Not that the losses were tough in the sense that we might have won. These were just humbling losses, showing us how far we have to go yet to be competitive with the better homeschool teams in the region.
Friday night was the opener, against tenth-seeded Wabash (we were the twelfth seed), a homeschool team from Terre Haute. I wasn't there, but I was following as best as I could on the internet. (The info bulletins sent out by the organizers noted two places where the scores were supposed to be posted. They weren't in either of the those two places, but I finally found that at least periodic updates were posted on the host team's website.) I was encouraged when I saw that were were only down fourteen at half, 29-15. A while later I got a call from Andrew that the second half did not go well. Apparently we had trouble holding on to the ball, and Wabash got a million fast break points in the second half. Well, a lot anyway. Wabash scored 52 points in the second, and the Patriots scored 24, making the final 81-39. One bright spot was that Justin had his best game of the season, and arguably the best anyone on the team has had. He shot ten of eighteen from the field, three of six from the line, with seven rebounds and four steals.
Saturday morning's first game was against Anderson, the ninth seed. The guys had seen a little of them the night before, and were surprised to see the team that showed up Saturday. At least four of the players that were there Saturday were not there Friday. Andrew, talking to some people connected with another program, found out that Anderson and at least one other team at the tournament were not exclusively homeschoolers. Apparently these new players were in school Friday and couldn't make it in time for the games that night. So any scouting that was done was kind of worthless. Anderson had a couple of talented players, especially one big guy with a very nice touch around the basket. They didn't figure out that they should feed him until the second half; in the meantime, HSRC stayed relative close. Anderson played good one-on-one defense, especially on the perimeter, but had a tendency to lose guys down low. We exploited that somewhat in the first half, and were only done twelve at the half, 33-21. In the second, Anderson kept feeding the ball to the big guy underneath. He was very strong, and as earlier noted, had a nice touch. They kept this up for the third and part of the fourth. Our offense was a little less effective. Anderson outscored our guys 41-19 in the second for a final of 74-40.
Which brings us to the final game of the tournament for us. Noblesville, the eighth seed. They didn't look that great in warmups. They weren't very tall. They had lost two games like us, albeit against higher seeds. But we were going into the game without Steve, which turned out to be a problem. We could have used another ballhandler, as Noblesville turned out to be a team of pickpockets. We could not stand in one place dribbling for more than a second before a Noblesville player would steal it. If we did get it into the frontcourt, we couldn't hit a shot. So that was the story of the first quarter. Noblesville would steal the ball and run it in for a layup. Occasionally we would get off a shot, but mostly it was turnover after turnover. HSRC ended up with thirteen turnovers in the quarter. The score at the end of one was 31-2, Noblesville. The second quarter saw Noblesville playing their bench the whole quarter, but they were nearly as good at being ball thieves as the first string. Their offense was not the same, so they only scored eight while giving us only one basket. The first string was back in for the third, but they backed off on the pressure. This kept their score down and gave us some breathing room. We worked it inside for a couple of baskets by Justin and one by Luke L, while only giving up thrirteen. The same pattern occurred in the fourth, but with Noblesville bench players on the floor. Our scoring was spread around, including a basket by Peter, his second of the season. Each team scored nine in the quarter resulting in the 61-19 loss. As noted earlier, however, Justin was named to the all-tournament team.
Here are the cumulative stats for the tournament:
On Saturday we have the state tournament. The boys start things off against Rockford at 11:15. The girls follow at 12:30 against HRK of Gurnee. Then the boys will likely follow at 1:45 in the third-place game (Rockford is the sixth-ranked homeschool team in the country), and the girls will finish against Crossroads at 3:00. Then no more HSRC sports until next year, and no more high school sports for my kids.
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