50 After 50: With state tournament in their sights, No. 13 Raiders’ season ends with wild, chaotic loss at sectional

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. 13 — 1976-77 Quincy Notre Dame

QUINCY — Matt Longo graduated from Quincy Notre Dame in the spring of 1977 and was walking through his dormitory on the Quincy College campus three months later when he took a particular notice of one of the rooms.

The walls of the room were covered with memorabilia and photos from Hamilton High School, the team that had beaten Longo’s team in the sectional championship basketball game in early March. Turns out John Sullivan, a starting guard on that Hamilton team, was living in that dorm. Sullivan went on to become a senator in Illinois from 2003 to 2017 and later was the director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture.

“We got along fine,” Longo said with a laugh. “John was really good. All the Sullivans went to Quincy College. It was funny, because I still remember him having all that stuff and being from the Hamilton area. I also remember running into Scott and Hal Hall (Sullivan’s teammates at Hamilton) at a softball tournament, and we ended up winning the game. And they said to me, ‘Yeah, but we got the big trophy.’”

The bizarre ending to the season for the 1976-77 Quincy Notre Dame basketball team overshadowed the successes of one of the best teams in school history.

The Raiders returned three starters — 6-foot-6 Jody Shoop (10.4 ppg in 1976-77), 6-foot-2 Tim Meckes (10.3 ppg) and 6-foot-2 Warren Ancell (7.1) — from a 19-10 team. Longo and Matt Leahy had to replace Mark Longo and Curt Hogge in the backcourt. QND took on an ambitious schedule that offered 15 games against Class AA competition.

The season opened with a 41-point loss to Collinsville at the Lincoln Tournament, followed by a 51-42 setback to the host school before QND finally won 68-55 over Pekin. Six consecutive victories followed, catapulting the Raiders to No. 2 in the Class A state poll, before they played in the Macomb-Western Holiday Tournament.

Meckes had a career-high 30 points in an 81-59 victory over Geneseo. The Raiders then held off Pittsfield 67-58 to reach the semifinals, where they forced 29 turnovers and knocked off top-seeded Kewanee 66-48. QND then had four players in double figures in a 73-68 victory over Bensenville Fenton to win the championship and stretch the winning streak to 11.

Victories over Venice, Madison and Quigley North stretched the winning streak to 14 games and moved the Raiders to No. 1 in the Class A state poll before they lost 57-56 to Peoria Bergan. 

“I was at the free throw line with eight seconds ago. We were down by one, I missed both free throws, and we ended up losing,” Longo said. “I remember on the bus ride home when Coach (Phil Conover) came back, sat next to me and said, ‘Hey, it’s just all part of athletics. You make some. You miss some.’”

After losing to Pittsfield and defeating Jacksonville, Notre Dame played in one of the most anticipated games in school history on Feb. 9 against Chicago Weber, ranked No. 6 in the Class AA state poll and No. 8 in the nation in a pre-season poll.

“I remember walking into school that day, and it was like, ‘OK, what’s going on here?’” Longo said. “We had no clue what was going on.”

During classes that day, all QND students (except for the basketball players) observed “Silent Day.” No words were uttered unless in response to a teacher’s question.

“I think (teacher) Ginny Camacho organized it all,” Longo said. “Lunch was quiet. PE classes were quiet. At the end of the day, we walked into the assembly. Everybody is sitting there quiet. Then someone walked up to the microphone and said something in regards to the game, and then everybody erupted. It just carried over into that night.”

Weber had beaten Quincy High School twice earlier in the season, but the Raiders led the entire game in upsetting the Red Horde 85-78. Ancell made 19 of 22 free throws and finished with a career-high 31 points. Longo helped limit All-America candidate Ricky Wilson to 3 of 15 shooting and seven points.

The Raiders ended the season in a slump, losing four of their last six to take an 18-7 record into regional play at Mount Sterling. They defeated Perry 90-66 in the opener, but they were nearly stunned in the semifinals, winning 47-45 against Payson Seymour. The Indians had the ball with eight seconds left and trailed by a point, but a missed bonus free throw saved QND.

Unity also scared the Raiders in the final, trailing by two points with 1:20 left on the clock before losing 55-51. However, Longo said those close calls didn’t deter the Raiders.

“No doubt in my mind we were going to state that year. No doubt in my mind,” he said. “We didn’t think there would be anybody who could touch us before the super-sectional.”

QND defeated Virginia 69-60 in the sectional opener at Lewistown, but IHSA officials delayed the second sectional semifinal between Hamilton and Table Grove VIT. Officials at LaHarpe High School filed for a temporary injunction to postpone the game, and Hancock County Judge Max Stewart granted the injunction. 

Officials from Hamilton, LaHarpe and the Illinois High School Association met before Warren County Circuit Court Judge Scott Klukos on March 3 to review the end of Hamilton’s regional semifinal victory over LaHarpe.  Referee Jack Jones testified he had made mistakes in the final seconds of the game. However, Klukos ruled that he would not review any decisions by the officials in the game. Later that night, Hamilton won 72-71.

They played the sectional title game on Saturday afternoon. The Cardinals led by 10 points at halftime and never relinquished the lead in a 72-65 victory. Four Raiders foul out, and a technical foul with 52 seconds remaining sealed their fate. Wendell Barnhouse of The Herald-Whig reported the game was marred by a “near riot” when game officials Jack Lulay and Larry Wilcoxen tried to leave the floor.

“It was just one of those games where we never got any momentum going,” Longo said. “We couldn’t do anything. Just when we’d make a run, something else would happen.

“You could feel the tension of the fans. We knew we were heading toward a loss that we probably shouldn’t have lost, and you could feel the excitement of Hamilton knowing that they’re going to upset a team that they probably shouldn’t have. It was sort of that perfect storm. It just kept building and building and building.”

As for what happened after the game ended, Longo said, “It was a free for all. I mean, it was about as chaotic as I could remember. I think someone popped Jack Lulay, then all hell broke out. I remember going over and picking up Bonnie (Conover, wife of the Raiders’ coach), because she had been knocked down. 

“It’s too bad that’s what everybody remembers. Nowadays, you just take wins and losses, and you just move on. Back then, it just seemed you just took games more personal.”

Longo remembers a quiet bus ride home, knowing the Raiders had finished with a 22-8 record and a missed opportunity to go to the state tournament.

“It’s over. It happened. I was pissed. I was upset. We all were,” Longo said. “Now that I look back at it, we tried our hardest. That’s all you can try to do. We had a good team. We could have had the best team. It would have been fun to go to state. But the bottom line is, we didn’t.”

Longo went on to a storied career as a soccer coach, compiling a 386-104-55 record at Quincy High School from 1987-1996 and 2004-2016. He led the Blue Devils to four state tournament appearances, including a second-place finish in 2015 and a fourth-place finish in 1995. He retired from teaching in 2016.