Crown Point continues to rise
By Mark Smith msmith@post-trib.com February 7, 2012 2:44PM
Crown Point's Braxton Rice goes to the basket in the first quarter with Merrillville Jelani Pruitt defending in the first quarter Friday evening at Crown Point High School. | Jeffrey D. Nicholls~Sun-Times Media
Crown point 64. MERRILLVILLE 52
MERRILLVILLE (8-7) 11 - 6 - 11 - 24 = 52
CROWN POINT (7-8) 12 - 20 - 11 - 21 = 64
2-3-12 @ Crown Point
MERRILLVILE (52) BJ Jenkins 2-8-12, Zoran Talley 5-4-16, Jelani Pruitt 5-4-14, Jalen Wilbert 1-4-6, James Wright 0-1-1, Frank Jefferson 1-0-2, John Mosely 0-0-0, Jake Raspopovich 0-0-0, Isaiah Wilson 0-0-0. TOTALS: 14 (21-30) 52.
CROWN POINT (64) Tommy Bardeson 4-10-19, Braxton Rice 4-3-11, Bret Barclay 5-4-15, Dejan Stefanovic 0-2-2, Sean Kelly 3-0-6, Nick Jeffirs 3-0-6, Alex Nickla 1-2-4, Zak Bostian 0-1-1, Zach Plesac 0-0-0. TOTALS: 20 (22-25) 64.
FREE THROWS: MERRILLVILLE (21-30, 70%) Jenkins 8-8, Wilbert 4-6, Talley 4-4, Pruitt 4-6, Wilson 0-2, Jefferson 0-1, Raspopovich 0-1, Wright 1-2; CP (22-25, 88%) Bardeson 10-10, Barclay 4-4,Nickla 2-2, Stefanovic 2-2, Rice 3-5, Bostian 1-2.
REBOUNDS: MERRILLVILLE (20) Pruitt 8, Talley 4, Jenkins 4, Wilbert 2, Raspopovich, Mosely; CP (30) Barclay 10, Bardeson 6, Kelly 5, Bostian 3, Rice 3, Stefanovic 2, Nickla.
ASSISTS: MERRILLVILLE (4) Jenkins 2, Raspopovich, Talley; CP (12) Bardeson 5, Stefanovic 4, Bostian, Barclay, Kelly.
FOULED OUT: CP (1) Bret Barclay (4th Q) :41.
3-GOALS: MERRILLVILLE (3) Zoran Talley 2, Jalen Wilbert; CP (2) Bret Barclay, Tommy Bardeson.
Article Extras
Updated: February 13, 2012 12:35PM
CROWN POINT — You really don’t want to dwell on it since he’s not coming back.
It’s almost disrespectful to the winners and the losers to keep mentioning it as a major factor.
But it is what it is. The big difference between last Friday’s 64-52 Crown Point win over Merrillville and a 65-64 CP loss at Merrillville in December clearly was Merrillville’s big man.
With 6-foot-9 Merrillville senior center Ed Seay out for the season with a knee injury, CP (7-8), which trailed all the way in December, led almost all the way Friday as the Bulldogs posted their third consecutive win.
Crown Point held the visiting Pirates (8-7) to just 17 points.
Good defense? Bad offense? Or the lack of the very tall player that Merrillville was accustomed to having on the floor?
“You work all summer every day,” said Merrillville rookie coach TJ Lux, “and then it’s all blown up and you have to do something different. We had 13 total rebounds. Edward had 11 last time we played them. I’ve been around long enough to know that you can’t win shooting 3s.
“We can’t play as individuals. We have to play for each other and we can’t settle for three pointers.”
“He’s one of my favorite players,” said CP coach Clint Swan of Seay. “When he got hurt, I wrote him a note and told him that he has better days ahead. To hang in there. And he acknowledged that tonight (the two talked in the handskae line after the game). It’s hard when a senior gets hurt.”
Crown Point deserved to win and they were good for three quarters, building a 21-point lead behind the tall trio of 6-foot-5 junior Tommy Bardeson (19 points, 5 assists), 6-foot-5 sophomore Bret Barclay (17 points, 10 rebounds) and 6-foot-6 junior Braxton Rice (11 points).
CP’s long-armed defense was good, as it has been much of the season, but Merrillville, with no one taller than 6-foot-4, has not scored more than 53 points in any of the Pirates last four games.
“We’re coming together but this was just one game,” Swan said. “We’re still getting healthy. We had a couple guys back for the first time or the second time tonight. We’re playing better.”
Merrillville went through a first half where it could do nothing offensively, scoring 17 points on 5-of-23 shooting. Senior forward John Mosley played just seven minutes due to foul trouble and CP, even though they shot just 9-of-27, led 32-17.
The lead was at 47-28 with 7:30 left in the game when the Pirates stagee a late rally behind scrambling, double-teaming full-court pressure that forced some CP ballhanding and judgment mistakes, including two missed dunks on plays that could have iced the game.
“I knew they’d make run,” said Swan, whose team suffered through a 22-8 Merrillville run over five minutes of the fourth quarter. “They weren’t just going to go away because they’ve got the guards.
“I think back in December, we lose this game after they came back the way they did. We showed poise down the stretch, at least at the very end. When we had to have stops, we got stops. When we had to have scores, we had scores, and we were 22 of 25 at the foul line.”
“It’s tough to beat anybody good when you shoot 23 percent in the first half,” said Lux. “We shot 23 percent. We had nine turnovers in the first half, but we were only down five there at the end (55-50 with 2:23 left), so there’s some positives there, but we have to figure things out pretty quick. We have to decide that are the team that played in the second half, not the first half.”
CP doesn’t have many seniors and guard Dejan Stefanovic has been a steadying influence, often the only upperclassman on the floor. He has started with Zach Plesac out, and has come off the bench.
“You have to be ready right away,” said Stefanovic, who has himself battled injury and illness through his four years. “You don’t have time to get into the game.”
“We had to have a close game mentality,” said Swan, who even excused the missed dunks by Barclay and Rice. “I thought that Bret needed to set that one down. I thought he got hit but he’s got to finish that play off.
“I didn’t want our guys playing not to lose. From the six minute mark to the three minute mark, we played not to lose and it hurt us. For most of the game we did a good job defensively keeping them in front of us. Zoran Talley is a great shooter and I thought we did a good job against them. They missed a lot of shots but we did get some stops.”
Stefanovic, though he did not score a field goal in 24 minutes, was on the floor at key moments and helped CP work through the fourth quarter high-speed moments.
“Most of our guys are not good for my blood pressure,’ said Swan. “Dan is very good for my blood pressure level.”
CP has won five of its last seven games and the Bulldogs may be convincing themselves that they can win Class 4A Sectional 2 at Michigan City next month
“I definitely think we can,” said Stefanovic. “If we haven’t beaten all the teams in the sectional, we’ve played pretty well against them. We’ve had some guys out (Zach Plesac and Nik Jeffirs), but now they’re back and that’s helping us. I think we have a pretty good chance.”
DOG NOTES: Members of the Purdue University marching band and dance team made their annual visit to Crown Point Friday. The band members, wearing Purdue T-shirts, merged with the CP band to play during the game, boosting the volume level in the gym to an all-time high.
The Purdue dance girls, wearing black and gold uniforms, performed at halftime and after the game. It made a relatively small crowd seem large and definitely livened up the game.
The Boilermaker band members displayed much more organized cheers and much better player heckling techniques than the CP band or student section.
If the Purdue band “dropping by” once a year is a recruiting tool for future Purdue students to join the band and dance team, I would guess it works because the Purdue kids seemed to be having more fun than the CP kids at times.
Friday was also the annual “autograph night” where CP players sit down at a table in the hallway outside the gym and sign autographs for all comers.
I’m not certain that every player is comfortable signing autographs but this annual session always goes better if the home team wins, which was the case Friday.
CP didn’t say much about it but junior guard Zach Plesac missed three games with a broken hand. Plesac returned Friday but played only three minutes. Freshman center Nick Jeffirs, who had mononucleosis, came back against Boone Grove on Jan. 28 and played nine minutes Friday against Merrillville.
Dejan Stefanovic was knocked down on a lay-up attempt that was blocked by Merrillville’s high-flying Jelani Pruitt (14 points, 3 blocks), and he fell hard on his hip and had to leave the game in the second quarter. Stefanovic returned in the second half and played the fourth quarter against the Pirate full court press.
“I thought Dan showed a lot of courage tonight,” said Swan. “He came back into the game when a lot of guys wouldn’t have.”
Crown Point will host South Bend Washington (13-2) on Saturday, Feb 11. The Panthers could be 14-2 when they get to CP after a game with South Bend rival (6-11) Thursday night (2-9-12).
Its not certain if CP has ever faced Washington before but the Bulldogs did play South Bend Adams from 2002 to 2005 when Tom Johnson, who is now at Wheeler, was CP’s head coach.
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