50 After 50: No. 6 Cardinals use run-‘n-gun style to overwhelm opponents on way to third-place finish

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. 6 — 1994-95 West Pike

KINDERHOOK, Ill. — Marty Hull wasn’t sure.

He knew he had grown up with a group of talented basketball players in northwestern Pike County, but he didn’t know how good they were.

West Pike had 12 consecutive seasons without winning 10 games during parts of the 1970s and 1980s. After the Cardinals won 57 games from 1988 to 1991, they posted an 18-7 record in 1991-92 and then went 24-2 in 1992-93.

“I was just a kid,” Hull said. “All I thought was, ‘Hey, we’re going to go play basketball.’ I had no idea how good these teams were. The summer before my junior year, I don’t know how many games we played that summer, but we played a ton. However, I do remember going to Florida and playing the Russian Junior Olympic team. How many kids from a school of 100 kids can say that?

“So the summer before my senior year, Coach (Steve Joslyn) also took us to Champaign. He had that foresight to say, ‘We have a really good team that maybe could play here again.’ We played six games on that (Assembly Hall) floor and played great competition. Coach was trying to get us ready for some type of state run. Looking back, that was a great idea by Coach Joslyn to have us play stiffer competition and get some losses during the summer.”

Losses didn’t happen very often during the winter.

The Cardinals went undefeated during the regular season in 1993-94 and finished 28-1, losing to Hamilton in the sectional. Even with the graduation of Jamie Wilson and Mike Stout, who combined to average 30 points per game, experts picked West Pike to be one of the top Class A teams in the state.

“I’ll be completely honest. I was absolutely oblivious to all that preseason hype,” Hull said. “I was really the first sports person in my family. My mom and dad didn’t really play sports. I didn’t really know what it all entailed. I was talking to Kirk (Mosley), and we were ranked No. 3 in the preseason (state poll). I remember talking to Kirk kind of dumbfounded. What did that even mean?

“He said, ‘The people in Illinois think we’re one of the best teams in the state.’ And I was like, ‘Really?’”

West Pike opened the season impressively, winning four games in the Suns Classic while averaging 87 points per game and with a margin of victory of 39.4 points.

After beating Bluffs 106-53 and Unity 95-59, the Cardinals blew through the Pike County Conference Tournament, beating their four opponents by an average of 42 points per game. Following a 90-48 victory over Winchester to improve to 11-0, West Pike moved to the No. 1 spot in the Class A state poll.

The Cardinals finally were tested in a 77-66 victory over Clark County at the Culver-Stockton Illinois/Missouri Holiday Shootout. A 70-62 victory over a Central team that had lost eight of its first 11 games was a sign West Pike was looking ahead to a Jan. 7 showdown with No. 3-ranked Aurora Christian at Aurora.

That game lived up to its billing. Hull contributed 39 points and 11 rebounds, but the Cardinals lost 82-81. Mosley’s game-winning shot at the buzzer was blocked.

“Of course, we thought he got fouled, but nothing was called,” Hull said. “That’s when I really started figuring out that we were pretty good. We gave them a heck of a game after playing Central the night before, then traveling up there. That’s when I was like, ‘Holy crap. You know, we are pretty good.’”

After a 109-52 victory over Griggsville-Perry, the Cardinals faced another stiff test on Jan. 17 at home against Springfield Calvary, which already had lost to two state-ranked teams. West Pike scored the game’s first 17 points and crushed the Saints 91-56. Four days later, West Pike survived a slugfest with Peoria Christian, winning 98-86 at the Coca-Cola/McDonald’s Quincy Invitational Shootout. 

West Pike then averaged 105 points in its next four victories, winning by 49 points per game, before Liberty provided a scare in a 70-64 decision on Feb. 10.

At the end of the regular season, West Pike had a 25-1 record while averaging 90 points per game and winning games by an average of 35 points. Hull, a repeat selection on the Class A all-state team, was averaging 27 points per game, but the rest of the Cardinals provided plenty of support. Mosley was averaging 17.6 points and 8.2 assists, while Peter Craig, Brock Billings, Heath Hall and Jason Stotts all averaging between 9.5 and 10.5 points per game.

“Going into our senior year, everybody knew Marty was touching the ball every time down the floor,” Mosley said. “Not only does that give him more opportunities, but that opens things up for everybody else. Everybody’s double- and triple-teaming him, so you’re going to be wide open. Think about the stats he had to get playing two and a half, maybe three quarters a night. Very rarely was he playing in the fourth quarter.”

“The summer was important for a lot of our guys, because they didn’t get as much run as Kirk and I did as juniors,” Hull said. “That whole summer, we worked on our chemistry. Kirk and I hadn’t played with some of them probably since our freshman year. 

“Scoring points wasn’t a problem for us. Looking back now, we had five starters who could all really shoot the three, and I was one of the worst shooters on the team. We could fast break and shoot threes instead of having to take the ball to the hole. At the time, I thought having that many good shooters was normal. Now, looking back, I think, ‘Oh, my gosh. That’s not normal to have.’ That’s why I could score so many points, because if you double me, you’re leaving somebody else for a wide open three.”

West Pike opened regional play at Blue Devil Gym with an 82-56 victory over Payson Seymour, then thumped Quincy Notre Dame 78-49 to win the title. 

Beardstown held the Cardinals to a season-low in points in a 59-40 decision in the semifinals of the sectional at Lewistown. Hull, Craig and Hall all were in foul trouble in the championship game against Lewistown, and Hull was held to a season-low 10 points, but the Cardinals’ rarely-used zone defense and 18 points by Brock Billings salvaged a 70-53 victory.

“They did like a box-and-one on me and doubled me every time I touched it,” Hull said. “But they were leaving Brock and Peter (who scored the first nine points of the game). After we won, Kirk and I got the nets, and we said, ‘We don’t deserve these nets. Brock and Peter deserve the nets.’ People thought they could beat us by making us use our second, third and fourth options. Well, we had one hell of a third and fourth options.”

Hull was in foul trouble again in the super-sectional at Macomb, but Jason Stotts came off the bench to score 11 points in his absence as the Cardinals defeated Carrollton 68-51. The Hawks trailed 40-36 with 2:40 remaining in the third quarter, but West Pike scored 12 of the next 14 points and was not challenged again.

“We didn’t talk about it much back then, but our defense was a little better than what everybody thought back then,” Mosley said. “I’d have never wanted to play against Heath and Peter out there. Those two gnats, they’d be all over you. They would have driven me nuts.”

West Pike cruised to an 86-64 victory over Stewardson-Strasburg in the quarterfinals of the Class A state tournament. After learning earlier in the day the Chicago Sun-Times named him the Class A Player of the Year, Hull finished with 35 points and 13 rebounds.

“That was probably almost like the highlight,” Hull said. “If that wasn’t the best game we played, then it sure was close.”

A rematch with Aurora Christian in the title game seemed possible, but Normal U-High steamrolled the Cardinals 91-67 in the semifinals. The Pioneers later defeated Aurora Christian 56-54 to win the championship.

“To be honest, we were overmatched,” Hull said. “We came out for the first quarter guns blazing, and then I don’t know if we let down. Maybe we thought we were going to kick their butt. Maybe we got too arrogant, cocky. (Pioneers guard Jonah) Batumbuze just tore us up, and their other guard (Jeremy Stanton) was really good. They were just as quick as us, just as athletic as us. We had never seen a team that could keep up with our press and keep up with our athleticism.

“We’d never taken a butt-kicking like that. I remember it being very humbling. There were a lot of tears, because we knew there was no chance of a state title.”

West Pike kept its composure and finished the season with a 32-2 record after defeating Rock Island Alleman 74-70 in the third-place game. Craig’s driving layup with 30 seconds remaining broke a 70-70 tie, and Hall made a breakaway layup 17 seconds later to seal the victory.

“Looking back now, I wonder, ‘How the hell did we do all that with 100 kids in our school?’” Hull said. “We were beating schools that had six, seven times our enrollment. Coach Joslyn made a big deal of the fact that we were by far and away the best public school there. We were the last one left.”

Hull went on to play at Quincy University. He has been in the education field for more than 20 years and now is the assistant principal at Hannibal (Mo.) Middle School.