There are two parts to winning basketball games — the physical and the emotional.
The Thomas Jefferson Spartans were just starting to get the edge physically over Evergreen on Saturday before Ray Riley took to the skies.
Riley’s baseline jam near the end of the third quarter and alley-oop slam early in the fourth quarter got the home court jumping as the Spartans held on for a 66-57 victory to advance to the Sweet 16 of the Class 4A state tournament.
“We got to get the crowd going,” said Riley, who scored a game-high 21 points to lead the fourth-seeded Spartans (16-8), who were champions in 2006 and 2005.
The fifth-seeded Cougars (18-7) prevented the Spartans from owning the boards and pushing the tempo for much of the game, but the Spartans cranked up the pressure late and were rewarded with easy baskets.
“As I respect Coach (Scott) Haebe so much, they do one thing on defense, they do one thing on offense — versus man and versus zone,” Spartans coach Grant Laman said. “We then take that simple approach. We played around with offense for a while until we found one we could lock in on.”
The Spartans advance in the Ron Shavlik Region and will face top-seeded Windsor (21-3), which beat Rock Canyon 73-53 .
Billy Sprague scored 12 points and Shane Oliver and Chris Carter added eight points apiece for the Spartans.
The Cougars weren’t able to hit enough of their trademark 3-pointers to keep TJ’s defense loose in the second half. The fewer long shots that fell, the more the Spartans sagged into the passing lanes to disrupt Evergreen’s Princeton-style offense.
“We had to rely more on the inside,” Evergreen junior Cam Tucker said. “We didn’t really get as many 3s as we wanted.”
Tucker scored 10 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter before fouling out. Senior swingman Kurt Dieter, who also fouled out, scored a team-best 16.
Evergreen 19 10 8 20 — 57
Thomas Jefferson 16 14 15 21 — 66
Evergreen — Haebe 0 0-0 0, Lemasters 2 1-1 11, Dieter 7 2-3 16, Tucker 5 5-7 15, Schultz 2 3-3 7, Herbert 1 1-2 4, Hudak 0 0-0 0, Hodson 0 4-6 4, Trimarco 0 0-0 0. Totals 19 16-22 57.
Thomas Jefferson — Oliver 2 3-4 8, Jackson 1 2-3 5, Riley 9 2-4 21, Sprague 4 4-6 12, Carter 3 2-2 8, Caruthers 0 0-0 0, Harris 0 0-0 0, Penn 3 0-0 7, Compton 0 0-0 0, Fair 0 5-6 5. Totals 22 18-25 66.
3-point goals — Lemasters 2, Herbert; Oliver, Jackson, Riley, Penn. Total fouls — Evergreen 22, Thomas Jefferson 18. Fouled out — Dieter, Tucker. Technicals — None.
