50 After 50: After more than a decade of lackluster seasons in Warsaw, No. 45 Wildcats finally provide hope

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. 45 — 1984-85 Warsaw

WARSAW, Ill. — The basketball teams at Warsaw High School weren’t very good for most of the 1970s and the early part of the 1980s.

After posting a 17-6 record in 1971-72, the Wildcats didn’t have another winning record for 13 years. Three teams won only one game. Another won just two. None won more than nine.

But during the 1983-84 season, Warsaw finally had hope. The Wildcats won three games in the regional, including a 68-67 upset to top-seeded Hamilton, for their postseason title since 1970. Warsaw lost to powerful Havana 70-57 in the sectional. Lanky sophomore Steve Rothert had 28 points against Hamilton and 23 against Havana. 

A 13-14 record didn’t sound like much, but it meant promise for Warsaw.

“That regional final is among my favorite memories,” Rothert said. “I’m sure Hamilton was heartbroken about it. Boy, that was fun. Pure joy of sports. We knew going in (to next season) we were going to have good teams our junior and senior years.”

“You could tell when they were freshmen in my first year that this was a good group,” Wildcats coach Dan Lucey said. “They worked well together, and it just seemed like potential was there. They worked hard. The biggest thing was they were hungry. Everybody was hungry. The desire was there. We could feel the momentum coming. 

“That (victory over Hamilton) was just a snowball. It was a good beginning.”

Rothert averaged 16.9 points per game as a junior, and Jay Koeber contributed 12.8 ppg. The Wildcats rolled to 19 victories during the regular season and the regional’s top seed. They defeated Dallas City 54-51 to win the regional at Hamilton, avenging a 22-point loss to the Bulldogs a week earlier.

Rothert made a seven-footer from the lane with 11 seconds to play for the winning points in a 49-47 victory over Havana in the sectional semifinals in Bushnell. The Wildcats then ended Quincy Notre Dame’s 10-game winning streak with a 58-52 victory to win the sectional title.

“We weren’t racehorses, and we weren’t thoroughbreds,” Lucey said. “We handled pressure better than we did in the past, and hey, we knew where the ball had to go. Todd Hardy and Rex Massey played well and knew what we had to do to be successful, and they bought into it. Someone asked me, ‘How comes you don’t run?’ And I said, ‘We don’t enough liability insurance to cover the people in the stands who would be hit by balls.’”

Warsaw ran into Pittsfield, ranked No. 10 in Class A, at the super-sectional in Macomb. The Wildcats led by as many as five points in the fourth quarter, and Saukees All-Stater Tim Fischer fouled out with seven minutes left to play. However, Pittsfield rallied to win 49-47 on John Tanner’s shot from the circle with five seconds left to play.

“Brad (Lucey) told me that when he went up (to defend Tanner’s shot), he could kind of feel it go off the tip of his finger,” Dan Lucey said. 

The Wildcats finished with a 24-6 record — and plenty anticipation for the next season.

“The thing I remember about that season is the heartbreaking loss to Pittsfield,” Rothert said. “I remember after the season Coach telling us we were county champions, conference champions, regional champions and sectional champions, so nobody feels sorry for Warsaw.”

Lucey coached at Warsaw for 11 years before becoming an administrator at Buffalo-Tri City in 1993. Two years later, he joined the administration at Central High School in Camp Point for six years, then spent his last three years in education at Carthage. Lucey then drove a truck for 12 years for Carry Transit out of Keokuk, Iowa. He now is retired and living in Quincy.