Preview: 35th Porter County Conference (PCC) Girls Basketball Championship A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith (01-09-2007)

BOYS PCC Tourney Pairings
1-17 (W) HANOVER vs. Morgan Township - 5:30 p.m.
1-17 (W) LaCrosse vs. Kouts
1-18 (Th) South Central vs. BOONE GROVE - 5: 30 p.m.
1-19 (Th) Hebron vs. Washington Township

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Tickets:  $4 per session
TV/Radio:  WEFM (95.9) FM - title game only
Parking:  You will need to arrive early Monday night for the 5:30 p.m., CST game.  Morgan Township  is smaller than some Lake County Middle Schools and they have a tiny parking lot.  The matchup of two state-rated teams won't draw a capacity crowd Monday night at 5:30 but capacity is only 1,500 so it will be close.  Appreciate that all sessions of the PCC are double-headers and, by the end of the first game, all four teams and all of their fans are jammed into one school.  It gets crowded.

The Series:  Boone Grove is the two-time defending girls champion of the Porter County Conference.  Hanover Central won the title in 2004.  Boone has won nine times, Kouts has seven titles and Hanover has six crowns.  PCC boys records are skewed because of the presence of Portage and Chesterton in the early years.  PCC girls tournament records are largely based on the teams that are still in the tournament today.

4. (2A) Hanover Central (6-6)

CEDAR LAKE - I don't know if the Lady Cats have proven they're in the top three, but that's what the standings say. HC's got to get the ball inside to Anna Turturillo and she has to have a very big week.  Somebody like Samantha Plant, Chrissy Homolka or Danielle Graham needs a couple of hot-shooting games off the wing and everybody needs to rebound.  The HC girls are going to feel the pressure here.  They play opening night, but they will sit in he stands and watch powerhouses Boone and Kouts battle it out before their contest with Hebron.  They'll see one of the two tourney favorites eliminated before they take the floor.  That's encouraging and scary at the same time.  Hebron shut down HC 44-29 earlier this year and they're looking at Hanover as a team they can beat.  The Lady Cats must play a more physical game.  They are far too gentle on the floor.  But if Turturillo is at full strength, HC has a chance.  Lead guard Jordan Kramer played well at the Momence Holiday tournament and she may be the focus of a box-and-one defense here.

The Lady Cats will face a team that has won twice this week, because the Hawks play Whiting (6-5) and River Forest (5-8).  Hebron's record is deceptive because they've lost twice to Boone Grove and Morgan Township.  The Cats got a tough draw, but they did get a team they have already played, which helps a young team.  The Lady Cats play 3A Calumet (7-5) and 3A Kankakee Valley (5-7) this week so they'd be happy with a .500 record entering the league playoffs.  Can HC really win against this field which includes senior-dominated Kouts and a two-time defending champion?  They did rally to beat Washington 57-52 Saturday night.  Please.  It's the PCC.  Anybody can win here.

3. (1A) Morgan Township (7-7)

MORGAN TOWNSHIP - Morgan has narrow losses, 63-56 and 49-48 to Kouts and 56-55 to Boone Grove.  Despite the standing, the Cherokee tribe is probably a notch ahead of Hanover at this point.  Morgan wants a rematch with either Kouts or Boone next week and the Cherokees got a very good draw, including an opening game against a team they've already beaten.  Julie Wittmer (11.3 ppg.) has to stay out of foul trouble or Morgan gets very small.  But the Cherokees know that nobody here is that much better than they are.  Plus, there is a Jessen factor here.  Morgan has senior Nicole Jessen and sophomore Erica Jessen.  The only team that can compare to that is Kouts which has senior Jaclyn Jessen and junior Jordan Jessen.  The Jessens are all related (I believe the teammates are sisters and their counterparts on the other team are their cousins), but I'd be lying if I told you I was sure about that.

Morgan has lost six games by 10 points or less and the Cherokees have lost two games by one point.  Morgan also played five of their first six games on the road and when you're playing on the road at Knox, West Central and Westville, you know you're not in Kansas anymore.  But the Cherokees know there's no place like home.  Morgan has the 'yellow brick road' to the finals because state-rated favorites Boone Grove and Kouts plus 'land mines' Hanover Central and Hebron are ALL in the other half of the bracket.  Also, Morgan is on their home floor in the quarter finals and the semifinals.  There seems to be no way that on Saturday night, Jan. 20, one of the teams on the floor at Boone will not be the Morgan Township girls.

2. (2A) Boone Grove (12-2)

PORTER TOWNSHIP - The league champs got what they wanted.  An immediate rematch with Kouts.  This opening game will be for the 'KUP' (the PCC traveling trophy) and Boone, which is 0-4 against Kouts in the last two years, will be ready.  Boone Grove needs to be more physical up front.  The Wolves have a lot of depth and they can afford to foul if it gains an advantage under the basket.  Top scorer Cortney Flanigan (19.5 ppg.) will be ready Monday night, but tall freshman forwards Kelly Dobson and Emily Strilich will be playing in a PCC tournament for the first time.  This is the final meeting between Kouts and Boone Grove this season and this is the one that counts because the tournament champion in the PCC is considered the league champion.  Jessica Dowdy, Boone's top three-point shooter, didn't play in last week's 28-point win over South Central.

In both losses to Kouts, Boone started very slowly and fell behind by 10 early.  That's unlikely to happen again.  But even if Boone beats Kouts, it doesn't mean they'll win a third league championship.  Boone only beat Morgan by one point last month the Cherokees would very much welcome a title game rematch.  Boone has to be the favorite.  Flanigan is NW Indiana's MVP because lead guards decide games.  The Wolves play the title game on their home floor and 'Wolf Pack West' (Michigan City is 'Wolf Pack East') has wins over 4A Crown Point (8-6) and 4A Highland (12-5).  But Boone has to be considered at a disadvantage without any players named Jessen.

1. (1A) Kouts (12-1)

KOUTS - Here's the biggest surprise in NW Indiana.  They'll say they knew they were good, but that's the usual athletic bravado.  Kouts was 12-9 last year and lost on opening night of the state tournament.  Now they're third in the state and looking at a state tourney landscape where No. 1 Argos (11-1) and No. 5 Oregon-Davis (10-3) must meet in the sectional before Kouts could see either one.  Kouts is in first place in the PCC standings, but that means nothing next week.  The Fillies didn't get a good draw and they'll probably have to beat Boone, Hanover and Morgan Township to win the title.  Kouts has an early win over North Judson (10-3) and two narrow wins over Boone 46-45 and 53-50.  They will say otherwise, but there's no way Kouts wanted to draw Boone in the first round here.  The big thing Kouts has going for them other than the players on the floor is four consecutive wins over Boone over the last two years.  But that's a double-edged sword.  The Fillies are sure they can whip up on Boone again, but they have a very angry foe Monday night.  Kouts wants to trap Boone guard Cortney Flanigan and make someone else handle the ball.  They have the depth to try that, but they will have to survive an opening push that could be intense.

Jaclyn Jessen (15.4 ppg.) just passed the 1,000 point mark for her career last month and Marlie Knifel (12.5 ppg.) is consistent.  But it will come down to 5-11 juniors Karley VanDyke and Hannah McNeil grabbing rebounds.  Kouts should beat LaCrosse and Washington Township this week to go to 14-1.  Kouts lost the PCC final in overtime to Hanover in 2004 and they lost the final to Hebron in 2001.  It could be their turn in 2007.  But I don't see them beating Boone Grove again.  And even if they did, it would only create an all-Jessen 'cousin war' with Morgan Township in the championship game.

PCC Questions

What is the Porter County Conference Tournament?

Simply an Indiana tradition.  Most counties in Indiana have high school basketball tournaments and have for decades.  Lake County is a third world nation in that respect.  The Porter County Basketball Tournament began in 1924 and far outdates the Porter County Conference (PCC) itself.  It is a product of the old Porter County Principals Association.  The principals (this was before the invention of the athletic director) thought it was a good idea to get together in January and play the same teams they'd been playing all year.  The PCC began in 1958 when Porter County natives (Kouts, Boone Grove, Morgan Township, Washington Township, Wheeler and Hebron) decided they were fellow travelers as tiny town schools and formed their own league to play each other for league titles.  Understand that only boys track, boys swimming, football and boys basketball go back into the first half of the 20th century as official prep sports.  Girls were not allowed to play high school sports before the 1950s simply because they were girls.  Most PCC schools have never had football and none have pools, so before the 1950s, there was less need for a Porter County Conference than there is now for a Department of Homeland security.

Aren't Valpo, Portage, Wheeler and Chesterton in Porter County?

Portage and Chesterton were in the Porter County tourney for 35 years, but the schools grew much larger than the Kouts, the Hebrons and Boones, leaving the tournament in 1958. Valparaiso was never in the Porter County or the PCC tournament.  Probably just snobs.  To be fair, Valpo did host the PCC tournament for a few years because they had the biggest and best gym in the county.  Wheeler, a charter member of the PCC, left in 2003 for the now defunct Lake Athletic Conference, a move they probably regret now because the LAC is about to disband.  You will often see Wheeler and Valpo letter jackets in the stands at the PCC finals because Boone and Wheeler are arch rivals and both are basically satellites in the Valparaiso universe.

Truthfully, while they can't be in the PCC, Valpo, Wheeler, Chesterton and Portage could play a four team 'North County' Tournament similar to the South County (Hebron, Boone, Morgan and Kouts) that is now played.

Hey, South Central, LaCrosse and Hanover aren't in Porter County!

They know that!  Let's not stand too much on geographic correctness, here.  The Big 10 has 11 colleges.  In minor league baseball, Iowa is in the Pacific Coast League.  When Portage and Chesterton left and Liberty Township and Jackson Township consolidated into Chesterton, LaCrosse and Westville came in because they were small schools like Hebron, Boone and Kouts.  That's also why Hanover joined up.  Hanover and Boone are almost twins.  South Central is LaCrosse's arch rival and that led to them joining the PCC in 2003.  Plus, eight teams makes the perfect three-round tournament bracket and the PCC is all about tournaments.

I don't think the PCC will ever go to nine teams again, but they may drop to seven if Hanover Central keeps growing.  I can also see the day that Wheeler might rejoin the PCC if Hanover Central, as is predicted, grows much larger than the other PCC schools and leaves.  The Bearcats need a league with football, but Wheeler didn't leave the PCC to end up in the South Shore Conference.  The Boone-Wheeler rivalry and the PCC basketball tournament might bring them back.

If it's so good, how come the DAC doesn't have a tournament?

Because they're stubborn and bull-headed.  The PCC tournament draws over 5,000 fans for 14 games.  The PCC finals have been standing room only for the last six years in the 2,100-seat Boone Grove gym.  The Duneland Athletic Conference schools are three times the size of the PCC schools.  With state ranked Valpo's boys and Michigan City's undefeated girls, a 2007 DAC tourney might have drawn 15,000 fans in six nights.  At $5 a shot, they're throwing away money like the Pentagon.  The Lake Athletic Conference (LAC) tried a much different format with mismatched enrollments.  I don't know how much money it made, but it was a dismal fan failure with semifinal games played in front of empty gyms and empty seats at the finals every year.  Eventually, there will be an eight team DAC tournament.  It would be the biggest event in high school basketball every season and you could add a band and cheerleader competition that would fill even the 8,000 seat Michigan City gym for the final night.

Remember basic Indiana nature.  Everybody is 25 years behind the times.  Model an eight-team DAC tournament after the eight-team PCC tournament.  Play it at Valparaiso (girls) and Michigan City (boys) and see who shows up to watch.  I suspect that a few in the DAC know it would work.  They're just stubborn.

What's so great about the PCC tournament anyway?

First:  The secret format formula. 

It's like the Colonel's chicken recipe.  Girls quarterfinal double-headers and boys quarterfinal double-headers are played Monday through Thursday. The girls semifinals tip off Friday night and the boys run Saturday morning.  Anyone, even a player, can watch all 14 tournament games if they want to.  That's the key.  The LAC tournament format, with simultaneous first round games and consolation rounds, was a promotion and fan nightmare.  I would seed the top two teams to avoid the league's two best teams meeting on Monday night like they do this year.  But if anyone in the PCC ever, for a second, considers changing the basic structure of the six day, eight team tourney format with seven double-headers, including the boy-girl championship night, that person should be taken out back and whipped.

Second:  The PCC tournament is a celebration of the league schools.

Awards are given for fall sports and there are cheerleading and spirit contests with silly costumes and skits at the finals.  Chocolate chip cookies are sold like they're going out of style. Kids paint their faces in school colors.  It's corny, but it's very light-hearted.  There are small children everywhere.  It's like a county fair of athletics.  Kouts and Morgan Township have four cousins playing against each other and there probably are others with different names who are relatives.  LaCrosse, Kouts, Morgan, Boone and Hebron are all neighbors and the families don't leave like they do in the city.

Sports events are supposed to be fun and the big schools can forget that.  The PCC takes take a dull, cold week in January and makes something out of nothing simply because it's always been this way.  Everybody knows everybody, or at the very least, they know someone who knows you.  In those respects, there is nothing in NW Indiana even close to the atmosphere on the final night of the PCC tournament.

Third: It's their title.

Before the four-class state basketball tournament began in 1998, none of the present PCC teams had ever won a state title in any sport and the truth is, none of them was ever going to.  The basic unfairness of the old one class state tourney built the PCC tradition.  PCC week, coming late in the season, WAS the state tournament before 1997.  PCC schools could conceivably someday win class basketball titles now, but it's still a man-bites-dog event because of the size and nature (all are public and most somewhat rural) of the schools.  The truth is, the Cubs will win the World Series before any of the 16 teams in the PCC tournament wins a state title.

But anybody can win the PCC tournament.  The team with the best record almost always loses.  So fans of each school point to it as their big chance to shake up the world, and unlike most other tournaments, they have a realistic chance of doing it.
 

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Revised: January 09, 2007 .