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BENNETT'S MINUTES: Clover collegiate twinbill fun despite teams going 0-2
TERRE HAUTE/OLNEY, Ill. — A rare double-dateline is deserving on a day when a rare college basketball doubleheader was witnessed on Saturday involving two former Cloverdale standouts.
Even though neither ex-Clover happened to win his game, the defeats can definitely not be pinned on them.
The day began with a noon tipoff at Hulman Center in Terre Haute for the Indiana State-Southern Illinois game.
Cooper Neese started his fourth straight game for the Sycamores, scoring in double figures in all four outings, and appears to be a fixture in the lineup for several years unless he stops producing.
Neese scored 14 points on Saturday, hitting 5 of 11 shots from the field (2 of 3 from 3-point range) and 2 of 4 at the line. He also had four assists and committed no turnovers in 32 minutes of action.
His defense improves every outing, and during his starting streak he is averaging 16.2 points per game while shooting 11 of 16 from 3-point range. In those four games, he also had eight assists and four turnovers.
Southern Illinois was outstanding on this day, getting three players to score 20 or more points in a 79-57 victory.
One of the ones doing the most damage was 6-10 center Kavion Pippen, nephew of NBA legend Scottie Pippen.
Pippen had 21 points, four rebounds, four assists and four blocked shots in dropping the up-and-down Sycamores to 5-9 in conference play and 13-13 overall.
I had originally planned to cover a high school game that night, but the perfect timing of a 4 p.m. start at Olney Central was too much to pass up. It’s only an hour and 24 minutes from Hulman Center to Olney, a trip I had never made before.
I even got to cross the “Burl Ives Bridge,” not realizing the legendary singer was from such a nearby location.
Olney Central has moved up to No. 14 in the Division I junior college rankings, but lost its midweek game at Kaskaskia on Wednesday for only its third defeat of the season.
The Blue Knights hosted No. 2-ranked Vincennes, a team which they had beaten on its home floor last month.
Mental approach played a huge role in each team winning on the road in the conference series. The first time around, Vincennes had just been moved up to No. 1 in the rankings and although I couldn’t confirm it all signs pointed to that being OCC’s first win over VU in a while. The Blue Knights were the more confident team that day and controlled the game nearly from start to finish.
On Saturday, though, Vincennes was the more motivated team in seeking revenge for its only loss.
The Trail Blazers held a slim 38-35 lead at halftime, but came out firing in the second half and poured in 56 second-half points to pull away for a 94-74 win.
Doing a lot of the damage for Vincennes was 6-6 sophomore Lony Francis of Ohio, who hit 14 of 24 shots in the post area and finished with 29 points and 10 rebounds.
Vincennes clearly made an effort to go inside much more than in the first meeting, and that strategy change paid off. VU dominated the boards by a 46-30 margin.
Moore had a team-high 23 points, only hitting 4 of 13 shots from the field overall but making 2 of 5 from 3-point range. Much to the frustration of the Vincennes coach, Moore was able to draw numerous fouls while in the act of shooting and hit 13 of 16 free throws.
He also had nine assists and two turnovers in 34 minutes of action.
The Blue Knights are 24-4, and will likely fall several spots or drop out of the rankings altogether.
Several people I knew from Terre Haute also made the doubleheader trip, but for a different reason. Terre Haute South freshmen De’Avion Washington of ISU and Craig Porter of Vincennes were also taking part in both games I saw, and the former Clover opponents had a lot of support as well.
It was a fun day, despite the Ls, especially on my first trip to “The Dungeon” — which does not list a seating capacity, but is smaller than any high school gym I’ve visited this year.
The quaint setting made for a raucous atmosphere, complete with an outstanding band and numerous talented vocalists.
Getting wins would have made it even better, but it was still a great day.
Odds and ends
• It was apparently the weekend for watching relatives of wildly-famous professional athletes, after seeing Bloomington South basketball player Grayson Rolen on Friday night.
Rolen is a nephew of long-time third baseman Scott Rolen of the Phillies, Reds, Blue Jays and Cardinals.
He’s an incredible athlete, throwing down a couple of dunks and causing havoc defensively. A colleague from the Bloomington Herald-Times said Rolen has predictably played baseball in the past, but is expected to concentrate on track this spring since he high jumps 6-4.
• Bloomington South was very impressive on Friday night, and should go a long way in the 4A tournament.
If you are a college basketball fan and your team signs standout junior guard Anthony Leal, you will be very pleased.
Panther coach J.R. Holmes won his 806th career game on Saturday night with a victory over Jennings County and now stands tied for the state career record. He will likely break the mark on Thursday against Northview.
• Karsten Windlan of Carmel scored 19 points on Friday to pace the Greyhounds to a 69-52 win over Class 4A No. 1-ranked Warren Central, the defending state champions.
Windlan, the son of Greencastle girls’ basketball coach Tod Windlan, received a Division III offer early in the season but has played well enough this year to surely see those opportunities increase.
The other two Windlan children have already had solid college careers, as Sydney Windlan started 23 games in the outfield last year for Division I Purdue Fort Wayne. Oldest sister Kennedy played golf collegiately at Northern Kentucky and William Carey University, earning NAIA All-American honors at the latter school.
• Young people sometimes get a lot of criticism for work ethic and bad decisions, but last week I had a feel-good experience that may seem trivial but to me was impressive.
Three South Putnam athletes (Allen Plunkett for basketball, Thomas Fanning for tennis and Drew Bratcher for softball) will be signing in the near future to play collegiately at DePauw.
I ran into them in the hallway while doing another interview, and they seemed even more happy to see me than usual. The reason was that they have been trying to coordinate a signing day when they can all sign at the same time.
Why? They said “to make you have to not make three trips.” Very considerate of them to even think about me in that regard.
I hope they wait a little while, though, since I still have a bunch of other signing stories to write from earlier this school year.
Trey Wood is going to sign to play football for Taylor on Friday, and Greencastle’s Erin Thomas signed last month to play soccer at Franklin in addition to all the others.
We’ll get to work on those now that things are slowing down a little in terms of overall activity.
• Responses have been good to the first three installments of “Feel Good Friday,” and the feature will continue for at least the next month or so. We even have a local business interested in being the feature’s sponsor.
At that point, however, I will have run out of my original list of ideas and will constantly be on the lookout for more.
I don’t foresee enough potential stories to be able to make it appear weekly forever, but if you have an idea please send it (including information on how to contact the person/people involved) to me at:
These stories are not limited to people involved with high school sports. Subjects can be the volunteer youth coach, the longtime umpire/referee of any level or anything of that sort.
Hope to hear from some of you with your ideas.