Normal Community Tops Danville For Regional Championship

By the Danville Commercial-News:

NORMAL — The worst fears for Danville boys basketball coach Ted Houpt came true on Friday night.

The Vikings, trying to win their first regional title since 2001, ran into a wall — the Normal Community Ironmen wall of defense.

Junior forwards Alex Peacock and Tyler Seibring, both 6-foot-7, combined for 48 points and 16 rebounds as Normal Community rolled to a Class 4A regional title with a 71-42 victory over Danville.

“The three biggest fears that I had: They would use their size well, they did. They would shoot the ball well, they did. We would shoot the ball poorly, we did,’’ Danville coach Ted Houpt said. “That adds up to a pretty clear defeat.’’

While Normal Community was shooting 60 percent (27-of-45) from the field in Friday’s regional championship game, Danville High missed it’s first 10 shots and the Vikings shot a dismal 32.6 percent (16-of-49) from the field, including making just  3-of-21 behind the 3-point arc.

“Some of the shots that we have been making, didn’t go in,’’ said Houpt as the Vikings had made 55 percent of their shots in regional wins over Normal West and Bradley-Bourbonnais. “The Normal Community defense is designed to give up jump shots. We got some shots, but you have to make them from the outside or it will be a long night.

“They did everything well and we didn’t play well. It looks like we ran out of gas emotionally.’’

Houpt was hoping that Danville could get off to a quick start, but it was actually the opposite.
Normal Community (22-8) scored the game’s first 16 points as the Ironmen held the Vikings scoreless for the entire first quarter and the first minute of the second quarter.

“We just didn’t come out the way that we needed to come out,’’ said Danville senior forward Denzel Smith, who scored 11 of his team-high 21 in the second quarter. But even at that point, it was too little, too late for the Vikings. “They hit us in the mouth and we didn’t respond back.’’

“We just didn’t knock down shots,’’ Houpt said. “Against a defense like that, you have to knock down shots to make them come out or they will just guard the basket.’’

Basically, the Ironmen playing a man-to-man defense in which they put all five defenders in the lane. The combination of man-to-man and their clog the lane mentality was just too much for the Vikings (11-17).

“We haven’t seen a lot of man defense recently and we have been playing well against zones,’’ Houpt said. “They pack it in so tight, that you run ball screens and after a while, you see no point in doing it because you are just going to run into a wall of big, strong kids that are not going to budge. It just makes it really tough to get any rhythm.’’

And once Danville fell behind by double-digits, for the first time in the regional tournament, the Vikings tried to get it all back in just a couple of possessions.

“We panicked,’’ Smith admitted. “We were trying to come back and not let our fans down.’’

Houpt acknowledged that it wasn’t a selfish move by any player.

“Every one of them thought they could knock down the shot that was going to get us going,’’ he said.
“I was hoping that we could make them feel a little pressure of being the favorite team on its home court, if we could have gotten on them early.

“But that didn’t happen and we will never know.’’

After the 29-point loss, the second worst of the season for the Vikings, both Houpt and Smith somewhat admitted that reaching the regional final for the first time in three years was a positive step for the Danville program.

“Yeah, it’s a good finish, but we wanted to win the regional title,’’ Smith said.

Houpt said “it’s hard to feel that right now.’’

“We wanted to have a good game, we wanted to play well and hard,’’ he added. “Even if it was a loss, we wanted to play better than we did.

“When we get a little time away from it, we will see that we closed really well and we did some great things.’’

Houpt believes this will help the Danville program going forward.

“It makes the summer easier,’’ he said. “It shows people that we are going in the right direction.’’

Danville senior guard Kylen Butler, playing in his final game, finished with 10 points and a game-high four rebounds.

Normal Community, which outrebounded Danville 41-17, advances to play Rock Island in the Class 4A East Moline Sectional on Tuesday.