Defending champion Neosho opens Holiday Classic with lopsided win
Dec. 29—NEOSHO, Mo. — Cassville's boys basketball team was averaging 51 points per game during its 6-2 start this season.
But the Wildcats were caught in a trap against Neosho's stifling defense on Wednesday night.
The visitors managed just 6 points in the first quarter and 16 in the first half as Neosho, looking to defend its 2021 Black Division championship, opened its Holiday Classic with a dominant 61-43 win in the first round.
By halftime, Neosho (7-1) had already forced 14 Cassville turnovers and held its opponent scoreless on 22 of 30 possessions. The hosts had a comfortable 22-point lead at that point.
"Defense is kind of what we pride ourselves on, and it's not necessarily a press or anything special, it's just about making them take tough shots — forcing the other team to take shots they don't want to," said Neosho coach Cody Culp.
It didn't matter that Neosho's offense took a while to get going; the host Wildcats made just 5-of-18 shots in the first quarter. The game was tied at 4 early on, and Cassville went nearly four minutes without scoring after that. A 3-pointer by Neosho's Kael Smith just before the buzzer made it 13-6 after a quarter.
Neosho outscored Cassville 25-10 in the second period while shooting 57% from the floor and 43% from 3-point range. The hosts were a perfect 6 for 6 at the free throw line.
"Started slow offensively but if you hold a team to 4 points that long, eventually you're going to throw something in and we got a groove going," Culp said. "They play a pretty good 1-3-1 matchup zone. It's a little different. So once we got the feeling of it, hang of it, we were in a pretty good spot."
It was a 38-16 game at the half. Neosho's Carter Baslee scored the first 5 points of the third quarter. When Isaiah Green scored three minutes in, Neosho led by a game-high 29 points.
Cassville (6-3) actually outscored Neosho 27-23 in the second half, but that big deficit was too much to overcome.
Cassville finished the game with 20 turnovers (six of them on steals) to Neosho's nine. and Neosho added 16 assists.
Green had a huge night for Neosho, scoring 13 points to go along with 11 rebounds and six assists in just 22 minutes. Baslee scored 11 and grabbed seven rebounds and Carter Fenske added 10 points.
Cassville's leading scorer was Aidan Cook, who tallied 12 points in 25 minutes. Nine different Wildcats scored in the game, and Jon Dunbar was second on the team with 8 points and eight rebounds.
Neosho outscored Cassville 23-8 off turnovers, and had 17 points on fast breaks.
Culp said the message after the game was to continue taking things one day at a time, just like Neosho did during last season's tournament.
"We were really not worried because they're seniors, they've been through it," he said. "Today, it was like don't look ahead to tomorrow, you've got to take care of this. I told them (tonight) our main focus is our shoot-around practice tomorrow and we're going to take it one possession, one game at a time."
Neosho will face Oklahoma City's Crooked Oak at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in the semifinals. The Ruf-Nex handled East Newton 79-52 earlier Wednesday. Monett, which edged Sapulpa (Oklahoma) 51-50, and Huntsville (Arkansas), which beat McDonald County 67-57, meet in the other Black Division semifinal at 1 p.m. Thursday.
