OTTUMWA, IA – Sometimes teams have to win ugly.
And that was the case Saturday afternoon at the Hellyer Center as No. 13-rated Indian Hills overcame an extended stretch of sub-par play to extend its current win streak to six games Saturday night with a 101-92 victory over Iowa Lakes.
The Warriors trailed by seven points with just under ten minutes left to play and drew the ire of their head coach for much of the contest until knuckling down and finding a way to grind out another win, keeping IHCC atop the ICCAC standings.
It's often been said that good teams find a way to win despite not playing well in a particular contest, and Coach Hank Plona's squad made a strong case for that axiom against the Lakers.
"I thought that we were missing a little something today," Plona explained. "I think our guys had a little part of them that thought today was going to be easy. These aren't going to be easy. We had a chance to play our style of basketball early, and it didn't really happen."
The Warriors led by five at 46-41 at the half, but a clearly frustrated Plona was not satisfied by his team's effort as a 13-point IHCC lead was waning, and the sixth-year head coach made sure to remind his players that toughness is required to wear the Indian Hills uniform.
"As a smaller team, we've got to have a quickness and an edge and a toughness. A refuse-to-lose attitude," Plona said. "I thought that maybe the middle twenty minutes of the game was not the best we played all year. But then the last ten minutes, I thought we did a good job of being able to get a win in a game that we probably didn't have our A game."
The Warriors' lack of height on their current roster became exacerbated with foul trouble saddling the three tallest players available on Plona's roster in 6-7 Chris Payton, 6-6 Tyem Freeman and 6-5 Curtis Jones.
"Obviously we had some guys in foul trouble, so we had to go very, very tiny out there, and I thought that it actually worked a little bit because that's when we picked it up," Plona said. "Tyrese Nickelson showed his toughness. Braxton Bayless showed his toughness. I thought in the last two minutes of the game it was impressive to see the guys do what they needed to do to win."
Jones ended up being the only Warrior to foul out of the contest with about 90 seconds to play, but the freshman standout left his indelible mark on the game before exiting. The lanky point guard followed-up back-to-back 26-point efforts against Ellsworth and Marshalltown with 20 more against the Lakers to lead IHCC offensively. Not surprisingly, however, Plona noted Jones' efforts on the defensive end as a key to the Warriors pulling this one out.
"Curt is an elite level defender now. He does everything you can do on that end of the court," Plona added. "Before he was scoring all of these points, I still thought he was probably our most important guy as far as the way he sees the game, his unselfishness, and his willingness to do whatever it takes to win."
"He's playing at a very, very high level, and I think he really stepped it up when it got hard tonight."
Despite the deficiencies on the defensive side against the Lakers, IHCC did have six players in double figures en route to cracking the 100-point barrier for the sixth time this season. After Jones' 20 points, the Warriors balance was evident as Taj Anderson had 18 points, Payton 16, Nickelson 15, Freeman 14 and Levar Williams 10. Bayless rounded out the Indian Hills scoring with 8.
Nevertheless, Plona knows this squad will only go as far as their defensive intensity will allow them.
"We allowed 92 points. That's hard to sugarcoat that and say we defended very well, regardless of how you look at it," Plona lamented.
The Warriors were buoyed by outstanding free throw shooting throughout. And, like they've done all season, IHCC got to the line early and often, and when they did, they knocked them down. Iowa Lakes repeatedly fouled down the stretch in an effort to extend the contest, but Plona's shooters wouldn't allow it as they made over 80 percent going 36-of-44 from the charity stripe, including a whopping 25-of-30 in the second half alone.
Plona invoked the namesake of the man whose name adorns the building that he and his club play in as one that would enjoy that kind of performance.
"I think we're first in the country in free throw shooting, which I know is something that Dr. Lyle Hellyer will be very, very proud of," Plona quipped. "We've recruited some guys that can shoot, and they work really hard on it every single day, and obviously, they're mentally strong to be able to go up there and make them in those situations."
Monday was slated to be a makeup contest with Marshalltown that was originally scheduled back on February 17, but was lost due to COVID cases within the MCC program. However, both coaches have agreed that with injuries on both squads in combination with current scheduling challenges that it would be in the best interest of both teams to not play the contest.
That means the next outing for the Warriors is a long-anticipated rematch with DMACC, the last team to defeat IHCC back on February 23 at the Hellyer Center. The two teams are separated by just a ½ game in the ICCAC standings as Indian Hills sits at 14-2 while the Bears are lurking at 13-2.
"If you have to get motivated to play a team that's already beaten you, then there's something wrong with you," Plona said matter-of-factly. "I don't that that applies to us. I do think that we have plenty of motivation going into that game. The importance doesn't need to be stated, but it's always a goal to be first in the league, and this game will kind of swing which direction this thing is going to go, and it'll be a good sign if we're ready to play April basketball."
"We have to go to DMACC. We play Southwestern again, who beat us. We have Kirkwood again. We go to Iowa Lakes. We have a hard stretch here towards the end of the season, so I think every game will be a challenge and hopefully we continue to treat every game like it the most important one, and try to keep this winning streak going."
Wednesday game at DMACC will tip at 7 p.m. from The Den in Boone.
"We're going back to the drawing board and hopefully we can get our mojo back a little bit for Wednesday," Plona concluded.
INDIAN HILLS 101, IOWA LAKES 92
1st 2nd TOTAL
Iowa Lakes 41 51 92
Indian Hills 46 55 101