By Mike McGraw
Executive Director
Basketball
is a strategic, team game. Living in the age of the ESPN highlight, that is
often an easily forgettable fact. In the short run, that oversight is
understandable as the beauty of raw athleticism that basketball can display
awes us all.
In the
long run, however, it is adherence to that principle, adherence to the notion
that the talent of a single part is relevant only to the degree that it
improves the performance of the whole, that made Indiana high school basketball
the highest quality product of its kind anywhere.
It has
been the ability of special coaches to create teams that achieved far beyond
anything their individual talent could have predicted that has endeared the
game to generations of Hoosiers. We all are thrilled by a thunderous dunk, but
a well-run, half-court offense stirs a much deeper appreciation.
With that
idea in mind, I want to sing the praises of a team that lost at Conseco
Fieldhouse last Saturday. The Jay County Patriots were a shining example of
what makes basketball in this state so special. They defeated three teams with
more individual talent just to make it to the finals, then came within a couple
missed free throws and one bad offensive possession of doing the same to New Castle.
Donâ??t get
me wrong. New Castle
was a great team with a great player. The Trojans deserved the title, and I am
thrilled for Basketball Town
USA. It is a
shame that Jay County will go down as a footnote in
tournament history, though, because that team was special. Letâ??s face it. The
Patriots didnâ??t feature a single player with a chance to play college ball at
anything but the very lowest levels. In all likelihood, there was not a college
player, period, on the floor in a Jay
County uniform.
What they
did put on the floor were young men who had been drilled in the fundamentals
until they were second-nature. The Patriots featured players who knew their
roles and never attempted to distort them.
Jay County reached the finals because it was
a nightmare to play against. The Patriots controlled tempo, played defense,
only took good shots, made needed adjustments, and completely trusted each
other. That sounds like the definition of a great basketball team to me.
New Castle coach Steve Bennett told us on â??Prep Sports Weeklyâ? March 29 that
playing Jay County
was like playing Wisconsin
without a shot clock. As you might expect, he had nothing but the highest of
praise for Patriot coach Craig Teagle, and neither do I.
Teagle did
exactly what a coach is supposed to do this year. He molded a team where the
whole was so much more than the sum of the parts. The Patriot players deserve
even more credit because you canâ??t mold people who arenâ??t willing to be molded.
These kids all put the achievements of the team above any individual glory.
It only
makes the story greater when you throw in the fact that this was the first
regional title in Jay
County history, let alone
semistate or state finals appearances. The rabid support of the Patriot
community was a throwback to the glory days of â??Hoosier Hysteria.â? That was
especially true March 25 at the Fieldhouse when the Patriot faithful were
combined in noisy nirvana with the legendary New Castle following.
By all
means, pay homage to Lawrence North. The 3-peat Wildcats will, by anyoneâ??s
standards, go down as one of the four or five greatest teams in Indiana history. Just
take a moment to remember that it isnâ??t the great teams, but instead the great
accomplishments, that feed the legend of Indiana
high school basketball.
So what do you
think? Share your thoughts in our Boys Basketball forum.
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