MARTINSVILLE -- Bloomington High School North turned the ball over 20 times Friday night, had its best player saddled with first-half foul trouble and faced a ferocious opponent. Yet the Cougars managed to get a critical Conference Indiana 4-A basketball road win at John R. Wooden Gymnasium.
How did the third-ranked Cougars do it? First, they got a combined 26 points from reserve guards Errek Suhr and Kelvin Boatner. Then they put together a 24-7 run to start the fourth quarter. Those were the major differences in what was a hotly-contested 67-59 BHSN victory.
Senior Jared Jeffries, a Mr. Basketball candidate and Indiana University signee, had only two points at halftime after drawing his second foul with 5:13 before intermission. When the 6-foot-9 forward left, the Cougars (5-0, 10-0) led 18-17. But they didn't miss a beat and led 29-19 four minutes later after two free throws by Scott May.
"That's what great teams do," Jeffries said. "They pick you up when you are having an off night. We're not about one player."
Suhr, the freshman guard, scored eight points in the first half, leading North back from an early 8-2 deficit. Boatner added five points in the opening half.
"Martinsville is big and played a 2-3 zone," North coach Tom McKinney said. "They packed it in and we had to have somebody hit some shots. We have four guards who all do good things and they made some shots tonight."
Suhr finished with 14 points and Boatner 12. Starters Scott May and Matt Kalua combined for nine more. Meanwhile, the Cougars held Artesians' standout T.J. Wolf to a 5-of-18 shooting night. Wolfe finished with 17 points to lead Martinsville (3-4, 7-5).
"Martinsville has two good guards too," McKinney said of Wolf and Clay Tannehill. "We had problems with their press and halfcourt trap. Plus, (Jason) Ferguson came in and hit three threes.
"Martinsville played well. They will get better. Since their big guy, (Zach) Reuter, just got healthy, you will see them peak later in the season."
The Artesians played well in the third quarter Friday night. They actually won the third quarter. Trailing 29-23 at halftime, Martinsville unleashed a halfcourt trap out of a 1-3-1 zone to start the second half. This caused North problems handling the ball. As a result, the Artesians won the third quarter 13-9 and only trailed 38-36 entering the final stanza.
McKinney must have made his case for moving the ball crisply down the floor with the diagonal pass in the break between the quarters because North broke down the Martinsville pressure at the outset of the fourth quarter. In five and a half minutes, the Cougars went on that 24-7 run to lead 62-43.
"The pressed us and trapped us, and we played out of control," McKinney said. "That's the first team that's pressed us and zoned us an entire game. We finally started passing the ball down the floor and negating the traps. That's when we made the run."
Meanwhile, Jeffries caught fire. He scored 13 second-half points, and he finished with 12 rebounds, three assists, two blocked shots and made all nine of his foul shots.
"Martinsville played really hard," Jeffries. "It was a hard-fought game for both teams.
"This was the first team that played that pressing style the whole game against us. We practiced it all week, but practicing it against the reserves is different from playing against it against a team that does that all the time. We knew we had to listen to coach and learn during the course of the game. I think we eventually learned what needed to be done and that's when we took off. And in the long run this was good for us. We will see presses, traps and zones again down the road."
Martinville coach Tim Wolf felt his team made critical mistakes to start the fourth quarter and that allowed North to pull away.
"We just had a breakdown in the fourth quarter," Wolf said. "We kinda got away from what we were doing. We got flighty. We had three guys chasing one man in the press, we took a few bad shots and lost our momentum.
"Jeffries also took over in the fourth quarter. He can do that. Their guards were the difference, though. They scored 35 points. They played well."
Cougar sophomore center Sean May, who missed much of practice this week with turf toe, added 13 points and five rebounds before sustaining a cramp in his right calf in the last two minutes.
North, which was very cold in the first quarter, found its shooting touch and finished at 55 percent from the field for the night.
The Cougars host Owen Valley next Friday night at 7:30. The jayvee game starts at 6 o'clock.
The North JV team lost 40-39. Mike Davis led the Cougars with 15 points. Dustin Huff led Martinsville with 12.
© 2000 dbulla@indiana.edu