Area teams finding out hard lesson: size still matters, but guard play can overcome
Last weekend, McDonell Central’s size and length were too much for the shorter Catholic Central Hilltoppers.
While basketball involves a team of 12-15 players, it’s unique in that one player can win a championship almost single-handedly.
Carmelo Anthony in 2003 with Syracuse, Michael Jordan at times in his dominant reign, even LeBron James in his career. King James averaged 40 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in last year’s NBA Finals and willed the Cleveland Cavaliers to two victories despite the overwhelming mismatch Golden State enjoyed.
While teamwork, chemistry and work ethic can push you far, it doesn’t take a degree in the basketball arts to figure out that three players 6-foot-5 or above will have a distinct advantage over a team with a 6-foot-4 center.
The Macks overmatched the scrappy Hilltoppers to win the Division 5 state championship, 63-41, thanks to the fundamentals of defense, offensive execution and will to win.
But at times, individual players caught the hot hand.
Hats off to the Toppers for a memorable season. A school of 181 students, and less than that in the past, has advanced to the state title game five times since 1976, with three state championships (1984, 2001, 2006) to show for it.
That’s very impressive considering Catholic Central draws from mostly western Walworth, western Racine and western Kenosha counties.
A team like Whitefish Bay Dominican, which last weekend became the first team in state history to win five consecutive state championships, has the luxury of drawing from Milwaukee County, which has more than 1 million residents.
Keep fighting the good fight, Toppers, it’s paying off. Small school size and a small town of 10,000 means the coaches and teachers must be elite.
And they are.
Second-year coach Kyle Scott, along with assistants Dan Meddaugh, Joe Spierenburg, Stephen Smith and team energizer Eric Dostalek, bring a youthful exuberance that makes the players want to work hard each day and reach their maximum potential.
Catholic Central is a prime example of making the most of what you’re given, and with starters Aaron Rueber, Frank Koehnke and Cole Pankau back in the fold next year, expect another top-four finish in the Metro Classic Conference.
Also, don’t sleep on Hayden Kempken. Albeit garbage time in the fourth quarter, Kempken showed a natural touch around the basket in the state championship game, and he will provide paint presence at 6-foot-5.
The moral of last weekend’s tournament is that size and length will never die in the game of basketball.
Despite the anomaly that is the Golden State Warriors, who win virtually every game they play using players 6-foot-8 or smaller, high school basketball is still about size.
The Burlington Demons learned this the hard way, as a taller, more physical Fort Atkinson squad bumped them from the postseason.
Furthermore, Waterford and Union Grove featured mostly all-guard lineups, and when bigger teams came around in March, it was too great a mismatch.
Recipe for success
First, it’s ideal to have two to three skilled guards who can knock down 3-pointers, but you absolutely need two to three big guys (6-foot-4 or more) to control the paint, grabbing offensive rebounds, disrupting opponents on layup attempts and occasionally providing low-post scoring.
Free throws help, too.
Make them.
No excuses.
I believe Burlington shot better than 65 percent as a team this season, and foul shooting won several games for the Demons.
In last Friday’s WIAA state semfinal, Catholic Central’s last two points were foul shots, one from Ben Heiligenthal and the other from Frank Koehnke, and that was the difference.
I advise young players to shoot 100 free throws every day. Start close to the hoop, shoot 50, back up three steps, shoot another 50 and finish with 100 from the foul line.
When you’re strong enough, maybe around 10 or 11 years old, back up to the 3-point line and shoot 50 triples.
Year in and year out, free throws decide games, and the 3-pointer is taking over basketball. Stephen Curry, the best player on the planet currently, didn’t just show up and hit half of his 3-pointers.
OK, his dad was an NBA player, and his mom was an athlete, but Curry worked his butt off to achieve this level of success by putting up shots in the gym whenever he could.
Can a local team win state?
It’s an extremely competitive area, southeastern Wisconsin, for local basketball.
Milwaukee and Madison dominate when it comes to talent, but that doesn’t mean the suburbs can’t compete.
McDonell won it all with its elite skill combined with basic fundamentals of defense, dribbling and shooting.
I know all of the stars must align, but I truly believe a Southern Lakes Conference basketball team can win state in this era.
In fact, the Union Grove girls have as good a chance as anyone in Division 2 next year, with conference player of the year Brooklyn Bull returning.
Hang in there, area basketball fans. The progress has been tremendous.
In the last calendar year, Catholic Central boys, Waterford girls and Union Grove girls have all reached a sectional final.
The Hilltoppers became the first area (western Racine County) basketball team to make state since the Topper girls went in 2007.
OK, so the Toppers had the school’s all-time leading scorer, Heiligenthal, just like the Waterford girls (Madison Blair).
The Union Grove girls were one layup away from advancing to Green Bay. They have a great crop of talent at the moment, and coach Rob Domagalski says next year’s freshmen have potential.
But I have to ask, what will it take to win a state championship?
Talent, fundamentals, team chemistry and visionary coaching are always factors.
The basketball programs at Burlington, Catholic Central, Waterford and Union Grove are in good shape.
As more and more kids defect from the inner city to the suburbs (like the migration of athletes who drive from Racine to Union Grove high school), things should continue to even out.
I just hope to the basketball Gods I’m still around to see it.
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So when was the last time a City Conference team won a state championship??? Pretty sure the recent dominant programs of Wisconsin have names like Stevens Point, Germantown, DePere…
The issue isn’t the dominance of urban schools – the issue is that there isn’t a strong focus on basketball in the Southern Lakes area, the boys are more keyed in on FB and baseball and club volleyball kills most girls basketball programs before the season even starts.
Look at the ’06 CC team – of the 7 man rotation, only 1 kid played football– none of the others played a fall sport.
Also might check your list of the CC staff – might be missing a key member…but then again this is just another short-sighted, poorly researched, garbled set of words masquarading as an opinion piece.
Couple of comments – the 7 man rotation of the ’06 squad had 3 kids play in fall sports (2 were in XC).
I do agree that that basketball is this area is a 2nd or 3rd sport choice behind baseball and football for boys and volleyball for girls.
The author wants to make the readers believe that CC was some huge “Hoosier-esk” underdog because, CC is a school of only 181 students and “Catholic Central draws from mostly western Walworth, western Racine and western Kenosha counties.”
The reality is that the state tournament is played in divisions, where schools play other schools of the same size, so CC is playing other small schools. They have no disadvantage of size.
Additionally their “drawing area” is much much larger than their competition. I’m sure if you asked many of the teams CC beat in the playoffs that those teams would say that in fact, CC has an unfair advantage in the students they can “draw”.
While I appreciate the homer spin from the author, lets not get carried away with facts.
Speaking of “not getting carried away with facts”, you should talk. Of the 11 kids on the state roster just one would be for someone outside the Burlington “drawing area”. And that kid was from Lake Geneva. Every other kid came from an area smaller than the area BHS draws from.
Of course CC played similar sized teams in the playoffs. You did forget to mention that CC beat D2 Waterford, played SLC members Union Grove and Westosha. CC beat D4 St. Cats, St. Joe’s, Prairie and Shoreland. It wasn’t “Hoosier-esque” but it was a great run by a great group of local kids!
wcbsas,
I think you just proved the original poster right. While McDonnel Central has a drawing area of Chippewa Falls (population 13,661), Barneveld, the team CC defeated has a population of 1,236. Meanwhile, even if you only consider Burlington and Lake Geneva as a drawing area that gives you a population of 27,364. Our fearless sports-writer says that CC draws from a much larger area as well.
I don’t think anyone was suggesting that CC’s run wasn’t a great run, and fun for those involved, but I would agree with the other posters in saying that this group of young men was not the underdogs that Mike is suggesting in the article.
I know the smaller schools don’t like the fact that schools like CC are now in their division. You are talking schools with sometimes 15-20 people in a class, coming from a town of 900 people and throw in s few farms out in the country. That is your picking pool. Then they see CC perennially in the playoffs and coming from a town of 10-11,000. Trust me I’ve heard the complaining.
So sick of reading about how great CC or other private schools are. They actively recruit players who would be average at best in their home district school. Then play these tiny little schools and think they are much better than they are
1. You claim that they actively recruit – true, private schools recruit, they have to in order to keep their doors open – unlike public schools, they don’t have a system that funnels students into the building, so you are correct – they do recruit, because that keeps the light on. If you think that these schools(private schools) are the only schools in the state that recruit for sports reasons, then you have some blinders on. Throughout the state, public and private recruit players for athletics – with open enrollment in effect, any student can go to any school – and open enrollment affects every school in this area as well as the state. Plus – if they were to recruit for sports – why would they choose the “average” players – that is a poor recruiting strategy.
2. CC plays in the Metro Classic Conference, which is the toughest small school conference in the state. The teams in it consistently beat Southern Lakes Teams – Racine St. Cats, Racine Lutheran, Prairie School, Dominican, St. Joe’s, Martin Luther – as we speak right now (including this Senior Class) how many Division 1 college basketball players are playing in the Boys Southern Lakes Conference? I’ll help, 0. In the Boys Metro Classic – there are 8 Division 1 College basketball players playing on five of the teams in the Metro Classic (Dominican has 2, St. Joes has 2, Cats has 1, Prairie has 1, Martin Luther has 2). So again, please tell me that CC plays poor teams – if you say it enough it might come true.