NORMAL — Shell-shocked.

Dumb-founded.

Disbelief.

Those looks permeated the body language of the Rantoul Township High School boys basketball team in the second quarter of Friday night’s eventual 71-49 loss at Normal U-High in what was essentially a game to decide the Corn Belt Conference champion.

Now, RTHS will need significant help from other conference foes in handing U-High (15-3, 9-0) at least two more defeats while the Eagles (14-4, 5-2 Corn Belt) would have to win out in order to share the Corn Belt championship.

“I don’t think they’re going to lose two more times,” RTHS head coach Brett Frerichs said of the Pioneers. “It’s disappointing that we got down on ourselves. Our demeanor was terrible.”

The Eagles — who have never won a Corn Belt regular season title — will have had a week’s worth of practices to try and correct mistakes from their worst loss this season before they host Pontiac on Friday in another Corn Belt tilt. The junior varsity starts at 6 p.m., with the varsity to follow at 7:30 p.m.

“We’re all extremely down,” RTHS senior forward C.J. Morris said. “We had a chance to make history. We knew what we were fighting for, but all we can do is mark it up as another loss and get right back to work as soon as we can.”

Despite the important win for U-High, which gives the Pioneers a two-game lead in the standings ahead of RTHS, U-High head coach Bob Fitzgerald downplayed talk of this game possibly deciding the conference title for his squad.

“We’ll think a game is for the conference championship when someone’s about to hand me a trophy,” Fitzgerald said. “Until then, all bets are off until we’re done with the conference season and someone tells us we won it.”

The Eagles are the ones accustomed to taking an early lead and then expanding it.

Not the other way around, which is what U-High and sophomore standout Keita Bates-Diop did in a game-changing second quarter.

Bates-Diop, a versatile forward at 6 feet, 7 inches, scored a career-high 28 points, grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds and had four blocked shots. The Division I prospect was the best player on the court.

“He pretty much extended the lead when they needed him to,” Morris said. “Him hitting those shots, open and not open ... he just took it to us.”

RTHS led 8-5 with less than three minutes left in the first quarter, but U-High ended the period on a 9-1 run to take a seemingly harmless 14-9 lead into the second quarter

Then, the game changed in a monumental way.

After Morris (nine points, five rebounds) scored inside with 6:10 remaining before halftime to cut the Eagles’ deficit to 20-12, the Pioneers went on a 16-0 run during the next four minutes.

Bates-Diop had 10 points in that span.

Junior forward Nick Schroeder (14 points) hit two 3-pointers to push U-High’s lead to 36-12 with 2:32 left in the second quarter after two free throws by Bates-Diop.

“It got really intense,” Bates-Diop said. “The crowd was into it, and I was able to get into a good flow on offense. We were really good on defense. That was one of the key points we focused on, and we handled it.”

U-High forced the Eagles into three turnovers during the run while playing a man-to-man defense RTHS senior guard Travis Britt said the Eagles weren’t ready for.

In U-High’s 46-44 win on Dec. 2 at RTHS, the Pioneers almost exclusively played a 1-3-1 zone.

“I watched the film of the first game, and granted that’s a long time ago, but I didn’t think we guarded very well,” Fitzgerald said. “I thought we gave them way too many outside looks. I think we’ve got some kids that can play man-to-man. We’ve done it the last four games now in the conference. When things are working, I don’t change much. Until they did something against the man-to-man, we were going to stay in it.”

After Morris’ basket, RTHS missed its next five shots from the field while U-High made seven of its nine shots to increase its lead significantly.

“They really baited us into driving to the basket, and they’d block shots to get out in transition,” said Britt, who was hounded by Bates-Diop, sophomore forward Malik Wildermuth and senior guard Kurtis Ellis all game long. “That was one of the bigger parts of the second quarter was our transition defense. We really weren’t getting back, they were getting easy layups and before we knew it, we were down 20 on the scoreboard. We were kind of like, ‘What’s going on?’ because it hadn’t happened to us all year.”

Britt ended up with nine points, and had to work for every point. Fitzgerald said limiting Britt — who hauled in a team-high 10 rebounds — to that total was vital for the Pioneers.

“I thought Keita, Malik and Ellis set the tempo for this game by doing a tremendous job on the defensive end on Travis,” Fitzgerald said. “He’s a great player in our conference, and for us to hold him to nine points, those three did it as a community effort. As a result, I thought we were hard to score against for at least three quarters.”

RTHS trailed 40-16 at halftime, and saw its deficit grow to 44-16 after Bates-Diop scored two baskets inside in the first 50 seconds of the third quarter.

The Eagles, however, made a run that brought their sizable fan contingent that made the hour-long trip to Normal to its feet. Sophomore guard Johnny Jones (team-high 14 points) scored eight straight points, including two 3-pointers, to spark a 15-0 run and trim the Eagles’ deficit to 44-31 with 2:32 left in the third quarter.

Senior guard L.C. Franklin hit a reverse layup off a steal by the Eagles — one of nine turnovers U-High had in the quarter — to make it 48-36 with 1:10 left, but U-High went into the fourth quarter ahead 53-36 after another trey by Schroeder and a basket inside by sophomore forward Kane Wildermuth (nine points) at the end of the third quarter.

“We knew coming into the game what was on the line,” Morris said. “Coming out of halftime, we just knew we had to take it up to another level. We did as much as we could, but I think once again, they started hitting their shots and we kind of lost our confidence a little bit.”

Fitzgerald said he started to get a tad anxious with RTHS making its comeback effort.

“My assistant coach leaned over and said, ‘You know, we’re up 20, but it only feels like five,’” Fitzgerald said with a laugh. “Brett’s done a fantastic job. They didn’t quit, and I didn’t expect them to. They turned the third quarter into a war like it should be, and they almost knocked us over. I’m really proud of our kids for the fact that they were able to weather that storm for a whole quarter and still find a way to stay composed and get a win.”

RTHS scored the first five points of the third quarter to cut its deficit to 53-41 after a 3-pointer by Franklin (eight points) and a layup by junior forward Greg Morrow with 7:20 left.

That, however, was the closest RTHS would get the rest of the game. U-High went on a 9-2 run during the next three minutes, and despite only making 8-of-21 free throws in the fourth quarter, the Pioneers were able to fend off RTHS in the fourth quarter.

RTHS struggled shooting the ball in the first half, only making 5-of-22 (23 percent) from the field, and finished 16-of-50 (32 percent). The Eagles were 13-of-21 (62 percent) from the free throw line and 4-of-16 (25 percent) from 3-point range while committing 17 turnovers.

U-High shot the ball exceptionally well in building its first-half lead, going 16-of-31 (52 percent) from the field, and wound up 26-of-50 (52 percent) for the game.

U-High was 15-of-29 (52 percent) from the free throw line and 4-of-15 (27 percent) from 3-point range while committing 18 turnovers.

In the end, though, it was too much Bates-Diop for the Eagles to handle in a loss they didn’t expect to deal with. All three of the Eagles’ losses coming into the game were by a combined eight points. Which is why the walk to the visitors’ locker room after the 22-point defeat left a feeling RTHS is not used to experiencing this year.

“They hit a lot of shots early on,” Morris said. “I think we brought ourselves down more than we really needed to. I don’t think we really get big-headed, but we had a lot of confidence. I was kind of caught off guard by our attitude on the court.”

Notes: Fitzgerald lauded the RTHS fans who showed up on Friday night to make it a near-capacity crowd.

RTHS brought two student fan buses that filled an entire section of bleachers while the bleachers behind the Eagles’ bench were full of RTHS supporters, making the crowd more of a 60-40 split for the Pioneers.

“What Rantoul did is what high schools used to do, and it’d be so wonderful if they’d do it again,” Fitzgerald said. “That is having great fan following. They made it such an exciting atmosphere for everyone to be a part of. That’s what I remember about high school basketball. That’s what I love about high school basketball. Rantoul didn’t get the ‘W,’ but spirit-wise, they get a lot of respect from me because that was awesome.”

— After Friday’s game with Pontiac, currently in last place in the Corn Belt, the Eagles will travel to nearby foe Fisher for a nonconference game next Tuesday. The JV tip at 6 p.m., followed by the varsity at 7:30 p.m. RTHS returns to Corn Belt action on Friday, Feb. 3, when the Eagles play at Prairie Central.
mdaniels@rantoulpress.com