50 After 50: Remarkable depth helped No. 3 Raiders 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. 3 — 2003-04 Quincy Notre Dame

QUINCY — Most basketball teams that have success in the small-school state tournaments typically rely on the starters. Some might get a little help from a reserve or two.

That wasn’t the case with the 2003-04 Quincy Notre Dame boys basketball team. The Raiders had nine seniors on the roster and seven played regularly. Supporting them was a junior class that made practices difficult that season, then posted a 26-3 record as seniors the following season.

“You hope for three, maybe four kids out of a class,” Raiders coach Scott Douglas said. “Maybe you get one or two really good players, and then you get a couple of glue guys. But every once in a while, there’s a crew that comes along that’s pretty good. This (senior) class was full of good players, and then we combined it with the juniors who were ridiculously good as well.

“We had guys coming off the bench who were pivotal to that team, but we also had guys who never got off the bench who were pivotal to that next year’s team. It was a loaded bunch. We had 15 guys who were really good players, and I don’t know that I know that you’ll ever see something like that again. You had two classes in a row that exceeded normal expectations, that’s for sure.”

Johnny Bocke didn’t start playing for the ACES, the developmental program for students in Quincy’s four parochial grade schools, until the sixth grade.

“From sixth grade on, it was all of us together,” he said. “Tom VanderBor was our coach, and we were good. We were really good. We would go down to St. Louis every other Sunday and play down there with the big boys, and we’re doing pretty well.

“Even when we played CYO games, they were competitive. That’s when we starting playing against each other and getting to know each other.”

The Raiders were junior-dominated during the 2002-03 season, finishing with a 22-8 record. They lost to Macomb 46-44 on a buzzer-beating 6-foot jump shot by Mark Thompson in the sectional semifinals at Lewistown.

“We’d beaten Macomb earlier in the year,” Bocke said. “We thought we were going to win that game, and we thought we could get to state. It was heartbreaking.”

The return of Bocke, Joe Terwelp, Ryan Fesler, Luke Greenwell, T.J. Kistner, Chris Peters and Adam Terstriep, plus the addition of 6-foot-8 junior Shawn Emerick and junior guard Zac Greer, created an unheard-of level of depth. The Raiders typically played 10 or more players in every game and applied full-court pressure for all 32 minutes.

“As juniors, we were running a lot of offensive plays. We slowed it down too much,” Bocke said. “When Scott started letting us do motion and run and press, that’s when we started knowing we could be really good. It was go, go, go, go. That’s when we really started putting up points. We had Greenwell at the head of the press because he was long and lanky. He tipped a lot of balls and forced a lot of turnovers. You don’t have to run a lot of set plays if you’re turning teams over 20 times a game.”

“That group really enjoyed (the press),” Douglas said. “You could stay with your game plan and still protect people who were in foul trouble. You didn’t have to change everything. That was an enormous benefit for this team.

“That group grew up a lot. We struggled at times when they were juniors with consistency, just being good every day. When they came back in as seniors, they had a different mission about them. They saw that this was it, and it was their last shot as a group to make a mark. They were ready to see some dreams come true.”

The Raiders, ranked No. 2 in the first Class A preseason poll, opened the season at the Gully Transportation Tipoff Tournament by winning four games. After thumping Warsaw 100-39 and Highland 78-52, the Raiders knocked off two of the area’s top teams — Barry (73-66) and Pittsfield (74-61).

They followed with five consecutive victories, with an average margin of victory of more than 31 points. One of those victories was a resounding 88-42 defeat of Carthage, ranked No. 7 in the preseason poll. The Raiders forced 37 turnovers in the game.

“It was supposed to be a close game, and we end up beating them by like 40 something,” Bocke said. “It was supposed to be these two teams going at it, and they were big boys. That was a statement game.”

QND then impressively won its first three games at the State Farm Holiday Tournament in Bloomington and Normal, beating Kewanee 84-34, Stanford Olympia 69-37 and Mount Pulaski 68-43. The 12-0 start was the best in school history since the 1981-82 season. The Raiders suffered their first loss in a 60-57 decision in the championships game to undefeated Keystone from LaGrange, Ohio.

The Raiders continued their dominant play in January. After defeating Pittsfield 81-73 at Voshall Gym on Jan. 3, they won their next five games by a minimum margin of victory of 22 points.

However, Douglas said the regular season wasn’t all smooth sailing.

“I can’t pinpoint this for sure, but we kind of got to the point where some of the frustrations we had the year before were redeveloping,” he said. “(The coaching staff was) probably tougher on them, but at some point, we decided just to kind of step back, step away and just turn it back over to them. We said, ‘This is it. It’s in your hands. Go take care of it.’

“They started playing better once we did that. Success breeds success, and we probably got way better defensively just because everybody was more engaged and more into it.”

Notre Dame eventually climbed to the No. 1 spot in the Class A poll, but it lost twice in its final six games — a 59-49 setback at Normal University High and a 61-55 loss to Pleasant Plains at the Riverton Subway Shootout. QND missed 25 out of 27 3-pointers in the loss to U-High.

“(Losing those two games) actually helped us, because we thought we could not lose, and then you find out that yeah, you can,” Bocke said.

The Raiders finished the regular season with a 23-3 record. Bocke, the team’s leading scorer at 14 points per game, was an Associated Press Class A all-state selection. Terwelp averaged 11.6 points, and five other players averaged at least five points per game. QND’s average margin of victory was 22.5 points per game.

Notre Dame routed Unity 93-40 to open regional play at Blue Devil Gym, then survived another tough game against Barry in the regional championship game. The Raiders made only 8 of 18 free throws in the fourth quarter and held on to win 60-57. Bocke led the way with 20 points. Jordan Harris had 22 for Barry, which finished 23-6.

“Oh, they were good,” Douglas said. “People forget how good Barry was. We were the one that ended up running into them. Had that not been the case, I wonder about that team. That team was loaded with their five guys they put on the court. We had a tough road to get to where we ultimately got. That Barry team was a team that always loomed large around us.”

“We always struggled with Harris,” Bocke said. “He would always light us up.”

Macomb had knocked QND out of the postseason in each of the past three years, but the Raiders easily handled the Bombers 67-42 in the sectional semifinals at Havana. That set up a sectional title matchup with No. 5-ranked Brown County.

QND led 55-38 with 2:21 left in the third quarter but Brown County answered with a 15-1 run.

Alex Ebbing drained two 3-pointers down the stretch, the second one giving the Hornets their first lead at 65-64 with 1:32 left. Terwelp answered with a putback on the next possession.

Then the unthinkable happened.

Brown County’s Anthony Logsdon was driving to the basket for a go-ahead layup with 38.1 seconds remaining. The shot didn’t fall, and when Logsdon landed, he suffered a gruesome compound fracture in his lower right leg. Play was delayed for 37 minutes. Players huddled in front of their respective benches. A standing-room-only crowd of 2,000 stood in silence as paramedics attended to Logsdon.

“We hoped Anthony was all right, but we knew what we had to do,’ Bocke said. “Everyone was focused.”

“That was a crazy, crazy thing,” Douglas said. “Towards the end of that thing, Fesler was about to shoot free throws and Adam Terstriep came over to me and said, ‘Coach, we’re going to be OK.’ And I’m like, yeah, whatever. And he said, ‘Look up at the clock.’ So I looked at the clock and sure enough, it hit me as hard as it must have hit him.’”

Thirty-eight seconds were remaining in the game. Thirty-eight also was the number Eric Weiman wore on the football field. Weiman, a classmate for the seniors, had died in a car accident along Columbus Road on New Year’s Eve in 2001.

The Raiders made five free throws in the final 38 seconds to win 70-66. Greenwell was the top scorer with 18 points.

Bocke then led QND with 20 points as it defeated Rock Island Alleman 62-50 to win the super-sectional at Moline.

The Raiders opened the state tournament impressively, whipping Pana 87-66. Bocke scored a season-low five points, and foul trouble kept Fesler on the bench. However, Terwelp and Emerick dominated inside, combining for 43 points and 29 rebounds. QND also made 34 of 46 free throws.

Up next was No. 3-ranked Chicago Leo. Bocke knew the semifinal game would be a fight.

“We were watching all the teams (during the afternoon quarterfinal session), and we felt like we could beat everybody there with no problem,” he said. “Then we watched Leo (before the Raiders’ game against Pana), and we knew that was going to be the game. We knew right away what team was going to be in our way.

“We had a dinner thing on Thursday night. The teams all meet and have dinner and stuff. When we saw Leo walk in, you could just tell. They were so much bigger. They looked like they were going to be really good. Then when we saw them play, we were like, ‘Yep, we were right.’ ”

Leo gave the Raiders a dose of their own medicine, overwhelming them with a 12-man rotation. Leo outscored QND 22-11 in the second quarter to take command. Six Lions scored at least seven points in a 70-55 setback for Notre Dame. Terwelp led QND with 27 points, but Bocke missed nine of 11 shots and scored just six points.

“I always say that’s worst game I ever played,” Bocke said. “I don’t know what happened. It wasn’t anything they did. They didn’t do anything I didn’t know how to handle. But I couldn’t make a shot. My dribbling was off. I was just … well, I don’t know. I don’t know if my mind was there. A lot of heads were down in the locker room. I remember tears. I was upset with myself because of how I played. We were down because we thought we could win the whole thing. That was our goal, and it was hard. I still think about it today.

“Then Scott said we had to put that game behind us, because we had one more game in our careers, and let’s blow this team out. And we played really good that last game. But for me, it took a while to get over that Leo game.”

Douglas said Bocke didn’t play as badly as he suggested.

“For that period of time when (Leo) amped it up, yeah, our guards really struggled,” he said. “We couldn’t get the ball to Joe and keep him involved. It was a good move by Leo to change how they were playing. They focused on our inside players, and they were soft against our guards. Then man, they amped up the pressure, and we didn’t do a good job handling it for enough of a part of the game that it probably ended up costing us.”

Leo defeated Winnebago to win the state championship, and the Lions are remembered as one of the top Class A state champions ever. QND bounced back to beat Peoria Christian 87-73 to take third place and finish the season with a 30-4 record. Only one other team in school history, the 1956-57 squad, won as many games.

Nine players from the 2003-04 team went on to play sports in college.

“That team had just about everything you needed to have,” Douglas said. “We had guys who could go by you, guys who could shoot, really good post players who could beat you with their back to the basket, and great guard play. We had a lot of ways to score and do a lot of damage to teams. There’s no doubt about that.

“I’d take that team up against anybody for sure. Absolutely. They believed they could beat anybody, and they weren’t bashful about it. They were good, and they knew it. It took a really good team to beat us.”