Blue Devils continue to inch closer to putting together complete ‘A’ effort

QUINCY — If that was the Quincy High School boys basketball team’s B — or even C — game, the rest of the Western Big 6 Conference must be shaking in their boots at the thought of the Blue Devils bringing their A game.

The state-ranked Blue Devils led by as many as 50 points in the third quarter and trounced Galesburg 82-39 in WB6 play Tuesday at Blue Devil Gym.

Even with such a lopsided result, Quincy senior guard Bradley Longcor III and forward Keshaun Thomas only gave the Blue Devils’ performance a 7.5 out of 10.

“I don’t think there’s ever a perfect game,” Longcor said. “I think there is always stuff to work on.”

Thomas pointed to the Blue Devils’ defensive start as a downgrade from a potential A. Quincy, which is No. 4 in Class 4A, led 24-15 after that opening frame and allowed Silver Streaks junior guard Jackson Crock-Sibbing to knock down three 3-pointers.

“It was too close in the first quarter,” Thomas said. “They’re not that good of a team. I feel like we can play better defense. If we’re talking as much as I know we can talk, they won’t score more than 20 points on us.”

Senior point guard Kamren Wires would have given the Blue Devils a slightly more comfortable passing grade, but not an A.

“That was pretty decent,” Wires said. “I’ll give it an 8.5.”

The Blue Devils’ scoring dispersion was more than decent. All five starters scored at least nine points in the first half while Quincy’s leading scorer — senior guard Dom Clay — had 12 points in the opening 16 minutes.

“It’s beautiful basketball. That’s what it is,” Blue Devils coach Andy Douglas said. “Having guys give up a good shot for a better shot. When you have players like we have that can score in bunches, for them to be able to pass up what would be a good, high percentage shot for a better one is really fun to watch.”

The entire starting five — Wires, Longcor, Clay, Thomas, and Mark Louthan — has played together since second grade, so Longcor was not surprised at the chemistry the Blue Devils displayed Tuesday night.

“That’s natural for us,” Longcor said. “For us to put on a show like that, it shows how dangerous we can be in the postseason. It’s not just one person scoring all the points.”

As if the Blue Devils needed any more style points on a dominant second quarter in which they outscored Galesburg 30-4, Wires drove the length of the court, Euro stepped his way to the bucket and spun a layup off the backboard and in just before first half buzzer sounded to give the Blue Devils a 54-19 halftime lead.

“I knew the dude couldn’t guard me, so it was like, ‘If I’m already three steps downhill and there’s somebody on me, I’m going right past them,’” Wires said. “They’re not fast enough. I’ve worked on that before, so just do it again.

“It was a little jelly, a little too much on the sauce.”

Douglas could not help but smile at the fact that the 54 points the Blue Devils scored in the first half matched the jersey number of the late Tom Lepper, who was an all-state forward for the Blue Devils and later served 25 years as an assistant coach for Quincy before passing away last month.

“That’s definitely a fitting number,” Douglas said. “That one’s for Coach Lepp.”

Lepper would have been proud of the way the Blue Devils kept their focus and stretched the lead. That advantage ballooned to as large as 73-23 just past the midway point of the third quarter.

“I’ve had teams I’ve coached before where it’s like, ‘OK, we’re up big. Let’s get out of what we did to get us to this point and just start going AWOL, going 1-on-1, whatever,’” Douglas said. “This group did a really good job of staying focused on what we wanted to accomplish, executed the offense in the third quarter and stayed locked in defensively.”

Even when blowing a team out, Douglas knows the Blue Devils must stay locked in because it will serve them well down the line.

“We’re playing against ourselves in games like this,” Douglas said. “If we get sloppy in games like this, we’re setting ourselves up for failure when we go up against the best teams on our schedule. We have a veteran group that’s been through this before, and we’ve learned lessons from being in games like this, whether that’s been from allowing teams to claw back in or creating bad habits in games, and we obviously didn’t do either one of those things tonight.”

Likewise, Wires said this game provided as much of a learning experience for the Blue Devils as their toughest games will.

“OK, we’re going to blow them out, but what are we going to get better in so we can be ready for the Chaminades, the Vashons, the best teams on our schedule?” Wires said. “We’re using this game to get better so when we get to those other games, we’re already ready for it and expecting to do it.”

Even so, Wires still did not think the Blue Devils played a perfect game.

“We can do even better,” Wires said. “We missed some wide open threes that we usually don’t miss, a few layups, a few turnovers. We cut those out, we’re up by 70.”

Longcor paced the Blue Devils (6-0, 2-0 WB6) with 19 points, with Thomas close behind at 17 points. Clay went scoreless in the second half to finish with 12 points, and Mark Louthan pitched in 10 points.