LEXINGTON, Ky. (WDRB) – There's enough pressure in the first round of the KHSAA Sweet 16. The Rupp Arena surroundings. The crowd. The elimination factor. The opponent.
Add for North Oldham that it had never played in a Sweet 16, and that can magnify the difficulty of every shot. THEN add an opponent that plays a deliberate style, putting a premium on every possession.
It didn't make for a good highlight reel, but it did make for some suspense. And at the end, North Oldham junior Jack Scales, who had missed all four of his shots to that point and both of his three-point tries, took a pass in the corner from Neal Grant and calmly buried a three-pointer to put the Mustangs up for good with 1:11 left in a 36-32 victory.
It was, in the end, the lowest-scoring Sweet 16 game since 1983. But it was still a thing of beauty to coach David Levitch and North Oldham, who move on to face Lincoln County on Friday.
"I was proud of our guys,” said Levitch, who played at Louisville for Rick Pitino, as did David Padgett, who assists him. “It was a very, obviously, slow-paced game. Wasn’t pretty to watch or coach but at the end of the day, we got it done. We only allowed 10 points in the second half, and I thought we really got good stops when it mattered."
Those aren't misprints on the stat sheet. Muhlenberg outscored North 4-2 in the third quarter. North went 1-of-9 from the field, Muhlenberg went 2-8. North Oldham's 6-7 junior center, Luke Anderson, blocked as many shots in the quarter (2) as either team made.
And it was Anderson and the rest of North Oldham's defense that ultimately made the difference. He finished with 7 blocked shots, including 3 in the game's final 3:20, to help turn back the late Muhlenberg threats after his team had grabbed a 5-point lead with 4:13 left.
Luke Anderson blocks one of his seven blocked shots in North Oldham's Sweet 16 win over Muhlenberg County.
Levitch tried to speed the game up in the fourth quarter, after trailing by four to end the third. North Oldham went with a half-court, pressing defense and generated a couple of turnovers and sped the game up for a short time. Back-to-back scores by Anderson pulled them even, then an and-one 3-point play by Ian Higdon and a layup by Grant put them up 5.
"We just went to a half court press because they were taking one-minute possessions and it looked like just they were just going to hold the ball at that point," Levitch said. "So we tried to really speed them up, we did a little half-court trap with Scales at the top, who's got long arms and is active. They did end up having two turnovers right off the bat, so we just tried to speed them up a little and then went back to (base defense) at the end of the game because that's what we do. We didn't even prepare to play (the press), but the way the game was going just felt like we had to speed it up."
Anderson led North Oldham with 12 points, 11 rebounds and 7 blocks. Muhlenberg County missed 14 two-point field-goal attempts. Half of those were blocked by Anderson. Dallas Roberts added 10 points – all in the first half – to help the Mustangs hang in early. Those two combined for 18 of North Oldham's 20 first-half points.
Still, at some point you need a big shot, and at the end, Scales delivered.
Dallas Roberts of North Oldham signals a play during a Sweet 16 victory over Muhlenberg County in Rupp Arena.
"He's just he's a phenomenal shooter," Roberts said. "I mean all year he's been he's been killing it from the three point line and you know even if the shot aren't falling we've still got faith on the next one."
"We kind of thought the game was going to be like that, just watching them on film and seeing some of their scores," Levitch said. "And I just told our guys it's a really just a one-possession game. It's not a team you want to get behind by six or eight points. I think they mostly got up was four. So, we just kind of grinded it out. And then obviously Ian had that big in one grand Neal had that layup and then the 3-pointer from Scales was big, which I think was his only basket of the game, but it obviously came at the right time. We just kind of trusted what we've been working on and it worked out in the end."
Nobody thought North Oldham (19-12) would be at this point. It lost four straight to finish the regular season. But it won the rugged Eighth Region, and came to Lexington with confidence.
"Playing those tough teams, King of the Bluegrass and big tournaments like that, it really prepared us for this moment and this big stage," Roberts said. "Just having those experiences really helped us out and really gave us a confidence boost even if our record is not 29-4 like everybody else. We're coming in here confident."
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