BY CHAD DARE
DANVILLE — Kishwaukee’s Tyler Smith had an ice bag on his arm and a couple of bruises on other parts of his body, but he didn’t care.
All that mattered to Smith was that the Kougars were going to be playing on the final day of the NJCAA Division II National Tournament at the Mary Miller Gymnasium.
Smith scored a career-high 14 points as Kishwaukee defeated the Louisburg College Hurricanes 91-85 on Friday afternoon. With the win, the Kougars (27-7) will play the Brown Mackie Lions in the fifth-place game at 2 p.m. today.
“I’m just excited to be playing for a place,” Smith said. “This could have been our last game, which none of us wanted.”
And what about scoring a season high?
“I don’t know, was that my season high?” Smith questioned. “I could score zero points and be happy as long as my team wins.”
Since scoring doesn’t seem to be a big concern to Smith, a 6-foot-3 sophomore from DeKalb, how about taking five charges?
“That’s definitely my season high,’’ he said without thought. “I haven’t been on the floor that much in my whole life. I take more pride in the defensive stops. Because that means we get the ball back and it’s one less offensive possession for them.”
In a game between teams of similar styles, Kishwaukee coach Rob Buss said the Smith made the difference for the Kougars.
“Tyler Smith is a killer for teams,” Buss said. “On most team’s scouting reports, it probably says that he is a nickle-dime guy, don’t let him beat you. He is going to get a couple boards. He is going to scrape. He doesn’t shoot it well. Usually he doesn’t have the glowing scout for most teams.
“But he just wills himself. He took our loss (on Thursday) harder than anyone else, and he came out and put it to the floor. The rest of our guys followed his lead.’’
Buss figures that Smith has taken about 50 charges this season.
“He takes a lot of pride in that,” Buss said. “He falls like a ton of bricks. When his body hits the ground, it’s not very pretty. He’s got bumps and bruises and scratches, but those are badges of honor for him.”
Kishwaukee’s Adrian Thomas, who scored a team-high 21 points, admitted the Kougars were playing for pride on Friday.
“We had our mindset on making it to the championship, and we were on the right path,” Thomas said. “Coach stressed don’t be down about last night; come back strong and finish strong. We were more aggressive and came out with win.
“We had to put it past us. Although, we didn’t play to our potential, we still had to come out and play as hard as we could. If we can’t get first place, at least we could come here and place. We didn’t want to be just a participant.”
Louisburg coach John Meeks acknowledged that his Hurricanes (29-7) didn’t bounce back as well.
“I was really concerned that winning another game wasn’t going to mean much of anything to them,’’ he said. “We didn’t guard and we didn’t overcome the emotion of yesterday, that hurt a lot.’’
One of the biggest problems for Louisburg was committing 28 fouls and sending Kishwaukee to the free-throw line 35 times and the Kougars converted 24 of those.
“We fouled that much,’’ Meeks said.
Jeremy Atkinson scored a game-high 27 for the Hurricanes, who were making just their third appearance at an NJCAA national tournament for basketball.Joining Atkinson in double digits were Shamel Atkins with 13, Jordan Davidson with 12, Ashton Ford scored 10 and Natwan Young finished with 10.
Kishwaukee also had five players in double figures with Thomas leading with 21, Lavonte Douglas had 19, Smith contributed 14, Paul Tometich finished with 13 and Evan Lavery scored 12.
