50 After 50: Pebbles in their socks served as reminder of little things during No. 1 Wildcats’ state championship run

The Illinois High School Association created a second class for boys basketball for the 1971-72 school year. The 2020-21 season would have been the 50th year of the boys basketball small-school tournament. Muddy River Sports is celebrating 50 years of small-school boys basketball by ranking the 50 best teams in Adams, Brown, Pike and Hancock counties since 1972.

No. 1 — 1996-97 Warsaw

WARSAW, Ill. — Jeff Dahl brought a special guest to the first day of practice for the Warsaw basketball team on Nov. 22, 1996.

Players were excused from classes for the day to hear Jim Dedera speak. He wasn’t a former coach or player willing to lend his expertise to become a better player. Instead, he was a middle-aged pharmacist from Granite City, hoping to help the Wildcats become better people.

“Jim talked to us about the effects of alcohol on the body and how it impacts athletic performance,” said Dan Buelt, a senior guard on the team. “He talked to us about the impact of drugs and stuff like that as well. He also talked about team building things, team chemistry stuff.”

At the end of Dedera’s visit, he asked the players to go outside and find a small pebble, then put it in their sock every day during the first week of practice.

“It was a reminder there are the little things that we can control — our effort level, the attention to detail,” Buelt said. “Every time we stepped on that pebble wrong while we were doing a defensive slide or scrimmaging or whatever, it was that reminder that the little things — setting good screens, making good passes, hustling on the floor, communicating — are going to get us where we want to get to, or they’re going to prevent us from where we want to get. We needed to make sure we were doing everything we could to get to the goal we had set.”

“Jim had a way of speaking that captured people,” said Jeff Dahl, who was entering his third year as Warsaw’s coach. “It was amazing to watch when he captured an entire team.”

Dahl figured he needed a special speaker on that first day, because he knew he had the makings of a special team.

Warsaw returned several players from a team that finished with a 22-4 record the season before. The Associated Press Class A preseason state poll ranked the Wildcats at No. 7. Three top scoring threats — Buelt, guard Bill Heisler and center Craig Wear — were back for their senior seasons.

Warsaw won its first six games — five of them handily, and the other was a 70-66 victory over Bushnell-Prairie City. The winning streak hit nine when the Wildcats beat Rochelle, Pittsfield and Illini Central to reach the championship game of the Macomb-Western Holiday Tournament. 

The opponent was powerful Stephen Decatur, which averaged 81 points per game and was ranked in the top five in Class AA. Illinois State-bound Tarice Bryson averaged 32 points per game.

Warsaw lost 74-54 as Bryson scored 26 points, but nobody seemed upset. The level of play that night was extraordinary.

“Dahl never asked my opinion on game planning, but for that game he asked, ‘Should we try to slow it down?’” Heisler said. “We were all like, ‘No, let’s just play and see where we’re at.’ We pressed them. Probably stupid, looking back. But I don’t think we shied away. They were just better than us.”

“They were just quicker than quick and as athletic as you can be,” Buelt said. “But I remember Coach (Bill) Lapp, who was at Carthage at the time, said, ‘Are you glad you played them? Can you learn from that loss?’ Yeah, absolutely. We learned that there are better teams out there, but we’re not probably gonna see a team like that again. If we can compete with them, we can compete with any team that we’re gonna run across.”

Warsaw won its next three, then rallied from a 10-point deficit after three quarters to beat Nauvoo-Colusa 60-52 in overtime. A 24-0 run after trailing by one point at halftime then helped the Wildcats defeat Unity 71-55. Three days later, Warsaw beat No. 12-ranked Nokomis 68-60 in the QHS Shootout in Blue Devil Gym.

“We always had the belief that when the time would come, we would find a way to win,” Buelt said. “I believed that with my whole heart. When we played Nokomis in Quincy, they got off to a fast start. We did not. They were outrebounding us. They were outhustling us. I remember a couple of their guards, hearing them talk and saying, ‘They can’t hang with us.’ 

“I remember thinking, ‘OK, we’re going to show you.’”

Two games in Quincy during the following week — one they played, one they watched — gave the Wildcats an idea of the level of play needed to succeed in the postseason.

First, several players traveled to Quincy on Jan. 29 to watch No. 12-ranked Quincy Notre Dame against No. 1-ranked Midwest Central. The game only lasted seven minutes and 15 seconds before the officials canceled the rest of the game because of condensation on the court. Midwest Central was leading 18-7 when officials halted play.

“We were in the front row, and I thought, ‘Oh, shoot, this team’s good,’” Buelt said. “(Midwest Central was) ranked No. 1 and rightfully so. They could all dribble, drive and shoot. I thought if we ever saw them (in the postseason), well, I trusted us to go up against anybody, but they would definitely have been a handful.”

Two days later, Warsaw lost 64-59 to the Raiders in the Pit for its second loss in 18 games.

“The QND loss was the best loss for us,” Buelt said. “It was an eye opener, a wake up call. We started feeling good about ourselves. We needed to have that taste of humble pie.”

Warsaw won four straight games before losing on the road to Pittsfield 67-65. 

“The Pittsfield game still ticks out so much for me,” Heisler said. “We were just awful that night. I was awful that night.”

Warsaw closed the regular season with a 21-3 record after a 76-64 victory over Rushville. Heisler averaged 20.5 points per game, Wear scored 17.5 points and grabbed 6.8 rebounds per game, and Buelt chipped in with 14.9 points per game.

The Wildcats opened regional play with a 79-57 victory over Hamilton in the semifinals at LaHarpe. In a third meeting against Nauvoo-Colusa, Heisler scored 33 points in a 72-59 decision in the championship game.

“I wasn’t afraid of anybody, but Nauvoo was scary,” Buelt said. “I mean, Reno Pinkston coached them, and we had already beat them twice. But we had the attitude of, ‘Let’s go. We’re ready. Let’s go do this.’”

After the victory, Buelt made it clear to a local reporter which team he wanted to face in the sectional semifinals at Lewistown.

“I said, ‘I want QND,’” he said. “I didn’t want Payson to win (the regional), I wanted QND to win. Let’s face it. They were well coached. They were a good team. But for me, I wanted that payback. If we’re going to go where we want to go, I want them to make sure they knew they lost to us.”

Wear had his best game of the season to that point, scoring 30 points and grabbing nine rebounds in a 76-60 victory over the Raiders. Heisler and Buelt combined for 40 points.

The Wildcats then advanced to the super-sectional with a lackluster 54-41 victory over a Rushville team that took a 14-15 record into the game.

Many historians and fans may have forgotten the importance of the super-sectional victory over Pleasant Plains, but not the Warsaw players and coaches. The Cardinals led by nine points with three minutes to go, but Heisler made a basket with 23 seconds to force overtime, and the Wildcats won in overtime 68-66.

“That’s the only time when I coached those guys that I went in halftime and I told my assistants, ‘What do we do? I do not know what to do,’” Dahl said. “Plains was just killing us.”

“They just weren’t good. They were huge,” Heisler said. “We were in big trouble early in that game. We felt like we truly escaped.”

“They were the best team we played all year,” Buelt said.

The media covering the first Class A state tournament played in Peoria’s Carver Arena were unconvinced, however. Most of them picked Warsaw to lose in the quarterfinals in a rematch against Nokomis. However, the Wildcats got 30 points out of Heisler and forced 22 turnovers in a 64-51 victory.

“No one picked us out of all the beat writers up there (in) Peoria and around the state,” Dahl said. “So that was good for us to see. We loved the idea of an upset when we felt we were the underdog. When that happened, I knew that would be good for us.”

Dahl’s bravado continued in the postgame press conference. 

“In my interview, I said something like, ‘We will not have a problem with our next game,’” he said. “I just said that flat out. Today, I don’t think I would say that. But I was confident in us, and I said it because I wanted my guys to believe it.”

St. Francis de Sales, featuring 6-foot-9 Sean Lampley, was the semifinal opponent. Wear outplayed the all-state center, scoring 24 points and grabbing 10 rebounds in a 73-59 victory. Heisler added 22 points. 

“I knew if we would stick to our fundamental things, we’d have a good shot,” Dahl said, “And we destroyed them. Flat out destroyed them.”

Lampley, the freshman of the year in the Pac 10 Conference when he played at California the next season, scored just 10 points.

“Craig had a heck of a game,” Built said. “Lampley played a year or two in the NBA, and Craig obviously held his own.”

The Wildcats went to dinner before the title game at a Peoria steakhouse, where Buelt said they met a group of fans from Spring Valley Hall, Warsaw’s opponent that night.

“They kept saying something like ‘You’re not going to beat us’ or ‘You guys aren’t very good,’” he said. “I just remember laughing it off like, ‘OK, we’ll show you.’

“Actually, I’ve never gone into a game more calm in my life.”

The Wildcats trailed most of the game as they struggled to slow down Red Devils junior guard Shawn Jeppson. Hall seemed to have the game in hand when it had a five-point lead with one minute to play.

However, Warsaw forced overtime with one of the most memorable plays in state tournament history. First, the Wildcats called a timeout with 15 seconds remaining as they trailed 73-70.

“Before the timeout, I asked (assistant coach) Brad (Froman) if he had a play that he thought would work, then write it up. Let me see it,” Dahl said. “I had some (plays) in my mind, but I just didn’t like them at the time. The ones that we had practiced, I just didn’t like.”

Froman’s plan worked perfectly. Heisler came off a screen set by Buelt and took a handoff from Wear to bury a 23-foot 3-pointer to tie the score at 73.

“I felt like I put in a lot of work to have the opportunity to be called upon in that situation,” Heisler said. “I felt like everyone trusted the process. Everybody did their job and executed. You don’t know in the moment that kind of shot is coming.”

“I believed Bill would make it. I knew Bill would make it,” Buelt said. “Bill put in all the hours that he did to become the player he was, so I wasn’t even worried. I knew we were going to win. We’ll find a way. We just had that attitude.

“I’m glad the play worked. Afterward, Bill’s getting interviewed on TV and he said, ‘Dan set a great screen there.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Dude, I didn’t touch the guy.’”

Warsaw made 13 of 16 free throws in overtime to win the championship 92-85. Jeppson finished with a record 51 points. Heisler had 36, Wear had 29 points and 13 rebounds, and Buelt had 18 points.

“Once we got to overtime and Bill hit that shot, I just knew we were going to win,” Dahl said. “No doubt in my mind we were going to win.”

“As crazy as it is, I never thought we were going to lose the state championship,” Heisler said. “We were down most of the game, but it just always felt controllable.”

After years of coaching stops at the high school and college levels, Dahl now coaches at West Hancock High School.

Heisler teaches driver’s education at East Leyden High School in Franklin Park. He recently completed his 15th season as the boys basketball coach.

“(Winning a state championship) has given me perspective,” Heisler said. “A lot of how I approach (coaching) is about how meaningful it can be to our kids. I’m helping them get the same opportunity to put the jersey on and help them chase the same dream I did. You don’t get to do that ever again after it’s over. 

“I can’t believe how it’s impacted my life. Every year during the state tournament, you get the memories back. It’s super cool for me in my adult life. It was everything I dreamed about.”

Buelt also coached basketball at Quincy Junior High School, and he’s also a guidance counselor at Quincy High School. He kept in his locker a plastic pill bottle containing the pebbles collected from the first week of practice. After the season ended, he wrote the word “Believe” on the pill bottle and gave it to Dedera to show future teams what happens when everybody believes in the same goal.

“We always believed in ourselves,” he said. “We always thought we would control our own destiny.

“There’s a lot of notoriety and popularity that comes from winning. I remember how competitive we were, how close we were as a team. Those were some great times with some of my best friends going to war every Tuesday and Friday night together, representing the town of Warsaw. It was extremely fun seeing everybody in the gym every Friday night to watch us play or seeing the caravan that went to other places. 

“I don’t want to sound arrogant, but it’s fun to be good.”