Tippecanoe Valley Set To Play Pendleton Heights In Frankfort Semistate

By Jen Gibson, Times-Union Sports Writer

Because of the new format the IHSAA has adopted for the boys and girls basketball postseason, coaches all around the state are scrambling to gather information about opponents.

Tippecanoe Valley coach Bill Patrick is no exception. Because he is an experienced coach, he wasted no time relishing Valley's 47-43 victory over West Lafayette in the regional. Instead, he got right to work locating tapes and scouting reports to prepare for Saturday's semistate game against Pendleton Heights.

As of Thursday evening, Patrick had six videotapes and several scouting reports on 16-7 Pendleton Heights, which defeated No. 1 Maconaquah in its regional, and he and his assistants were diligently pouring over the videos to scavenge as much information about the Arabians as possible.

"Pendleton Heights has a really good player in (Traver) Griffin," said Patrick. "He's 6-foot-6 or 6'7", and he's a very good player. He had 20 points in the last quarter against Maconaquah.

"Maconaquah switched from zone to a man-to-man, and he walked all over them. He's a Division I player."

Griffin leads the Pendleton Heights squad with 24.0 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. He shoots 56.7 percent from the field, 33.3 percent from three-point range and 71.4 percent from the charity stripe.

"Matt Obras is a good starter as well," Patrick said. "He is big and strong and a good rebounder."

Obras is the second-leading scorer for the Arabians with 8.4 points per contest. Obras pulls down 5.4 rebounds and shoots 54.7 percent from the field.

"From what I can tell from the tapes," said Patrick, "they play a pretty solid man-to-man defense for the most part. They press a little and play a 2-3 zone as well.

"Offensively they have the two big guys with Griffin and Obras inside. They get a big part of their scoring from the run.

"Griffin shoots well from 15-18 feet, and he steps out and shoots once in a while."

However, Griffin and Obras are not the only Pendleton Heights weapons Valley will have to deal with. Ryan Lee is another force the Vikings will have to go up against.

Lee, who shoots 56.0 percent from the field, scores 6.2 points, dishes out 6.1 assists and grabs 1.8 steals per contest for the Arabians.

"At guard, Lee is strong," said Patrick. "He's 6'0", but he doesn't shoot a lot. Their other starters, (Justin) Rummell and (Brandon) Risch, are both good starters as well.

"They have seven kids who play, so they are basically seven-deep. Taylor, a 6'5" sophomore, comes off the bench and plays pretty well for them."

With the weapons the Pendleton Heights squad possesses, Patrick has a specific goal for his Vikings.

"We are going to try to figure out a way to stop the two 6'6" guys inside," said Patrick. "They get most of their offense from inside, so we will need to play tough defense inside."

Along with playing tough defense, Valley will look to two major offensive threats of its own: Brandon Eaton and Cody New.

Eaton averages 20.7 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.8 steals per game. New adds 16.8 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game.

The Vikings will also look to senior Craig Kuhn at center to provide some extra heighth. At 6'5", Kuhn pulls down 2.6 rebounds per game and scores 3.9 points per contest. Against West Lafayette in the regional, Kuhn exploded for seven of Valley's 16 fourth-quarter points to help the Vikings earn the 47-43 victory.

Valley will look to Noah Silveus and Anthony Domenico to direct the action on the floor and dictate the tempo of the game.

Valley will tip-off against Pendleton heights in the second game of the Frankfort Semistate at 12:30 p.m. Saturday.

Warsaw Faces Merrillville In Lafayette Semistate

By Jeff Holsinger, Times-Union Sports Editor

The best semistate in the state is the Lafayette Jeff 4A Semistate.

The four teams -ÊNo. 2 25-1 Marion, No. 4 22-2 Merrillville, 20-4 Penn and 19-4 Warsaw - are a combined 86-11. In the eight semistates, five of them have teams that have combined for 19 or more losses. The semistate closest to Lafayette's is Indianapolis, where the four teams are a combined 83-13.

Warsaw faces Merrillville in the second game, scheduled for a 12:30 p.m. start. The game features two coaching heavyweights in Warsaw's Al Rhodes and Merrillville's Jim East. East enters the game 486-255 (.656) in 32 years of coaching, while Rhodes enters 368-121 (.753) in 20 years of coaching.

Rhodes said in beating Fort Wayne South Side in Tuesday's regional, his players did their best job of the season in carrying out a gameplan from start to finish.

Now the gameplan changes dramatically.

South Side was a strong rebounding team that liked a full-court, fast-paced game.

Merrillville's strengths are its guards, and the Pirates are a half-court team. Rhodes believes guards James Borom, Lonnie Randolph and Marvin Smith are the quickest guards Warsaw has faced this season. The Pirates average fewer than 11 turnovers a game.

"Merrillville is 22-2 for good reason," Rhodes said. "They have lightning-quick guards, all excellent defenders and players difficult to guard from a dribble-penetration standpoint. Their guards go to the boards tougher than Fort Wayne South Side's did.

"They are an excellent rebounding team, very disciplined on offense with a lot of half-court sets, more structured than Fort Wayne South Side. They don't look to fast-break.

"They do a very good job of helping and recovering on defense. Their help-side defense is very good, the people from the weak side are always in the help position, much like Plymouth."

Rhodes would know. By Saturday, he will have watched seven Merrillville game tapes.

"We'll spread the floor," Merrillville coach Jim East said. "Our three guards are pretty quick and are good ball handlers. Once we get the lead, we like to spread it out. We've started games off in four corners.

"Warsaw is much bigger than we are, but that means we may have the quickness advantage."

Two of Rhodes' tapes are Merrillville's games against Chesterton. Merrillville has two losses, and both came to the same team - Chesterton. Rhodes attributed the losses to Chesterton difference-maker Brett Buscher, a 6-foot-8 Purdue recruit.

East said his Pirates were either short-handed or distracted both times. The first time, a player just had a death in the family, another had a broken wrist and another had just broken his nose. The second time, senior 6'4' forward Jake Argenta, the team's second-leading scorer, was sidelined with a hip flexor.

On Thursday, East said his team could be short-handed at semistate. Argenta, who averages 12.9 points per game, has strep throat. He did not attend school Thursday, and should he play Saturday, East said, "it will be without three days of practice."

Said East: "I'd like this matchup with Warsaw a lot better if I knew for sure Argenta wouldn't be sick."

With Argenta, the Pirates lack little. One thing Rhodes finds is lack of a consistent perimeter threat.

"They don't have players who can catch and shoot the three-pointer," Rhodes said. "Hopefully, we can put a crowd around the ball. They play like the Cincinnati Withrow guards, and to defend their dribble penetration, you have to back off and play excellent position defense."

East conceded the outside shooting, saying, "We're not like anyone else left in the tournament - we don't shoot. We shot zero three-pointers in the regional, and in three sectional games, hit 4 of 7 three-pointers."

In two sectional games and one regional game, Warsaw has put games on ice with this year's new stall tactic. Warsaw fans know the stall tactic called "Iowa," but "Xavier" has been used in three postseason games. None of the opponents have come close to cracking it, and it has led to back-door baskets and caused chunks of time 90 seconds or longer to tick off the clock while the Tigers have the lead.

"We have worked at Xavier for theee years and used it occasionally, and this team happens to be very good at it," Rhodes said. "It's been good against all three teams in the tournament. What happens, you hold the ball and people trap a lot, and that's let us hit some layups in the tournament because of that."

Whichever team wins faces the winner of the Marion/Penn game. On paper, Marion is favored to win this semistate, but East said the Giants better focus on getting past Penn.

"Marion better not overlook Penn," he said. "They are very sound, a very nice ball club that has size inside and a sound defense and sound offense. They took apart LaPorte in the regional, and they were at semistate last year.

"No one has anyone who can match up with (6'8' Marion senior center) Zach Randolph. The question is whether they can drain their threes. If they do, no one has a chance to stay with them."

Rhodes does not have to worry about Marion -Êyet. He hopes he will have to worry about Marion Saturday afternoon.

"Winning sectional and regional has improved this team's confidence," he said.

Triton Plays No. 1 Blue River Valley In Kokomo Semistate

By Dale Hubler, Times-Union Sports Writer

BOURBON - Ric Flair, the white-haired professional wrestler from North Carolina who was known for using the figure four leg lock on his opponents, used to say that to be the man you had to beat the man.

Welcome to coach Joe Bennett's world.

Saturday at 12:30 p.m., Bennett will lead his 16-8 Triton High School boys basketball team against Class A top-ranked 21-2 Blue River Valley in the second semifinal game of the Kokomo Semistate.

"We're kind of an unknown quantity," said Bennett, in his second year with the Trojans. "Everyone knows who they are. No one expects us to be here. That could play to our favor."

If Blue River Valley knows where Triton is on a basketball map, it's probably because of Triton's girls team storming to this year's state title.

Fact is, the Trojans won the sectional championship a year ago for the first time since the mid 1960s. The Vikings, on the other hand, have won three consecutive regional championships, with their last two seasons ending at the semistate round of the state tournament.

"Within the last three years, since the start of class basketball, they've been ranked one, two or three," said Bennett. "They've been at the top ever since the start of class basketball."

Triton advanced to Saturday's semistate at Kokomo High School by winning the Culver Sectional championship and then defeating Michigan City Marquette 41-34 in the Triton Regional.

Blue River Valley, under first-year coach Barry Huckeby, advanced by winning the Tri High Sectional championship and ousting Monroe Central 74-68 in the regional round.

As evidenced by the stat sheets, if Triton is to advance to the semistate title tilt against the winner of the Southern Wells/Lafayette Central Catholic game, it will have to put some points on the board.

Blue River Valley has scored fewer than 61 points one time this season, in a 58-54 win over Wes-Del. Viking opponents have managed to score only 60 points on five occasions this season.

"They have great balance in scoring," said Bennett. "They have a sophomore guard who scores 20 points per game and a post player who scores 17 points per game. They have a point guard with excellent quickness who loves to penetrate. They've played in big games. They're No. 1. They've had an excellent season."

The sophomore guard Bennett is referring to is 6-foot Kyle Cox, who comes in averaging 24.9 points per contest. In Blue River Valley's 91-82 win over Lapel, Cox scored a school-record 59 points. Six-foot-6 post player Phillip Griffith currently averages 12 points and seven rebounds per game. Blue River Valley also gets nine points per game from seniors Nathan Schmidt and Jimmy Jessie.

"They have outstanding quickness in their guard,"said Bennett. "And they have exceptional definition of their roles. So we need to move and know we're guarding and where we are on the floor at all times. Offensively, we need to work on using each other and work on crashing the boards."

Triton's offense enters Saturday's confrontation having scored 65 points five times this season. Currently, the Trojan offense averages 59 points per game, while its defense gives up an average of 52.1 points per contest.

Six-foot-1 senior forward Brandon Zeider spearheads the Triton scoring attack with his 17.8 points per game average. He is the only Trojan who averages in double figures.

Senior Brian Klingerman and junior Joey Potter add seven points per contest each to a Triton offense that has five players averaging between 4.5 and 7.4 points per game.

Two areas the Trojans have clearly beaten their opponents in this year are rebounding and assists.

Led by the 6'3" Klingerman's 6.4 rebounds-per-game effort, the Trojans have outrebounded their opponents by an average of 10 boards per contest.

As a team, Triton has dished out 314 assists this season, an average of 13.1 per game. Senior Austin Unterbrink leads the team with 112 assists on the season, an average of 4.9 per contest. Zeider is second on the team in total assists with 72.

Southern Wells (8-14) and Lafayette Central Catholic will clash in the 10:30 a.m. game of Saturday's Kokomo Semistate.

Southern Wells advanced by narrowly topping Bethany Christian 38-37 to capture the school's first regional championship.

Lafayette Central Catholic won three games in the Clinton Central Sectional and then topped Caston 55-49 in the regional round.

The winners will clash in an 8:15 p.m. title tilt, with the winner advancing to next Saturday's state finals at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. [[In-content Ad]]