Tuesday, Dec. 01, 2009

Panthers roar out of the gate 4-0 with a tournament championship

O'Fallon coach Rick Gibson's lost voice was the only major casualty for the Panthers during a 4-0 championship performance last week near Peoria.

Competing in the Methodist Medical Center Invitational at Washington High as part of the State Farm Tournament of Champions, the Panthers brought home championship hardware with junior guard Roosevelt Jones winning MVP honors.

Jones poured in 26 points in an 81-80 double-overtime victory over highly regarded Arkansas powerhouse Little Rock Hall in the championship game.

Josh Buie came off the bench to score 13 points -- including eight in the second overtime period -- while Shane Watson fired in 18 points and Chevaughn Lawrence had 14.

"We don't win that without (Buie)," Gibson said. "He had eight points in the second overtime and really came up big with some rebounds and steals."

A year ago at this time, the Panthers were 0-5 on the way to a 13-16 season. There were plenty of doubts then, but those doubts have been replaced by anxious hope.

"You don't want to get too excited, but you are excited," Gibson said. "It seems like a world of difference this year compared to last year, but you want to keep your kids grounded and let them know 'Hey, this is the first week of the season.'

"We don't want to live off something that happened in November. We want to be proud and be happy about that, but not hang our hats on it."

The Panthers' 4-0 run highlighted a 17-2 run by the Southwestern Conference last week. It included 4-0 Alton beating 3-1 Belleville East in the championship of the Alton Tournament and new Collinsville coach Darin Lee guiding the Kahoks to a 4-1 record at Jacksonville.

O'Fallon needed overtime to beat Springfield 56-51 and also posted impressive wins over 2009 Texas runner-up Sherman (74-58) and preseason 3A fourth-ranked Peoria Notre Dame (60-56).

This was no typical early-season round robin event. This tourney included top-ranked teams from several states, including several that either won or played for state championships last season.

"It was great for the fans and great for the players," Gibson said. "We were getting to play some teams that have some high-profile Division I recruits."

That list also includes Jones, whom Gibson felt was as impressive on the defensive end as he was with the ball in his hands.

"Every single game he had a double-double in points and rebounds," Gibson said. "That's pretty impressive to do that against the caliber of teams we were playing, plus against the players he was doing it against."

Jones averaged just over 16 points in the four games.

"He also defends and rebounds and gets other guys involved," Gibson said. "He doesn't feel like he has to score 28 or 29 points to impress anybody. He's so unselfish."

Gibson also likes Lawrence's overall game, especially his defense and rebounding. The Panthers' deep bench was highlighted by Buie's title game heroics.

"We've got guys playing a lot of minutes off the bench and that kind of separated us from those teams," Gibson said. "The only comfortable game we had was against the team from Texas, but they had the best individual athlete that we played against. O'Fallon returns to action with a conference home game Friday against Granite City, followed by another home date with Centralia on Saturday.

Althoff learns a lot at Lincoln

While the Althoff Crusaders hoped to be better than 3-2 at the Lincoln Thanksgiving Tournament, coach Greg Leib saw plenty of positives.

"That's not what we wanted, but we're not standing on the ledge of the roof either, "said Leib, whose team's losses were to defending Class 3A state champion Champaign Centennial and the host Lincoln Railsplitters. "It helped us understand that we can compete with these guys. We had our opportunities to win the games, we just didn't get it done."

Althoff's tourney finale included 27 points from Carson Sonnenberg and 25 from David Franklin in a 91-80 victory over Danville.

Sonnenberg and Althoff point guard Alex Mumphard each made the all-tournament team. Sonnenberg averaged 19.2 points at the tourney while Franklin was at 15.8.

Limited by a tough zone defense against Lincoln, Sonnenberg broke loose against Centennial and Danville.

"He had a put-back dunk and we haven't seen him do that in practice," Leib said. "Carson had a nice tournament and he went back to cleaning the glass again. He was getting some nice offensive rebounds."

Sonnenberg also erupted for 27 in an earlier 83-63 win over Cahokia. Franklin scored 17 points while Alex Mumphard and Sonnenberg each had 15 in a 71-63 loss to Centennial.

Leib said the emergence of Franklin was important.

"He's got a niche for scoring," Leib said. "He can shoot the ball and he's really worked to get to that point."

Leib said senior guard Devin Griffin (11.5 points per game) suffered an ankle injury against Centennial and did not play against Danville.