BENNETT'S MINUTES: Finishing up some holiday leftovers

Cooper Neese signs autographs outside the Cloverdale locker room following his team’s victory in the consolation game championship of the First Financial Wabash Valley Classic in Terre Haute last week.

Banner Graphic/JOEY BENNETT

TERRE HAUTE — The First Financial Wabash Valley Classic survived a bad set of first-round games last week to give tournament organizers what they hope for every year — big school vs. small school matchups, especially in the championship game.

The 16-team event saw seven games decided on Monday by more than 10 points, with just one game having a single-digit margin of victory.

As normally happens, as the tourney evolves teams start being paired against teams with similar results and the games got better as the week went along.

The 17-year-old tourney prides itself on its blind draw and no seeding of teams, and is a modern day replication of the Wabash Valley Tournament held in the mid-20th century that featured more than 100 teams in the pre-consolidation era.

Every year a tournament “darling” comes along which catches the heart of neutral fans, and this year it was Linton-Stockton.

As Cloverdale coach Patrick Rady alluded to in a pre-tourney story, the Miners have developed a culture of winning that makes most area schools envious.

The Miners are one of only three schools in the state to advance to the regional championship game for the past three years in boys’ basketball, and followed up that appearance last spring with a baseball sectional title and a football state championship this fall.

The Miners defeated Cloverdale 67-54 in the first round, Class 4A pre-tourney favorite Terre Haute South 65-64 in overtime in the second round and Class 3A power Northview 60-53 in overtime in the semifinals.

Linton-Stockton then faced the challenge of meeting Class 4A Terre Haute North, a deceivingly-good team which had pretty much breezed through the upper bracket.

The Patriots won their third straight title (and eighth overall) with a 55-42 win in the championship game.

North has a good team (9-3), but the Miners were clearly affected by the more difficult path to the finals and saw many of their shots falling short. The calendar was not a friend to coach Joey Hart’s team. In years when Christmas falls on a Saturday, Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, the tourney plays for four consecutive days.

Had Christmas fallen on Wednesday through Friday this year, the Miners would have had Sunday off in the middle of the tourney to better recover from the grueling final game path.

But, stuff happens, and while the final game was not as dramatic as hoped it would be the tournament was considered another huge success overall.

• Beware of falling records — Several tournament records were broken or tied during the tournament.

Cloverdale’s Cooper Neese hit 41 of 41 free throws to establish a new norm for accuracy at the charity stripe, and scored 118 points in his team’s four games to tie the tourney record.

The Clovers poured in 30 points in the third-quarter of the consolation championship game, setting a team record.

Neese’s individual 23-point explosion in that quarter is likely another record, although the tourney has not tracked single-player quarter scoring.

If anyone doesn’t yet understand his unique Twitter handle of “@Neesemode11,” all they needed was to see that performance.

Five of six from 3-point range. Two for two from 2-point range. Five of five at the line. He was in full “Neese mode,” and seemed to win over some of the few remaining skeptics.

His winning of the Most Outstanding Player award was one of the few times the honor has ever been bestowed upon a player not on the winning team. The combination of Neese’s dominant play, and the fact that the champion Patriots got contributions from many different players and had no single standout, undoubtedly led to the award.

Cooper Neese receives the Wabash Valley Classic Most Outstanding Player award from tourney organizer Gary Fears.

Neese finished his three-year run in the tourney third on the all-time scoring list with 286 points.

Brandon Wolfe of Casey-Westfield, now playing at Division II Drury University in Missouri, leads the list with 312 points from 2010-13, while R.J. Mahurin is second with 292.

Despite missing the first game due to concussion protocol, Jaylen Minnett of Terre Haute South still scored 80 points in the tourney to finish in fourth place all-time with 251.

• Shortchanged — Ironically, Neese could have broken the single-tourney scoring record if not for the timing of his final free throws on the last play of the game against Marshall in the consolation bracket semifinals.

With the game tied at 74-74, Neese was fouled at the buzzer and stepped to the line needing to make only one of three shots for the win. He sank the first, and the officials ended the game at that spot with two more potential points left hanging.

• All-tourney team — Joining Neese on the all-tournament team were Jalen Owens and Braelyne Compton of Terre Haute North, Jaylen Minnett of Terre Haute South, Brigham Booe of Northview, Ty Drake of Sullivan, Josiah Wallace of Marshall, Dylan Dirks of Robinson, Josh Dieball of Linton-Stockton and Cooper Bybee of Edgewood.

I correctly picked eight of those on my media ballot, missing only with Northview’s Dylan Hyatt and Cloverdale’s Jalen Moore.

It was a close race between Hyatt and Booe from Northview, and I picked Moore over North’s Owens.

• Looking ahead — Drake (a sophomore) and Booe (a junior) are the only two underclass members of the all-tourney team.

Among the other top underclassmen set to return next year are Cloverdale’s Moore, Edgewood’s Chayton Howard, Robinson’s Walker Sandschafer, Marshall’s Jesse Burdick, Rockville’s Landon Newnum, Terre Haute South’s De’Avion Washington and Terre Haute North’s JoVan Morris and Denny Zigler.

• Deja vu — Edgewood will undoubtedly be glad that Minnett, a senior who has signed with IUPUI, won’t be in a South uniform next year.

After scoring 30 points in the first half and finishing with 35 in a win over the Mustangs last year, Minnett tied the single-game scoring record with 40 against Edgewood this year.

Neese finished with 36 points in the Robinson game, tying himself and South’s Jeffrey Turner (2011) for fifth place in single-game scoring. Neese had 36 points against Shakamak last year in the tourney opener.

• Familiar face — Former Owen Valley and Indiana State standout Harry Marshall is an assistant coach for Terre Haute South.

Other hoops notes

• After bypassing the holiday tourney scene, Greencastle’s girls have a huge week starting tonight at Terre Haute South.

The Tiger Cubs will then play at Northview on Friday in a key Western Indiana Conference matchup, and close out a busy stretch with an afternoon game at Monrovia on Saturday.

• Greencastle’s boys also took the holidays off following their best performance of the year on Dec. 20 at Cascade. They have a tough chore at hand on Friday, also playing at Northview, but coach Bryce Rector could pick up his first career win on Saturday as the Tiger Cubs host Rockville that evening.

The Rox have two good players in Newnum and fellow guard Hunter Michalic, but were reeling in the WVC after losing star player Lance Hopkins for disciplinary reasons earlier in December.

• North Putnam’s teams had good efforts in their holiday tourneys, with the Cougar girls picking up their first win of the season in the consolation game at Speedway and the NP boys finishing with a deceiving 1-2 record at Monrovia.

Both teams play at West Vigo on Friday.

• Cloverdale’s girls had a great day to win the one-day Monrovia tourney, defeating South Putnam in the finals, and will play at Owen Valley along with the Clover boys in the next-to-last conference doubleheader of the year.

The Clover boys will play at New Castle on Saturday in a “shootout” against a team from Kentucky.

• South Putnam’s boys also took the holidays off, and will host Sullivan on Friday in a doubleheader.

• I talked at length with John Harrell last month about his basketball website, and that column will appear in Friday’s Banner Graphic.

• Cascade and Indian Creek are the only two Western Indiana Conference teams not playing in Friday night doubleheaders.

The Cadets will be involved in the Hendricks County tournament both Friday and Saturday. Indian Creek will host Brown County on Saturday as the Eagles close out their conference schedule (also playing on Friday).

• Jeff Sagarin has published his first list of statewide rankings for high school basketball teams.

Among the boys, the top 24 overall teams (not surprisingly) are all in Class 4A.

Sitting at No. 25 overall and No. 1 in Class 3A is Danville, which won a holiday tourney at Jeffersonville by defeating Indianapolis Cathedral in the championship game.

Northview is No. 21 in Class 3A and No. 92 overall, while Edgewood is No. 24 in 3A and 106th overall.