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CHAMPAIGN — Toward the end of the regular season, Brother Rice dropped three straight games and the reason was clear: leaky defense.
Then the Crusaders addressed that problem and the season turned around.
They won their last two regular-season games and embarked on the greatest playoff run in program history.
It continued on March 13, when Rice held St. Patrick scoreless for almost nine minutes en route to a 48-33 Class 3A semifinal win at State Farm Center. That sent the Crusaders to their first state championship game in program history.
Down 31-30 late in the third quarter, the Crusaders (31-6) went on an 18-0 run and almost shut out the Shamrocks (28-8) in the fourth.
“Coming into the game, we said we had to defend,” Rice coach Conte Stamas said. “They had a couple big bodies that we had to box out. During this playoff run, that’s what we’ve been doing.
“We’ve been playing really, really good defense. … We found it late in the year, better late than never.”
How did that happen?
“I think it’s a lot of our intensity on defense,” senior Caden Workman said. “Early in the year, we felt like we weren’t as intense every possession and we weren’t locked in every single possession.”
The Shamrocks’ “big bodies” Stamas referred to are 6-7, 230-pound R.J. McPartlin, who was instrumental in a supersectional win against Mount Carmel, and 6-7, 185-pound Nevarh Hawkins. Rice held them to a combined nine points and 10 rebounds.
There was another defensive focus as well: senior point guard E.J. Breland.
“Initially, we played him straight, and the reason for that is they played two bigs,” Stamas said. “So we had to keep K.J. (Morris) on a big. Then when they took one of the bigs out, we were kind of trying to shut him out.”
Breland, who came in averaging 14.1 points a game with 100 3-pointers, finished with seven points on 3-for-14 shooting from the field and 1-for-5 from the perimeter.
Rice’s big two of Marcos Gonzales and Jack Weigus each played all 32 minutes. Weigus scored 15, hitting 5-for-12 from 3-point range. Workman, who played all but 16 seconds, had 14 points on 5-for-7 shooting and Gonzales scored 11. Workman grabbed seven rebounds and Gonzales had five assists.
Weigus’ 3-pointer with one second left in the third quarter triggered the decisive run and put Rice ahead to stay at 33-31.
“I knew the clock was running down,” Weigus said. “Marcos threw a pass — I think it got tipped — so I just went and got the ball and shot it and it went in.
“You could hear the crowd help us and after that I think we were just able to lock in.”
“Our offense, when we get going — Coach says it all the time — when we get stops and we get it out to run,” Workman said. “So it just basically starts with stops and then we run from there.”
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