Published: January 31, 2009 11:26 pm      

HOOPS: Wildkats storm by Raiders

Kokomo rolls to 49-17 lead at half

Harrison High School basketball coach Jeff VanArsdel only wished icy road conditions on Ind. 26 would be the worst part of his trip to Kokomo’s Memorial Gymnasium Saturday night.

Far from it, actually.

Kokomo greeted Harrison at the door with an in-your-face defensive effort that produced the Kats’ best half of basketball this season. Kokomo led by a staggering 49-17 advantage at intermission and rolled on to a 73-46 victory.

The Kats led 20-11 at the first quarter stop but as it turned out, that was just a warm-up. In the second quarter alone, Kokomo hit 11 of 16 shots, had six assists, forced nine turnovers — seven on steals — and scored 14 points off turnovers. The Kats’ defensive pressure also led to the Raiders missing 13 of 15 shots.

It was a quarter of time-capsule material for the Kats, who improved to 8-6.

“It was just a tremendous first half, I mean, what can you say?” said Wildkat coach Brian McCauley. “Harrison is a quality team coming off a big conference win Friday night [51-50 over Westfield] and our goal was to come out with enthusiasm and energy. We played this game like it was for the state championship and that’s what we want every night out.”

McCauley has been preaching team-basketball for weeks. He is seeing more and more evidence of it, but never more so than in this victory.

In a 2:51 stretch of the pivotal second quarter, the Kats put together a 14-2 run that included every thing a coach wants to see, ball movement and pin-point passing, 6-of-6 shooting and aggressive defense.

Alan Arnett started it all with a baseline slam off a pass inside from Tyrone Brown before Brown then scored off a perfectly executed inbounds pass. Brown hit Brock Barbary for a bucket and then Barbary returned the favor with an assist on a Parker Salinas hoop. Brown followed with a fastbreak dunk off a steal — albeit one that bounced in and out and back in, getting a lot of smiles from his teammates — before Salinas added a 3-pointer and Arnett a free throw.

That run bumped Kokomo’s lead to 39-14 and the spread topped out 46-14 some 90 seconds before half..

VanArsdel knew his team was in trouble early on.

“We just didn’t compete in the first half,” he said. “We were coming off a big win [over Westfield] and we just didn’t get out of that mode. In the second quarter run that Kokomo made, we called three time-outs but we just couldn’t get them stopped. [Kokomo’s] defense really dictated our play.”

Harrison (5-9) was harassed into 20 of 55 shooting, turned the ball over 19 times, had eight shots blocked and was outrebounded 46-28.

Kokomo understandably had bright spots throughout the lineup.

Patrick Hopkins put together his second straight outstanding performance that included 17 points on 7 of 9 shooting, 11 rebounds and four steals in just under 18 minutes of playing time.

Parker Salinas came off the bench to produce a career-high 15 points that included four rebounds, four blocks and three steals. Brown (9 points), Arnett (9), Colton Summers (7), T.J. Weir (6) and Barbary (6) were consistent performers on both ends of the court.

“I loved our team’s distribution of the ball and the idea of making their teammates better,” McCauley said. “We had unselfish play and that makes for a lot of fun.”