Althoff takes down Mater Dei with scary display of 3-point shooting

After watching the Althoff Crusaders sink nine 3-pointers in the first half Saturday during their home opener, Mater Dei coach Ron Schadegg had seen more than enough.

“Unbelievable,” said Schadegg, whose team lost 79-60 and watched Althoff (5-1) hit 13 3-pointers on 25 attempts from beyond the arc. “Anything we tried to do, they’d counter and they had success at everything. I know this for a fact, we won’t see anybody better this year so that’s a positive — unless we see them again at some point.

“They’re good.”

Althoff begins the season as the state’s top-ranked Class 3A team and the Crusaders played like it on Saturday.

Senior Illinois-Chicago recruit Tarkus Ferguson had 18 points to lead four players in double-figure scoring. Senior Keenen Young had five 3-pointers, including four straight in the first half, and finished with 17 points while Marvin Bateman had 16 and Jordan Goodwin had 12.

Mater Dei senior Nick Pollmann led all scorers with a career-high 23 points, including 19 in the first half.

Althoff led 25-12 after the first quarter and 50-31 at halftime, using a combination of 3-pointers, quickness and defensive pressure to surgically remove the Knights (1-1) from contention.

“I think they’re basketball savvy enough to understand that maybe if the shots aren’t falling, then we’ll adjust our game and attack it,” Althoff coach Greg Leib said. “But teams will still have to respect the shot with what they’ve done in the past. We’re not that team in Wisconsin that tries to score 130 a game, we’re just trying to play basketball and get good looks.

“If the guys shoot it in rhythm, we’re content with that look for a possession.”

KEY SEQUENCE

Althoff unleashed some long-range missiles in the first half, hitting nine 3-pointers on the way to a 50-31 halftime lead.

Young had four of them, including a 24-footer at the end of the first quarter, and Bateman hit three straight from beyond the arc during the second quarter.

“I thought the first half (it was) just their ability to share the basketball in transition and then they just made every shot they threw up,” Schadegg said. “They don’t just throw them up, they shoot them to make them and I thought that hurt us early. That hurt us and any time they did miss they just pursued the ball and (got) second-chance opportunities.

“They’re very unselfish, they share it. They don’t care (who shoots).”

An early 3-pointer by Ferguson helped Althoff race out to a 10-2 lead, but Pollmann’s hot night help keep Mater Dei close for a while.

“That’s something positive we can take from this,” Schadegg said. “Nick played phenomenal. When you’re playing a team like this you’ve got to have five guys on the floor at the same time playing at the same level and if you don’t, you don’t have a chance.

“If you’ve got four playing against five you’re in trouble. The first half I thought we had one playing against five ... Nick kept us in it from getting blown out by 50 or 60.”

Sophomore Lucas Theising added nine points for the Knights. Goodwin’s scoring total would have been higher had he not experienced a rare 1-for-10 night at the foul line.

THREE-BALL, CORNER POCKET

Althoff had four threes in the opening quarter and the Knights could only watch the splashdowns in the bottom of the net.

Goodwin opened the game with a 3-pointer, Young had two quick ones and Ferguson added another. Bateman is the team’s best shooter and he nailed three straight 3-pointers during a hot stretch in the second quarter.

“We’ve got good shooters,” Ferguson said. “Everybody that plays all can shoot it, so it’s pretty hard to stop us for that.”

The scary thing? Althoff was playing for a state football championship with four of its five starters and eight players overall only a week earlier. This was only the second game with a full squad following Friday’s 74-58 South Seven Conference win over Carbondale.

“Mater Dei’s a good ballclub, they’re going to win a lot of games this year,” Leib said. “We’re still working through some of the kinks of Week 1. If you think about it we’re in Week 1, of practice even, so the guys are doing a great job of responding.

“We’re not content with where we’re at but we’re pretty pleased with how hard they played tonight.”

This story was originally published December 5, 2015 at 10:26 PM with the headline "Althoff takes down Mater Dei with scary display of 3-point shooting."