Bulldogs capitalize on Indians' cold shooting, win 57-40

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith
01-13-2007

Friday, January 12, 2007 - Duneland Athletic Conference game at Crown Point

LAKE CENTRAL (40)  Evan Lavery 0-2-2, Eric Summers 4-0-8, Zac Fehrman 5-4-14, Danny Bouchee 2-4-8, Ryan Schweitzer 1-0-2, Zack Felton 2-2-6, Joe Wingis 0-0-0, AJ Doyle 0-0-0, Kirk Thompson 0-0-0, Nikolo Katic 0-0-0.  TOTALS:  14 (12-15) 40.

CROWN POINT (57)  Ben Derks 1-0-3, Kyle Hanaway 1-2-4, Andy Krumwied 1-0-2, Aleks Alavanja 1-3-5, Matt Ernest 3-3-9, Zach Cecich 5-1-11, Derrick Garletts 1-0-2, Stephen Albrecht 8-4-21, Billy Cox 0-0-0, CJ Mantel 0-0-0, Michael Lipton 0-0-0. TOTALS: 21 (10-19) 57.

FREE THROWS:  LC (12-15, 80%) Lavery 2-2, Felton 2-4, Fehrman 4-4, Bouchee 4-5;  CROWN POINT (10-19, 52.6%)  Hanaway 2-3, Albrecht 1-2, Alavanja 3-6, Cecich 1-5, Ernest 3-3.

REBOUNDS:  LC (17) Wingis 4, Summers 4, Bouchee 3, Felton 3, Katic, Fehrman, Thompson;  CP (27) Alavanja 9, Cecich 5, Albrecht 5, Ernest 4, Hanaway 3, Derks.

ASSISTS:  LC (7) Bouchee 2, Lavery 2, Fehrman, Wingis, Schweitzer;  CP (11) Hanaway 3, Albrecht 2, Ernest 2, Cecich, Alavanja, Garletts, Derks.

CHESTERTON  (1-12-2007) - The longer Crown Point can keep this whole thing under wraps, the better off they'll be.  True, there was the return of coach Clint Swan to Northwest Indiana and his first game as CP head coach.  Friday, there was the return of football star Matt Ernest to the roster.  Those were things that caused a stir, but to some extent, almost seemed to embarrass the team with the attention.  But the spotlight quickly goes away.  The talk remains the same.  Valparaiso's better.  East Chicago's better.  West Side and Roosevelt are doing their thing.  Munster's better.  Ten teams have more wins at mid season.

Under cover in all of this is that Crown Point is becoming a very strong team.  While other teams play lesser schedules and post nice, shiny win totals, the Bulldogs (6-5) have begun a climb up to the mountain top of the NW Indiana basketball teams.  They may not get there this year, but the tip off is that CP is 'winning average'.  When they play poorly or with no emotion, they still lose.  But the Bulldogs have games where they aren't great and still win by solid margins.  That's exactly what happened Friday night as Crown Point faced a Lake Central team that defeated them six weeks earlier and CP almost coasted to a 57-40 victory.

"I really thought we could play a lot better," said Swan, who watched his team win for the sixth time in seven games.  "I was really happy with our defense, but it was an odd game.  There wasn't much flow.  You've got to give them (LC) some credit for that.  But defensively, we did a good job on the ball and we did a good job in the passing lanes.  I was pleased with that and it's obvious that Matt (Ernest) frustrated them out front.  He made a big difference for us."

Junior Stephen Albrecht scored 21, while 6-6 junior Aleks Alavanja grabbed nine rebounds.  Senior football all-stater Matt Ernest came off the bench late in the first quarter and contributed nine points, four rebounds and two assists in 22 minutes.  But CP, on what was largely an off night, stopped LC's four-game winning streak with a 17-point win.

"We missed 15 layups," said LC coach Dave Milausnic.  "That demoralized us.  I thought we did a good job defensively.  But we had shots.  We just didn't make them.  I don't know why."

Crown Point jumped out to a 7-0 lead in a game where both sides walked the ball up the floor a lot in front of about 2,000 fans.  LC closed to within 7-6, but CP then slowly went on a 12-4 'run', which ended when Kyle Hanaway was called for consecutive offensive fouls late in the second period.  At the start of the third quarter, consecutive baskets by Zach Cecich, Alavanja and Ernest made it 32-18, while LC missed shots from all angles.

"I looked at the shot chart," said Miluasnic, "and I have no complaints about where the shots were coming from."

There was a unanimous feeling that Ernest added a lot defensively to a team that was allowing 60 points a game.  But the extent of that remains to be seen.  An objective observer would say that the low total of 40 points LC scored was due more to them missing shots than CP's good play.

With that said, Ernest looked very good immediately.  The 6-foot-2 guard is obviously not as good a basketball player as he is a football player.  Plus on offense, Matt has the instincts of a 'dribble drive' point guard and CP already has a good one in Kyle Hanaway.  He may not have the shooting ability to be a high-scoring wing player and there's no time to develop that, with only nine games left in the season.  But the three-sport athlete, who was voted Indiana's Gatorade football Player-of-the-Year can play either the '1' or the '2' guard and he handles the ball very well with a lot of quickness.  He is a point defender who will almost certainly help CP's defense more than he'll help their offense.  The Bulldogs probably don't want lead guard Hanaway or top scorer Albrecht to have to guard the other team's point guard for 32 minutes.  With Ernest, they have a defensive 'stopper', a physical player who can afford to foul.  Nobody asked me, but when CP plays East Chicago next Saturday (Jan. 20), I'd put Ernest on all-stater E-Twuan Moore and see what happens.

"You get someone that athletic guarding you," said Swan, who made the decision to allow the football star to join the team late, "and it disrupts what you want to do.  The only thing holding him back is mental.  He doesn't know all our offense.  Sometimes he caught outlet passes, which I don't want him doing that.  I want him running the floor.  But he's a special case.  A tremendous athlete."

Ernest entered the game with 2:40 left in the first quarter, but his real debut came late in the second period when he stole a pass that had deflected away from LC's Danny Bouchee, a lifelong teammate of Ernest until he transferred to LC over the summer.  Ernest ran out half the length of the floor and scored on a layup with Bouchee fouling him.  He was congratulated by all his teammates in what was a somewhat subdued debut emotionally, probably by design.

Albrecht, who had 10 second quarter points, finished with 21 points and five rebounds.

"I thought he had more rebounds than that," said Swan.  "That's what we need him to do.  We know he can score.  We need him in there mixing it up and being that other guard who can rebound."

Crown Point has won six of seven now but they are laying low, because they know what's ahead.

"Michigan City (Friday, Jan. 19) and East Chicago," said Swan sarcastically.  "An easy weekend ahead.  There's no rest for the weary here.  We're starting to play comfortably with everybody falling into their roles.  It makes it easy on the coach."

BULLDOG NOTES:  There is an understanding that some of CP's bench players will play less with Ernest on the roster.  That is inevitable.

"We didn't even get to Billy Cox tonight," said Swan, "and  he adds a lot to us, too.  That's a problem, but it's a good problem to have.  There's two reasons why this is working.  He's a great kid and we have great kids on the team.  We would not even have considered this if both of those things had not been the case.  Matt is unselfish and they have welcomed him so far.  I think it will only get better."

One factor that eases the playing time situation is that Ernest and Andy Krumwied are the only seniors on the CP roster and they don't play the same position at all.  So anyone who's playing time is lessened by Ernest's precense will be back next year.

Junior forward Mitch Robinson returned to the court, playing seven minutes.  Robinson had missed four games.  No one says they are next in line when next season begins, but sophomore guards CJ Mantel and Michael Lipton are the first JV players up off the bench when the game has been decided.  The Bulldogs' JV center is 6-foot-7 Nate Akers, who has the potential to take Andy Krumwied's role as backup post player next year along with 6-7 Jacob Burkholder, who had not played this year due to a back problem.

Valparaiso stayed two games ahead of Chesterton in the Duneland Conference with a 76-56 win over last place Portage Friday night.  Chesterton stayed a game ahead of Crown Point with a 54-46 win over Michigan City.  Since the new gym was constructed (seating capacity 3,880), no home game has been anything close to a sellout for Crown Point, so in case there were any questions, there are lots of tickets available for the visit of East Chicago (8-2) to Crown Point on Jan. 20 or for the visit of Valparaiso (14-1) to Crown Point on Friday, Jan. 26.

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Revised: January 13, 2007 .