Monday, March 19, 2007 11:26 PM CDT
Balance leads to 21-win season for Schuring
BY Mike Monahan Staff Writer
mmonahan@jg-tc.com
ARTHUR -n “Five players on the floor functioning as one single unit: team, team, team n no one more important than the other,” said Hickory coach Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) in the 1986 movie Hoosiers.
This quote accurately describes the Arthur boys’ basketball team, coached by Dale Schuring. The Knights went from a 9-16 season last year to a 21-7 season. Arthur finished 10-2 in the Little Okaw Valley Conference, tying with Bement and Tuscola. All with six players that averaged between 8.2 and 10.1 points per game as well as four players that averaged between 3.6 and 6.8 rebounds per game.
Schuring has been named the 25th Journal-Gazette/Times-Courier Coach of the Year and becomes the first to earn the honor in girls’ basketball (1996-97 and 1997-98) and in boys’ basketball.
“I guess if you don’t have a superstar, a kid that can get you 25 points in a game I would just as soon have four or five that can get you ten because it makes you harder to defend,” said Schuring. “They (opponents) can’t key on one person because you don’t know who is going to lead the team in scoring on any given night. The other thing is that if the kid that is getting 20-25 points gets sick or injured or anything like that then where are you at. We could afford to loose a kid and we were used to having other players step up. Balance is a great thing if you can get. It is something that we were blessed with this year.”
The Knights had the longest winning streak of the 14 schools in the Journal-Gazette/Times-Courier area, going from Dec. 9 to Jan.19 without a loss. Arthur had seven players returning from last year, including six seniors in Andy Carver, Nick Coleman, Alec Daily, Lucas Hensley, Kody Smith and Jake Yoder.
“If I had to guess before the season I was hoping to go .500 and maybe finish in the top three in the conference (picked fourth) because we did only win nine last year. These same seniors got the majority of the playing time last year. We had a couple of seniors that played last year as well, but overall it (this years seniors) was pretty much the core group coming back so I thought if we could get to 14-14 that would be an improvement and would be very good.”
Arthur began the season with a 63-44 loss to Sullivan and followed that with a 58-50 victory over Central A&M, a team that would reach the Sweet 16. After a 60-47 loss to Stewardson-Strasburg the Knights downed Windsor and fell to Meridian, a team that would win a regional title, 72-57.
“Basically we changed that speed we played at from last year to more of a half court offense-half court defense to a run a type of offense,” said Schuring. “We wanted to score quickly and defensively extend to full-court and basically press the entire game. That was simply done to take advantage of the athleticism. It is a system that worked well this year. Whether it works well next year or anytime in the future, I don’t know. We just had very good athletes and it worked out well for us.”
The winning streak began with a 66-64 victory over Cerro Gordo. The Knights participated in the Tri-County Holiday Tournament at Kansas and after a 76-48 victory over Martinsville, defeated the host team 59-33 before downing Cumberland 65-57 and earning the wrapping up the tournament with a 62-52 victory over Cowden-Herrick.
In the Cumberland game Arthur was 17-of-30 from the field in the first half, including 4-of-6 from beyond the three-point line, while holding Cumberland, a team that finished 17-13, to just 6-of-27 shooting in the first half as the Knights led 43-20.
“The first inkling of how good we could be was the first half of the Cumberland game,” said Schuring. “It was a phenomenal first half of basketball and I am not sure we ever matched it.”
The New Year began with victories over Tri-County and Villa Grove before getting a 64-49 victory over Arcola. Wins over Shiloh, Ramsey and Okaw Valley were next before another pivotal game with Tuscola. The Knights won 75-58, holding Tuscola to just 2-for-17 shooting in the final quarter and used a 9-0 run to break from a deadlock at 48.
“It was a very good game against two very athletic teams and the stuff we talked about as far as playing as hard as you can as long as you can help,” said Schuring. “Using our depth we are going to wear people down and I think eventually we wore Tuscola down because they just couldn’t get up and down the floor as quick as us.”
The Knights winning streak ended in the conference tournament to Arcola as Arthur was held to a season-low 32 points in a 48-32 loss the eventual tournament champions. The Knights went on to win the consolation title by defeating Atwood-Hammond and Heritage. Arthur lost two games in row for the only time in the season, falling to Bement and Heritage. Three victories followed, including the final regular season game, a 73-61 victory over Lovington, earning a share of the conference title.
“It (the conference title) says a lot about this group, the seniors specifically,” said Schuring. “They are great, great athletes and very competitive people. They listen well because we (Schuring and assistant coaches and Arthur graduates J.J. Carter and Dennis Cole) asked them to change a lot and what we asked them to do is not easy in terms of the conditioning that they had to do what we were doing and to believe that we weren’t going to expect anything else. It was just a great accomplishment for them consider where we were last year. I think we are a little disappointed that we didn’t’ win it (the conference) outright because we had our chances, but at the same time they did what they had to hang on for at least a share of it.”
After nipping Atwood-Hammond 67-65 in the regional, the Knights were eliminated in the semifinals in a thrilling 59-56 overtime loss to Arcola.
Coleman averaged 10.1 points per game, while Wes Dukeman averaged 9.7 points and 4.2 rebounds per game. Alec Daily scored nine points per game and pulled down 6.8 rebounds per contest. Yoder scored 8.9 points and had 4.4 rebounds per game, while Carver scored 8.7 points per game and Smith averaged 8.2 points and 3.6 rebounds per contest.
Arthur averaged 61.1 points per game and allowed 53.3 per contest. The Knights ranked fourth in scoring in the area, second in points allowed and first in average margin of victory.
Schuring was an assistant boys’ basketball coach under Travis Wilson from 1988-89 through 1994-95) before taking over the girls’ program. Schuring was 121-98 in eight years as coach of the Lancers, including three straight 20-win seasons (1995-96 through 1997-98), a Sweet 16 appearance in 1996-97, three straight LOVC regular season and tournament titles. Since taking over the boys’ team in 2003-04 Schruing is 72-37 with two regular season conference titles and tournament title and three 20 plus winning seasons. Overall he is 199-135 (.596).
“It boils down to having talent,” said Schuring, who has also coached boys’ track. “Coaches can get you some games as they might be able to outmaneuver an opposing coach once in awhile, but overall if you got the talent you are going to have success and in small schools it goes in cycles and I have been fortunate enough o be there for some of the good cycle. I have also had my share of down years too. You take what you have got and you do the best with it.”
As for becoming the first coach to earn coach of the year honors in both boys’ and girls’ basketball Schuring, who is 41-6 in four years as the Arthur-Lovington football coach and also coaches girls’ track, where the Lancers finished third in the IHSA Class A in 1997-98 said, “It makes you fell good that what you are doing is working and it reinforces the confidence in what you believe in and what you are trying to do with the kids. I just happened to be the coach in both the girls and the boys when we had some good talent and things worked out well.”
Contact Mike Monahan at mmonahan@jg-tc.com or 238-6854.
JG/T-C Area Players of the Year
1983-Jerry Lowery, Westfield
1984-Mike Church, Oakland
1985-Steve Bennett, Martinsville
1986-Bob Lockart, Sullivan
1987-Randy Bishop, Martinsville
1988-Randy Bishop, Martinsville
1989-Lou Haskett, Arcola
1990-Mike Reynolds, Findlay
1991-Mike Powell, Neoga
1992-Mike Reynolds, Findlay
1993-Travis Wilson, Arthur
1994-Ted Turner, Sullivan
1995-Monty Nohren, Stewardson-Strasburg
1996-Tad Everett, Kansas
1997-Monty Nohren and John Giesler, Stew-Stras
1998-Randy Bishop, Casey-Westfield
1999-Randy Bishop, Casey-Westfield
2000-Scott Bales, Sullivan
2001-Monty Nohren, Stewardson-Strasburg
2002-Scott Bales, Sullivan
2003-Trevor Doughty, Charleston
2004-Brandon Miller, Casey-Westfield
2005-Brad Oakley, Cumberland
2006-Jason Hanson, Neoga
2007-Dale Schuring, Arthur
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