Second-half turnaround carries second-ranked Blue Devils to WB6 road victory

EAST MOLINE, Ill. — Andy Douglas laughingly joked the Quincy High School boys basketball program may be financially responsible for any locker room damages that occurred Friday night, insinuating there had been an uproar at halftime.

Neither the Blue Devils’ head coach nor any of his staff took out any shower heads or locker doors, but they did get their point across.

The effort that had state-ranked Quincy tied with United Township was unacceptable.

“Coach gave us a reality check and made us work out with each other what was going wrong,” senior forward Mark Louthan said. “That’s why we turned it up defensively, which led to us knocking down open shots offensively.”

That kept the perfect record intact.

The Blue Devils, ranked second in Class 4A, began both the third and fourth quarters on 8-0 runs, knocked down 12 3-pointers as a team and pulled away for a 69-53 Western Big 6 Conference victory at the Panther Den.

“In the first half, we weren’t engaged defensively and we lacked execution offensively,” Douglas said. “We made it easy for them to guard. In the second half, that changed. We executed really well when we needed to and got good looks at the rim when we needed to.”

Carrying some momentum into halftime despite all that had been lackluster certainly helped.

The Panthers had taken a three-point lead after scoring along the baseline with 13 seconds remaining in the first half. The Blue Devils set up for the last shot, getting the ball to Keshaun Thomas at the top of the key. As time expired, he hit a 3-pointer to tie the game at 32.

“It was huge,” Louthan said. “It was a big momentum change that led us into the second half, us knowing that we weren’t down at halftime with them having home court advantage.”

The second half began with a defensive stop and then an offensive possession in which all five Blue Devils touched the ball before Louthan buried a 3-pointer from the top of the key. It jumpstarted the 8-0 run that gave Quincy (8-0, 4-0 WB6) control.

It was one of a career-high five 3-pointers Louthan knocked down, leading to a 17-point effort. Louthan had made just two 3-pointers in the Blue Devils’ first seven games.

“Very comfortable,” Louthan said when asked how comfortable he was stepping up as a shooter. “My shot felt good and my teammates and coaches put me in the right positions to get to my shot.”

That was the theme of the second half.

Quincy used ball movement and unselfish play to shoot 56 percent from the field in the second half. Thomas led the Blue Devils with 19 points, four 3-pointers and 11 rebounds, eclipsing Michael Payne as the career rebounds leader in the process. Bradley Longcor III added 16 points.

“We went away from what we were really good at offensively the last few games during the first half,” Douglas said. “We finally got back to that in the third and fourth quarter.”

That has to carry over to Saturday night when the Blue Devils play their final game before Christmas when they host Quincy Notre Dame in the crosstown showdown.

“We have to come out in the beginning like we did today in the second half and trust each other that we’ll be locked in and ready to go,” Louthan said.