50 After 50: Before becoming one of Illinois’ most successful prep coaches, Bennett says injured foot was costly for No. 44 Saukees

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. 44 — 1987-88 Pittsfield

PITTSFIELD, Ill. — A broken foot suffered in September may have cost the 1987-88 Pittsfield basketball team a chance the following March to play in the Class A state tournament.

At least that’s what Lee Bennett believes.

“That team could have been better if I would have been better,” he said. “We were playing pickup ball, and I just drove the basket. My foot snapped. I’d gotten to where I could play some. I was a late bloomer, and I was getting better and starting to fill out. I got to where I could really play after high school.

“(Classmate Troy) Fischer even said to me, ‘Dang, man, if you hadn’t busted your foot, maybe that would have been enough to put us over the edge, because we weren’t very far away.’ What if I was just one percent better?”

Even with a hobbled Bennett sidelined until January, the Saukees finished 27-4 and ranked No. 12 in the final regular season Class A state poll. John Hill led the team at 18.6 points per game. Troy Fischer (15.7 ppg) and David McCartney (15.4 ppg) made significant offensive contributions — and all three were between 6-foot-2 and 6-foot-4.

“John Hill wasn’t a highlight guy. Troy Fischer wasn’t a highlight guy. They were really steady,” Bennett said. “Back in the day, McCartney would guard the low posts. That’s back when guarding the low post was really important. McCartney was a guy who wasn’t afraid to be physical and wasn’t afraid to put his nose in there.”

Bennett’s injury forced his father, Saukees coach Dave Bennett, to move 6-foot-4 Brian Daniel to a guard. His contributions were mostly as a passer (seven assists per game) and a defender, but Daniel also scored 32 points in two sectional games.

“He was not a traditional point guard, but he was a Pittsfield kid,” Lee Bennett said. “He was a strong guy who did a lot of things right.”

Pittsfield returned three starters from a 21-6 team the year before. Plenty of big things were expected, especially when the Saukees had three players — McCartney, Fischer and Bennett — whose older brothers played for the talented 1984-85 team ranked as high as No. 3 in the state.

“Was there pressure? Yeah, that was it,” Lee Bennett said. “I don’t want to make it sound like we carried it around like a 50-pound bag, but we had to carry that burden. You felt like you were judged if you made it to state or not, and that’s a pretty high standard. But the program was in such a manner that (the standard) was somewhat reasonable. For most teams, that’s not a reasonable expectation of judgment. In Pittsfield, that went on year after year.”

Pittsfield claimed the regional title by defeating Winchester 77-61, with McCartney scoring 30 points. The Saukees opened the sectional at Petersburg by defeating New Berlin 74-61, then made 24 out of 28 shots from the field in a 60-49 victory over Alton Marquette 60-49 in the title game.

The super-sectional game at Macomb was against Beardstown, which split a pair of regular-season games against Pittsfield. Beardstown led most of the game, but the Saukees got within 52-51 and had possession when Joe Hamilton stole the ball from Daniel with 24 seconds left to play. Scott Vermillion’s free throw put the Tigers ahead 53-51.

Lee Bennett then had the ball along the right sideline when Hamilton stole the ball again with 12 seconds left. Two more free throws sealed a 55-51 loss.

“I remember having the ball with a chance and trying to figure out where the clock was,” he said. “I got dogged on the outside by (Hamilton), and I thought he would be on the inside. It was just kind of one of those things where you’re out of sorts because of the environment. You’re trying to find the clock and figure out the situation, and you’re not as confident with the ball as you need to be or probably would have been had I been in more of a ball-dominant position. I didn’t make the right play, and I remember it being incredibly difficult (afterward).”

Bennett followed his father into the coaching profession. After stops in Avon, Carlinville, Kinderhook (West Pike), Dakota and Alton, Bennett now is in his 15th season at Centralia, where he also is the athletic director while teaching a couple of driver’s education classes. He is expected to pick up his 700th career coaching victory later this season or early next season.

While Bennett hasn’t forgotten the disappointing end to his senior season, he also remembers the fun he had with childhood friends who grew up playing basketball at Lowry Park in Pittsfield.

“It was just a really good year of basketball and a good team with a bunch of good dudes,” he said. “I just looked at VHS tapes of some of those games. It’s funny because the shorts we wore absolutely were not street legal, and the cheerleaders wore skirts longer than the Fab Five’s shorts. Now the players’ shorts are long and the cheer skirts can’t be worn to school because they’ll get in trouble with the dress code.”

He uses his experience as a player to teach his current players.

“It’s important for people to have dreams, even more so than to achieve dreams,” Bennett said. “The path to get there is the growth. To fail or to succeed is the memory. All of us have succeeded and failed. We’ve enjoyed the struggle. We’ve been kicked by the journey, we’ve been lifted by the journey. My (senior) season had a lot of that because it wasn’t an ideal situation.”