Sounds of silence: Panthers regain proper mentality following tourney loss, steamroll Hornets

MT. STERLING, Ill. — The Central-Southeastern girls basketball team didn’t need a pep talk.

In fact, Panthers coach Matt Long had not spoken a word to his team from the moment they left the gym after their 56-37 loss to Breese Mater Dei on Saturday in the Pana Thanksgiving Tournament championship to when they took the court for warmups ahead of Monday’s game against Brown County.

“They knew what the mentality needed to be,” Long said.

CSE senior forward Amanda Stephens understood Long’s silence.

“After that game, there was nothing to be said,” Stephens said. “Everybody needed to look at themselves and see what they needed to do to improve.”

When CSE held the Hornets without a point for the first seven minutes and eventually pulled away to a 40-point lead by the end of the third quarter of a 59-26 victory Monday, it was evident the Panthers had done that introspection.

“That’s what’s really nice about this team is that everyone knows their job and what we need to do, so when we have those bad games, we might say something like, ‘Alright guys, we need to pick it up,’ and everybody knows that we need to pick it up,” Stephens said. “Yeah, that Mater Dei game sucks, but that’s just a lesson that was learned.”

The Panthers came out of the gates slowly on the offensive end — they did not score until Kayli Bockhold drained a long jumper from the right corner with 2:44 left in the first quarter — but they scored on seven of their final eight possessions of the quarter and opened the second quarter on a 16-1 run to take a 31-5 lead with three minutes left in the half.

“I knew we had to pick it up, and I kind of told everybody we need to pick it up,” Panthers senior Lauren Miller said. “We knew we had to pick it up, but it just needed to be said. We started to push on offense and get those easy transition buckets, try and tire them out, and I think it worked.”

Miller scored 11 points in the final 2:06 of the first quarter and finished with 30 points without playing in the fourth quarter.

“I thought she forced some shots early when we were struggling to score, and we told her to be patient. We’re going to have nights like this,” Long said of Miller. “But I thought once she relaxed, she was getting what she needed to get.”

The fast-paced and at times frantic tempo did not phase Miller. She reached the 30-point threshold on a contested layup that stretched the Panthers’ lead to 57-16 with 55 seconds left in the third quarter.

“I just kept going,” Miller said. “My teammates found me open. Even though I was tired, I just tried to keep pushing, sprint up the floor and get easy ones, and my teammates found me so props to them.”

Brown County coach Dave Phelps credited CSE for wrecking defensive havoc, but he said the Hornets did not do themselves any favors.

“I knew they would be a tough matchup. I couldn’t have dreamt it would be what it was tonight, but sometimes that’s just basketball,” Phelps said. “We played a pretty good four minutes to start the game, then things unraveled pretty quickly. Sometimes you just have those nights. Nothing seemed to go our way. They’re a good team, but we made them look a lot better than they are. They’ll probably win 28, 30 games, but we did not do much well tonight.”

The Panthers’ physical nature and relentless pressure made it difficult for the Hornets to find any sort of rhythm or flow.

“They put a unique kind of pressure on you, and if they’re allowed to do some of the things they do — putting hands on you, being physical with you — it’s a long night,” Phelps said. “They were allowed to do those things, but we also added to it by trying to throw the ball over the top with long guards coming at you that can touch the ball.”

Long applauded the Panthers for their bounceback effort, but he feels like they are still several steps away from the heights they can reach.

“I don’t think we’re rolling yet,” Long said. “We played awfully well tonight, but like I told the kids, you’re not a great team until you’ve played well consistently. You do the small things right every game. I’m not saying you have to win them all, but you have to put together consistency through 10 or 12 games, do the small things right.

“If we can come out the next five or six games and play like that, I’ll be pretty happy with where we’re at going into Christmas.”

The Panthers (5-1) will have a week off before hosting Illini West on Dec. 9, while the Hornets (4-2) will travel to Sciota, Ill., for a matchup with West Prairie on Thursday.