Kahoks boys’ basketball win two of three contests
By Mark Jurgena
It has been a tough season at the Purple Palace in Collinsville but things are on an uptick in the past couple of weeks. The Kahoks have won four of their last five games to put them at 12-15 overall.
This past week, they beat Belleville West and finished the BOS Belleville East Tourney by winning a close decision against the host Lancers. CHS suffered a close loss to Edwardsville as well.
CHS has a 3-8 mark in Southwestern Conference play and sits in fifth place. East St. Louis leads the SWC with a 10-0 record. Overall, the Flyers are 25-3 and have been ranked number one in Class 3A all season.
Belleville West
“I thought our mindset was really good; we just wanted to win,” said Collinsville coach Hank Matthews.
That tells you a lot about what you need to know from the Kahoks 53-48 SWC win at home against Belleville West on Feb. 13, but it didn’t tell the whole story.
It was the third time this season that the Maroons and Kahoks had met this season and the third time Collinsville had the lead after three quarters of play.
The first two times, the locals had been outscored a combined 31-9 in the fourth quarter by the Maroons, including being outscored 15-0 in the final stanza back on Jan. 23 in the semifinals of the BOS Belleville East Tourney. The Kahoks lost that game 43-30.
But none of that mattered this time.
Collinsville and the Maroons played to a 13-13 draw last Friday, which made all the difference in the victory.
“I thought our leadership in the fourth quarter was extremely high,” Matthews said. “We were huddling on the floor, we were saying the right things in the timeouts. We bent, but we didn’t break. And I thought that a couple of our guys made some big shots.
“I would have liked to have been a little bit better defensively in the fourth in a couple of different areas. But, like I told them before the game, if we win the rebounding battle, we’re gonna have a chance to win.”
The Kahoks had leads of 20-14 after one and 28-23 at the half. Collinsville led 40-35 after three and closed it out in the fourth.
Jace Wilkinson had 22 points for the Kahoks while Jordan Taylor had another double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.
The Kahoks went 8-for-12 from the line against West and shot 54.1 percent from the field, going 20-for-31.
DeAndre Brown had three steals and three assists on the night.
West sat in third place in the SWC at 5-5 and 19-9 overall.
The next day, West beat Spanish Lake, Missouri, (Hazelwood East) 53-52 to win the championship of the BOS Belleville East Tournament.
Third-place win
“I still don’t know what happened,” said Matthews the day after an unbelievable finish to the latest incarnation of the Belleville East-Collinsville contest on Feb. 14. “I looked at my assistant, and I was like, ‘How did we just win that game?’”
The answer: The Kahoks hit four clutch free throws in the final 6.8 seconds of the game.
With East looking to clinch the season series over Collinsville, they held a 43-40 lead after leading scorer Troy Alexander drained two clutch free throws himself with 13.2 seconds to play.
The Lancers still had a foul to give and were determined not to give CHS an open three.
After using a foul, Collinsville called a timeout to set up a last-second play.
The ball came in to Taylor on a cross-court pass with Wilkinson cutting to get the ball. Wilkinson got the ball from Taylor to take the last-second shot. But he was fouled in the act of shooting to put him on the line for three shots with 6.8 seconds on the clock, down three points.
He drained the first two to make it 43-42, but on the third, the ball bounced around the rim and eventually off the rim. But East was called for goaltending while anticipating when the ball would roll off. That tied the game.
But Collinsville wasn’t done. Camauri Mayes deflected a Lancer pass and Taylor came up with the steal. He was fouled with 2.3 ticks on the clock and went to the line to win it.
Taylor hit his first free throw to give CHS a 41-40 lead.
After the second shot fell off target, East had one final chance but missed to give the Kahoks the win.
“I told the team in the locker room that they checked all the boxes as far as we showed up early, we had a good film session and we were good in the locker room before the game,” said Matthews. “And when things got really hard and difficult for us, we stuck together. You were going to give yourself a chance to win at the end.”
Wilkinson had 13 points with Taylor adding seven, including two blocked shots. JuPaul Hudson had six rebounds and four Kahoks had two steals apiece. They were Brown, Taylor, Wilkinson and Kaleb Garcia.
Edwardsville
Collinsville again led through three quarters but couldn’t quite finish as the Tigers outscored them 23-13 in the fourth quarter to take a 47-40 win in Edwardsville on Feb. 10.
“I’ll say this, it was an ugly game for both teams the first three quarters,” Matthews said. ”I thought to their credit, they bothered us offensively and to our credit, we bothered them offensively. Then in the fourth quarter, I think our shot selection hurt us, because I thought that we got a little bit like, ‘I need to go make a play.’ Okay. And because we did that, some long rebounds happened, we got caught in transition. Then we made some mistakes in the half court and let a couple of other guys get loose.”
CHS held leads of 9-6 after one and 17-15 at the half. The Kahoks led 27-24 heading into the final stanza.
Wilkinson had 10 points with Mayes adding seven.
Taylor had 10 rebounds and three blocks, with Garcia dishing out two assists.
Collinsville went 10-for-13 from the line but could only manage to go 2-for-19 from three.
Matthews analysis
The Kahoks long distance shooting woes against the Tigers turned into a lesson that Collinsville was able to apply in their very next contest.
Again, the Kahoks went 2-for-19 from three or 10.9 percent. Against West, they went 5-for-13 or 38.5 percent.
While it seems obvious they made more, it was the way the Kahoks went about it that allowed them to beat West.
“(Against Edwardsville), they zoned us the entire game,” Matthews began. Then, when we played West, they zoned us the entire game. We took 19 threes against Edwardsville, and we took 13th at almost 40% against West.
“I think our guys understood, from our film, what we talked about and the threes that we want to take, and then to their credit, they went out and executed it. So we learned from our loss and it helped us win. And that’s what you want to do.”
CHS Schedule
Collinsville hosted Cahokia on Feb. 17; however, results were unavailable at press time. On Feb. 20, they are at East St. Louis.
As for the postseason, the Kahoks have been assigned to the IHSA Class 4A Edwardsville Regional.
In the sub-sectional, Collinsville is ranked fifth, while its first-round opponent, Granite City, was ranked fourth. Those two will meet in Edwardsville on Feb. 25 at 7:30 p.m.
Should Collinsville win, they will advance to the regional championship game on Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. in Edwardsville against either the top-seeded Tigers or eighth-seeded Quincy.
