High school boys basketball: Mentor finds shooting stroke, crushes Shaker Heights
Feb. 16—The way Bob Krizancic looks at it, momentum is one made shot away.
That being said, Mentor's basketball coach probably felt momentum was taking its good, ol' sweet time arriving at Shaker Heights' gymnasium in a Greater Cleveland Conference game on Feb. 16.
For four minutes, Krizancic's Cardinals couldn't hit nearby Lee Road with a beach ball if they were standing on the yellow line. But once Mentor started hitting shots, it was all downhill from there.
After scoring only six points in the first four minutes of the game, the Cardinals scored 45 more before halftime and cruised to a 79-44 victory over the Raiders in a game that featured a running clock for most of the second half.
The win improves Mentor to 12-7 overall and 9-2 in GCC play, while Shaker falls to 4-17 (1-10).
"We don't plan on being lethargic for four minutes, which we were," Krizancic said. "We had a couple of air balls. We just didn't play well. But the press kicked in and our press dictates everything. That changed everything."
The key to that press is making a shot. It didn't happen early, but once the shots started going in, the Mentor defense got its press going, created turnovers and turned a basketball game into a virtual track meet.
"Our press is the main thing," senior Matt Biddell said. "It wears teams down. I think we did a good job with that tonight. You can see teams don't play as well when they're tired. That's when we go on our runs."
It was a 12-12 game at the 1:28 mark of the first quarter when the Cardinals really hit their stride. Tanner Toot unloaded a 3-pointer for a 15-14 lead, and even though Shaker answered with a basket, the Cardinals went on a 7-2 run to close out the first quarter, capped by a Mikal Harrison 3-pointer at the buzzer for a 22-16 lead.
Toot really got hot then. He hit two 3-pointers to start the second quarter. And then after a Shaker bucket, Biddell scored on a feed from Ian Ioppolo and then scored again on a drive to the bucket to open a 32-18 lead.
Shaker never got the margin to single digits after that.
"Shooters shoot," Toot said of how he and his team got hot after a slow start. "Keep shooting. The next one is going to go in."
For him, that was certainly the case. He hit back-to-back 3s midway through the second for a 38-21 lead. Kobe Frasure-Azzano scored a short while later, followed by an Ioppolo bucket for a 51-28 lead going into the break.
There was little the Raiders could do to slow down Mentor's momentum in the third. A 5-0 run to start the third on Frasure-Azzano shot and a 3 from Biddell made it 56-28. A 3 from the top by Frasure-Azzano and a dunk by Ioppolo — one of four in the game for the 6-foot-6 senior — made it a running clock game at 63-30 at the 5:30 mark of the third. Shaker never was able to get closer than 30 the rest of the way.
"We're OK with them scoring as long as the game is at a really great pace," Krizancic said. "When the speed of the game and tempo is going up and down at a really good place like that, that's when we are at our best and playing comfortable."
Toot had a game-high 17, all coming in the first half on the power of five 3-pointers, while Biddell had 16. Ioppolo had 12, with Frasure-Azzano hitting for 13.
"We're really looking for a third and fourth scorer," Krizancic said. "Matt and Ian are (averaging) 24 and 27. I thought tonight Tanner and Kobe really gave us what we needed in the tournament.
"(Toot) did a great job on defense. He probably had four or five steals. That really helps our tempo. Him hitting — he has to hit in the tournament... they're going to double Matt and Ian. Kobe is getting healthy, we might get Ryan Calo back. If Tanner can hit those 3s, that spreads the defense and opens up some lanes for us."
Mentor gets back at it with a Feb. 17 game against visiting Garrett Morgan. Then comes a home game Feb. 23 against Brunswick in a game that is shaping up to be a winner-take-all bout in the GCC.
"It's at Mentor," Krizancic said. "Both teams are 9-2 in the league. The best thing about it is the tournament atmosphere. That will really help us play in the big games in the tournament."
THE SCORE
Mentor 79, Shaker Heights 44
