By E. Shawn Aylsworth
Managing Editor
Class 4A top-ranked Bloomington allowed fellow Conference Indianaunbeaten Pike to hang around for the game’s first 11 minutes before the Panthers pushed their perfect record to 14-0 Jan. 30 with a dominating second half in a 75-50 victory.
Mr. Basketball candidate Jordan Hulls, a 6-foot senior guard, scored a game-high 23 points to pace the Panthers, who entered the clash even with the Red Devils at 4-0 in league play. Bloomington South, which drilled then-4A No. 9 Franklin Central 77-45 last weekend, has now defeated its two closest conference competitors by a combined 57 points in a span of seven days.
Tied at 22 after Pike’s R.J. Hunter’s jumper with 5:02 left in the opening half, Bloomington South exploded with a 53-19 run over the next 18 minutes in establishing Conference Indiana supremacy. That included an 8-0 spurt to finish the third quarter up 55-38 after Pike has trimmed a 14-point deficit down to nine on a pair of free throws.
Hulls was joined in double digits by three Panther teammates: 6’9″ junior post Erik Fromm (14 points), sophomore guard Darwin Davis Jr. (12), and Spencer Turner (12). Pike was led by the 19 points of Marquis Teague, with 12 of those points coming in the first period.
Bloomington South switched to a 2-3 zone to stop dribble penetration late in the quarter. It worked extremely well.
“The zone really slowed them down,” Hulls told the Indianapolis Star. “We got some stops, then we got some fast-break opportunities on the other end.”
Added 27th-year Bloomington South coach J.R. Holmes about the Indiana-University-bound Hulls: “I think he showed why he’s a very high Mr. Basketball candidate.”
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