Louisville uses team effort in win over Lutheran East
CANTON, Ohio - Louisville's Hayden Nigro might be known for his offense, but on Saturday he stood strong in the paint and took a shoulder to the chest from Lutheran East's Jesse McCulloch, drawing a charge against the 6-foot-9 Michigan State commit in the second quarter.
It was just a microcosm of the way the Leopards played for 32 minutes in taking home a 77-65 win at the Canton Memorial Fieldhouse in the second game of the night's Play-by-Play Classics event.
"We had a game plan all week to take charges," Nigro said. "I was on help side, he got the ball, and I knew he was gonna go right in my chest and I fell."
Louisville head coach Tom Siegfried chuckled when asked about his star player taking the charge.
"It's taken me 10 years to get Hayden Nigro to take a charge," Siegfried joked. "He’s always been an offensive player. But when that happened, it made it feel like it was rewarding and I'm just really proud of what Hayden Nigro has done on the defensive end and as a player."
The 6-foot-5 Nigro did it on the offensive end as well, scoring a game-high 31 points. He scored his points in a variety of ways, driving to the hoop, going around defenders - including McCulloch - and knocking down a pair of 3-pointers.
"I mean I don't know what else he has to do to start getting some offers," Siegfried said. "Everybody (says) he's on the waiting list, but bottom line is guy just put 30 up the hard way. He did it every which way, from the line, off the bounce, from the three. And then he (played defense)."
Nigro wasn't the only one playing defense for the Leopards, as Brayden Gross drew the majority of the defensive assignment on McCulloch.
With the 6-foot-6 junior playing physical defense inside, McCulloch scored just six points in the first half while Louisville got out to a 45-33 halftime lead with the help of a 10-point advantage in the second quarter.
"We wanted to make his points hard," Siegfried said. "He's going to get his points, you don't go to Michigan State by accident, we understand that, but we wanted to make them hard. And we really wanted to have a team effort of understanding where he was all the time. We worked hard this week on backside help and then closing out off of the skip."
McCulloch got hot at the start of the third quarter, scoring six of the first eight points in the third, but didn't score again until the final points of the quarter. He finished with a team-high 24 points but all 10 of his fourth quarter points came with Lutheran East trailing by double figures.
"He's a big guy, he's really physical and I think that I just had to be just as physical if not more," said Gross, who added 13 points for the Leopards offensively. "It was hard to stop him but I tried to draw some charges and I just went straight up and tried to play as hard as I could."
With Lutheran East (16-5) drawing closer in the third, Louisville junior guard Beau Siegfried knocked down three 3-pointers and scored nine of his 17 points in the quarter. The rest of the game he spent running the Leopards' offense and dealing with the constant pressure from the Lutheran East defense.
"The way Beau handled the pressure all night, I mean that's extreme heat for him to bring it up against that," coach Siegfried said. "Beau is a gamer."
Louisville head coach Tom Siegfried talks to his team before the second half of their game against Lutheran East on Februray 17, 2024.
Ryan Isley, SBLive Sports
As is usually the case with Louisville (19-2), the Leopards believe in 'The Program,' which coach Siegfried says means "doing things the right way. Everybody has a piece of the pie. Everybody's going to be part of it."
And while the scoring totals may not jump off the page for anyone else - Avery Andrejcik had eight points and Tate Aljancic and Ashton Marshall each had four - it is the little things that every player is willing to do that makes this Louisville team go each game.
"I'm just really really proud of the team effort," Siegfried said. "Our kids trust everybody on the floor. Avery Andrejcik I think has two threes on the year and he hit two tonight. I thought Ashton Marshall played the game of his life tonight and he had four points, but he rebounded the heck out of the ball, he defended, he made the extra pass. I just thought he did a tremendous job and I'm really proud of the way our guys are unselfish and care about the team more than their own self."
With a win against Lutheran East, who is the defending Division III state champions and entered the week ranked No. 11 in the SBLive Ohio boys basketball Power 25, the Leopards, ranked No. 17 in the SBLive Ohio Power 25, can use the momentum going forward into the OHSAA tournament that begins with sectional play next week.
"It helps us a lot, it builds on confidence," Nigro said. "Just learning from these games win or lose, we know what we bring to the table. Bringing our game, game in and game out, going into the tournament knowing who we are."
-- Ryan Isley | ryan@scorebooklive.com | @sbliveoh
