanDer Meer 7-5-19, Krtse Krstevski 2-4-8, David Hoffmaster 0-4-4, Kevin Parkinson 4-2-10, Brett Sumers 6-0-12, Jon Maida 4-0-8, Jovan Alvanja 0-4-4, Tom Kline 1-0-2.  TOTALS: 24-19-67.
FREE THROWS: 19-34, 65.9 percent - VanDer Meer 5-11, Krstevski 4-5, Hoffmaster 4-6, Parkinson 2-3, Summers 0-3, Maida 0-1, Alvanja 4-4, Kline 0-1.
REBOUNDS (47) VanDer Meer - 15
ASSISTS: Hoffmaster - 3
STEALS: Krstevski - 3
FOULED OUT: none
3-POINT GOALS (0)

CROWN POINT (56)  Aaron Miller 7-2-19, Mark Patrick 4-1-11,  Brian Maloney 0-0-0, Kyle Ernest 0-1-1  Ryan Brown 1-2-5, Sam Henderson 4-3-13, Seth Henderson 0-1-1, Jordan Ham 2-0-6, Mike Smith 0-0-0.    TOTALS: 18-10-56
FTS: 10-19, 52. 6 percent - Miller 2-5, Patrick 1-2, Ernest 1-2, Sam Henderson 3-3, Seth Henderson 1-3, Brown 2-4.
REBOUNDS (19) Patrick - 7
STEALS: Ernest - 2
ASSISTS: Miller 3, Patrick 3
FOULED OUT: Ryan Brown, Mark Patrick (4th quarter)
3-POINT GOALS (10) Aaron Miller 3, Mark Patrick 2, Jordan Ham 2, Sam Henderson 2, Ryan Brown.

CROWN POINT (1-17-2004) -   It was the coldest darkest day of the New Year and that seemed fitting for Crown Point basketball. With the holidays a history and any hint of spring hidden behind day long gray, foggy, snow flurried skies, last Saturday just didn't seem the day for anybody to be born, much less born again. Much less a team that had lost eight in a row. The whole scene screamed, long way to go and a long time to get there. In terms of the basketball season, this was a true 'dog day'.

It turned out to be a Bulldog day.

With a spirited effort all night long and just enough free throws and defense to hold on in the end, Crown Point ended an eight-game losing streak and won for the first time since Thanksgiving, edging formidable South Bend Adams 43-41.

"We won," smiled CP coach Tom Johnson, who has not been able to say that for almost seven weeks. "Adams is a good team. They beat Plymouth at Plymouth. They beat Riley last night."

"Our kids hung in there. You can see that we don't have the confidence to finish a team off like we want to, but you can't get that without winning. We haven't won a game since November 29."

This game looked like a CP victory from the start but you were never sure until the final horn. The Bulldogs led 11-4 after one quarter but were jolted when a 9-0 run at the start of the second half gave the Eagles, from the Northern Indiana Conference (NIC), a 24-21 lead with 5:21 left in the third period.

Playing without top scoring guard Chachi Albrecht, who missed both weekend games after a concussion suffered against Chesterton on Jan. 9, the Bulldogs' Aaron Miller sank two free throws and scored on a driving lay-up and an offensive rebound to put the home team ahead once more. When 6-2 junior Sam Henderson stole the ball for a half court driving lay-up and also cashed in a spinning drive down the lane, the Bulldogs had seesawed to a 31-26 advantage after three quarters.

Crown Point had led Lake Central, Valparaiso and Chesterton by 10 or more during their losing streak, only to lose in the end. So even when another driving lay-up by Miller put the Bulldogs up 38-33 with 3:34 to play, you knew it wasn't over.

Crown Point missed a couple of free throws and made a couple of turnovers to let the quicker Eagles, 71-66 victors over Riley in an NIC game 24 hours earlier, tie the game 39-39 on a three point shot by wing shooter Kevin Hill with 1:15 to play.

But Crown Point, a 67-56 loser at Lake Central (10-2) on Friday, got a break when Junior Mark Patrick was fouled far from the basket. Patrick's two free throws gave CP a 41-39 edge. A steal by Kyle Ernest set up a situation where the Bulldogs' Brian Maloney split two free throws for a 42-39 lead but Adams' 6-3 forward Steve Newson grabbed a rebound, got fouled and sank two foul shots to make it 42-41 with 21 seconds to play.

In a wild scene near the scorers' table, Adams guard Brian Carter stole the ball, but lost it to CP's Henderson, who got fouled by Carter with eight seconds left. Henderson missed the first free shot but made the second, giving Adams one last chance. 

Adams' Lee Booker, a speedy guard who played all 32 minutes for the second night in a row, sailed down the lane and there was plenty of contact as CP defenders stepped in front of him. The ball bounced free to 6-3 senior Ryan Wentz, who had scored 29 against Riley. Wentz, with no defender in his face, had a 10-foot shot to tie the game. The wing shot was too long and bounced of the rim.

"We thought he got fouled," said Adams coach Pat King, "But you're not going to get the call in that situation. We didn't need a '3'. We thought we could get a basket or two foul shots and take it to overtime. They (CP) played hard and we were a little tired. No excuses. This was the same thing that happened to them last year. They'd just beaten Valparaiso the night  before. They came out there and we beat them by 24."

"They play in a much tougher league and they needed a win. We tried to tell the boys that they were hungry for a win."

King said that basketball is different in the South Bend-Elkhart area. "It's a lot more physical here," he said.  "The stereotype you hear about region basketball being so physical is true. We got 28 foul shots last night (against Riley) and we got what... 12 tonight?  But the referees call it that way. No blood. No foul. That's just the way it is."

Johnson hopes the upset win over a school that will finish the year with a winning record, starts something good for his largely junior squad.

"We've had really bad trouble at the foul line this year," he admitted. "We missed some down the stretch but we're getting better. Maybe now when we go to the line, we'll feel like they should go in. I want free throws to be so automatic that they just go through their routine and shoot without thinking about it. There's no catch phrases. There's no secrets. Its coming but it'll take time."

The Bulldogs faced back-to-back games for the first time all season and they won the back end, a change from last year. In 2003, CP played back to back games six times and lost the second game the last four times. They also stopped the longest Crown Point losing streak in four years. What CP is going through isn't totally unexpected, facing one of the state's top 50 schedules with an almost totally inexperienced team. There is a feeling that the 2005 Bulldogs will look back on this streak as a time of 'paying dues.' They'll exaggerate how dark and cold the days were, how hard it was to win just one nonconference game. And they'll laugh about it.  

Johnson could only smile at this point.

"Hopefully, next week we can carry it over to Michigan City. Hopefully, we'll have Chachi back and that will help. We found ways to score without him. I thought we played pretty well and we needed that."

DOG NOTES:  Adams coach Pat King says that the only thing Adams and Crown Point basketball have in common is probably him and CP coach Tom Johnson. "I've known Tom for years going back to (the early 90s) when he was at Oak Hill and I was at North Miami. We want to keep playing each other but Tom is waiting to see how this double-round robin thing works out. If they keep it, he's told me he may have to drop us."

CP lost to Lake Central despite a significant rally. "With two minutes left in the third quarter," said Johnson, "we were down 50-31. "We chipped away at it and got back in the game. We were at that point where we've been on the road so far where we just get rolled over. And we turned it around. We played better. But let's face it, we gave up (to LC) 28 offensive rebounds. They're going to get some rebounds. But you can't give up 28 to anybody."

Adams is in the very odd Class 4A Michigan City Sectional 3 with LaPorte, Michigan City and three other South Bend city teams, Clay, Washington and Riley. Because of the distance involved between the site (MC) and most of the teams, it was agreed that quarterfinal games would be played at home sites. That's a mixed blessing. 

"You don't want to draw an opening round game at LaPorte," King said. "It'll all come down to the draw. Seth Henderson, Sam's twin brother, is playing with a large bandage on his right hand. "He just sprained it."

"This is the first time we've played a Friday-Saturday game," said Johnson, "and this is awful late in the season to do that for the first time. I'm a firm believer that you need to start that in December. We have four of the next five weekends Friday and Saturday. We've got to deal with that. You need to have those early so in February you can get back to one game a week to get your legs back."

"I'm not blaming anybody because our schedule got messed up with the double round robin. But it's something we need to address in the future. We need to find out if the double round robin is going to be a permanent thing. The administrators who were in favor of it are going, 'Why did we want to do this?'"

"I think they thought it would work out better but they're finding out that boys and girls (from the same school) playing on the same night just isn't working out. We always have a really good student body crowd. But I think that it's a shame that the students have to choose."

The Bulldogs host Michigan City Friday and the Wolves have fallen on hard times since beating Crown Point last month. MC lost at home to Chesterton 68-60 last Friday despite 19 points from forward Malachi Mitchell. Chesterton sank 10 three-point field goals.

It won't come as a statistical surprise that Crown Point is 3-0 in nonconference games, 3-3 at home, 0-5 on the road and 0-8 in then Duneland Athletic Conference.

CROWN POINT (3-8, 0-8)
Coach Tom Johnson (8th year)

Nov. 26:  W, 56-50 Gavit  (3-9)
Nov. 29:  W, 62-40 Griffith  (7-6)
Dec. 5:  L, 48-78 at LaPORTE (13-2)
Dec. 12: L, 59-60 LAKE CENTRAL (10-2)
Dec. 16: L, 53-56 Valparaiso (10-2)
Dec. 19: L, 46-55 MICHIGAN CITY (2-8)
Jan. 2: L, 32-51 MERRILLVILLE (3-8)
Jan. 6: L, 42-68 at PORTAGE (6-7)
Jan. 9:  L, 51-53 CHESTERTON (9-3)
Jan. 16: L, 56-67 at LAKE CENTRAL (10-2)
Jan. 17:  W, 54-49 South Bend Adams (10-4)
Jan. 23 (F) MICHIGAN CITY (2-8) 7:30 pm
Jan. 24 (S) at East Chicago (5-6) 7:30 pm
Jan. 30 (F) at VALPARAISO (10-2) 7:30 pm
Jan. 31 (S) Munster (11-1) 8:00 pm
Feb. 6 (F) MERRILLVILLE (3-8) 7:30 pm
Feb. 12 (TH) LaPORTE (13-2) 7:30 pm
Feb. 20 (F) PORTAGE (6-7) 7:30 pm
Feb. 21 (S) at Lowell (7-3) 7:30 pm
Feb. 27 (F) at CHESTERTON (9-3) 7:30 pm

PORTAGE (4A) SECTIONAL
March 3 (Tu)  quarterfinals - 6 p.m.
March 6 (F) semifinals - 6 p.m.
March 7 (S) championship

MICHIGAN CITY (4A) REGIONAL
March 14 (S) semifinals - 11 a.m.
March 14 (S) championship - 8 p.m.

Lafayette (4A) Semistate
March 21 (S) one game championship (TBA)

State (4A) Championship
March 28 (S) 7:15 p.m.
at the Conseco Fieldhouse - Indianapolis

Copyright © 2004 USA-365.com and Meyer Multimedia Services, a division of Meyer Broadcasting Corp.  All rights reserved.
Revised: July 10, 2004 .