Curie's seniors step up to top Father Tolton in Illinois-Missouri basketball showdown at Quincy Shootout
QUINCY, ILLINOIS – The Curie boys basketball team’s trip downstate for the Quincy Shootout didn’t start out very well when a bus delay caused the Condors to arrive three hours late on Friday.
But after a pair of wins in two days in Quincy – 79-74 against Millard North (Omaha, Nebraska) on Friday night at Quincy Notre Dame High School and then 58-55 over Father Tolton (Columbia, Mo.) on Saturday morning at Quincy High School – Curie coach Michael Oliver and the Condors will enjoy that bus ride home to Chicago.
“It’s huge when you come down to Quincy and get two wins because you know some of the best teams around the Midwest are going to be down here,” Oliver said. “We played two great teams down here. I’m very proud of our guys, how they bounced back through adversity, got down, kept fighting yesterday, got down today, kept fighting.
“Had a little trouble getting in yesterday with our bus, but I’m just proud of these guys. When you’ve got five seniors like we’ve got, you’ve always got a chance to win. Our starting five, they’ve been with us four years and they know how to win.”
The No. 1 team in the SBLive Illinois Power 25 basketball rankings, Curie (20-1) had several players step up in the two wins in Quincy.
“They know their role,” Oliver said. “We’ve got five seniors (starting). They play so unselfish, so it doesn’t matter who scores. Mason Minor was the player of the game. He does all the little intangibles, goes for loose balls. We’ve got one Division I guy, Carlos Harris, but the other guys just know their jobs. Everybody roots for each other.”
Mason Minor, a senior guard, was named the game’s most valuable player on Saturday after scoring a team-high 16 points on seven-of-12 shooting against Father Tolton.
Carlos Harris III, a senior guard headed to Illinois-Chicago, scored 12 points, including seven in the fourth quarter. Taevion Collier, a senior forward, grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds and added eight points.
The Condors shot 51.7 percent, making 15 of 29 field-goal attempts, in the second half and 40.4 percent (23-57) for the game.
Tolton, which missed a long 3-point attempt at the buzzer that would have tied the score, won’t have as happy of a trip home after losing twice in two days in Columbia.
But the Trailblazers, who lost to Huntington Prep (West Virginia) 64-60 on Friday night at Quincy Notre Dame High School, can take plenty of positives after a pair of losses by just seven points against two very good opponents.
Coach Jeremy Osborne’s squad recently got back standout junior guard Aaron Rowe, a University of Missouri commit, after he sat out the first semester after transferring back to Tolton from Link Academy in Branson, where he was part of a national championship team a year ago as a sophomore.
The Trailblazers will be trouble for opponents the rest of the season – as well as next year – and showed that with their performance on Saturday against Curie.
Tolton junior guard Zay Wilson scored a game-high 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds. Senior guard Javar Gilbreath recorded a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds and added three steals. Rowe had nine points, seven rebounds and a team-high three assists.
“We knew about No. 2,” Oliver said of Wilson, a Division I prospect. “He was great – off the bounce, off the dribble. He gave us some problems. So in the fourth quarter we just started running a guy at him to try to take the ball out of his hands. We knew they had some good guard play coming in, but they just didn’t play a lot of guys so I thought we could wear them down.”
There wasn’t much difference between Curie and Tolton on Saturday, but the slim margin of victory can be attributed to the Condors’ experience stepping up in the final minutes.
Oliver is thankful for his group of seniors.
“They know how to win,” the coach said.
Curie - Father Tolton boys basketball
Nate Latsch, SBLive Sports
Nate Latsch, SBLive Sports
Nate Latsch, SBLive Sports
