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Park Tudor has more Moore in win
INDIANAPOLIS — Saturday was a special day for Cloverdale’s Jalen Moore, as the junior lefty got his first chance to play on the court where his father starred for Southport High School in the late 1990s.
Moore lived up to his father’s lofty credentials, scoring 33 points to tie the previous Forum TipOff Classic record held by Eron Gordon (formerly of Indianapolis North Central, now of Michigan State).
Unfortunately, sophomore sharpshooter Isiah Moore of Park Tudor drilled 11 of 13 3-point field goals to claim the new event record as the Panthers defeated Cloverdale 74-63.
Moore was not happy his team lost, but he did enjoy getting to play in the legendary Southport gymnasium.
“It was fun,” he said. “My dad told me to go out there and play as hard as I could, do what I can do and show everybody what I can do. I saw what he could do on this court, and tried to do what he did.”
Moore had 12 first-quarter points as the Clovers battled the Indianapolis school to an 18-18 draw after one period. Cooper Neese added a pair of 3-point field goals, and Park Tudor’s Moore (unrelated to Cloverdale’s) had 15 points in the opening period.
Park Tudor opened the second period on an 8-3 run to take a 26-21 lead, and continued to dial long distance to move out to a 36-33 lead at the half.
The Panthers hit 4 of 10 treys in the opening period and 4 of 5 in the second period (2 of 3 for their Moore, who had 21 points at the half).
Cloverdale coach Patrick Rady undoubtedly has had nightmares about 3-point field goals following his team’s two weekend games, as the Clovers saw Indian Creek hit 13 of 19 on Friday and the Panthers nailed 15 of 25 on Saturday.
“I thought we did a better job than on Friday night,” Rady said. “Now it’s where we have to get into some teaching points on the guys on the screens. We have to be able to hedge and get through some of those.
“We need to give our defender a half second more to get out there.”
The Clovers had ended the first half on a 7-3 run to cut a 33-26 deficit down to three.
Moore hit a basket with 1:38 left, followed by two Neese free throws with 44.2 left to make it 33-30. Park Tudor’s Kyle Hart hit a 3-pointer to double the lead back to six, before Moore banked in a 3-pointer from the right wing at the first-half buzzer to half the lead again.
Park Tudor’s Moore was unstoppable in the third period, hitting both of his 2-point shots and all four of his treys to pour in 16 more points.
Neese, not as active as usual in his second game in a 24-hour period after missing several days of school last week, came to life late in the third period to help keep his team close.
Trailing 46-38, Neese hit a trey with 5:11 left in the period and added a basket and free throw 49 seconds later to make it 46-41.
Park Tudor’s Moore scored nine points in the final three minutes of the period, including a 3-pointer with 25.1 seconds left to put his team up 57-45 entering the final period.
The Panthers extended their lead to as many as 15 points on a Moore trey in the fourth period, but Cloverdale’s Moore had four points in the final 1:26 of the game to arrive at the final deficit.
Coach Rady’s team fell to 2-4 with the loss, and has lost four of its last five games. The Clovers are in a stretch of eight games in 16 days, and he was encouraged by progress made by his team over the Indian Creek loss.
“I thought everything came together for us offensively,” he said. “This is how I thought we would play, and we had good ball movement. Our spacing was good.
“We have got to be able to get better on the defensive end.”
Rady noted his team has not had more than 10 assists in any game, except Tuesday’s 100-32 win over North Central, and he wants that to change.
“Our passing was better, and our cutting off the ball was better,” he said.
Rady does not think his team is having difficulty with losing, but is eager to make the necessary corrections.
“Losing sometimes can bring out finger-pointing and what has happened is that the kids are owning up and trying to fix it collectively together,” he said. “That’s a step in the right direction. Now we just need every practice chance we get to be able to correct these things. We were able to correct some stuff on the fly in this game.”
Rady credited assistant coach Karl Turk with having the team prepared for Park Tudor.
“He did a great job of scouting them, and we knew exactly what they were going to do. We took away a lot of their initial sets, but they got a lot of points on broken plays. We would force somebody who wasn’t a shooter to shoot it, but then we couldn’t get the rebounds. Those are backbreakers, when you give up an offensive rebound and then they score.”
The Clovers hope to get back in the win column on Tuesday at South Putnam, but know that won’t be easy.
“South Putnam is playing well,” Rady said. “They got better as the year went on last year, and they’re getting better each and every game. This is a new year, and those guys are all a year older and a year better. We have our hands full at their place. We have to be ready to come out with the same passion as we did in this game.”
Moore agrees.
“As a team, we haven’t been where we think we can go,” the Clover junior said. “We can go farther as the season goes along. I think I’m doing pretty well. I think I’m showing people what I can do. I had a couple of bad games, but I bounced back.”
He noted the team’s tough schedule will pay dividends.
“We have played a lot of really good teams, and that will help us as the season goes along,” he said..
CLOVERDALE (63) — Neese 6-17 6-7 21, Winders 1-1 0-0 2, Watts 0-0 0-0 0, Kelley 0-0 0-0 0, Miller 0-0 0-0 0, Wilkes 2-4 0-0 4, Rossok 0-0 0-0 0, Pfaff 1-3 0-0 3, Moore 12-21 6-10 33. Totals 22-48 FG, 12-17 FT, 63 TP
PARK TUDOR (74) — I.Moore 15-18 0-0 41, Rice 1-5 0-0 3, Webster 4-10 0-0 9, Hogg 0 0-0 0, Datillo 2-3 0-0 4, Arbuckle 2-2 0-0 4, Honaker 0-2 0-0 0, Baker 0-0 0-0 0, Brimmage 2-5 1-2 5, Hart 3-4 0-1 6, Sikand 0-0 0-0 0, Begle 0-0 0-0 0, M.Moore 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 29-49 FG, 1-3 FT, 74 TP
Cloverdale 18 15 12 18 — 63
Park Tudor 18 18 21 17 — 74
3-point shooting — Cloverdale 7-20 (Neese 3-8, Wilkes 0-1, Pfaff 1-3, Moore 3-8), Park Tudor 15-25 (I.Moore 11-13, Rice 1-3, Webster 1-3, Datillo 0-1, Arbuckle 2-2, Honaker 0-1, Brimmage 0-2). Rebounds — Park Tudor 25 (Brimmage 6), Cloverdale 17 (Neese 5). Assists — Park Tudor 21 (Webster 9), Cloverdale 8 (Moore 3). Turnovers — Park Tudor 13, Cloverdale 6.
Next game — Cloverdale (2-4) plays at South Putnam on Tuesday night. Park Tudor is now 3-1.
