The No. 1 Bellevue West boys basketball team protected home court on Thursday night, taking down No. 5 Creighton Prep 73-61 at the Thunderdome.
Story of the Game
The Junior Jays scored at a decent rate most of the night, but they couldn’t keep up with the Thunderbirds’ perimeter shooting.
Bellevue West raced out to a 21-12 lead after one thanks in part to a 5-for-8 effort from deep, then the Thunderbirds opened the second quarter with two more 3s and a three-point play to extend the lead out to 18.
Creighton Prep continued to fight, cutting the lead down to nine in the second quarter, 12 in the third quarter and 10 in the fourth, but each time the Thunderbirds responded. More often than not, it was senior Jaden Jackson making a play on one end or the other to disrupt the Junior Jay runs and right the ship for his team.
“That’s what he needs to do, he needs to step up and did a good job of that, stepping up and halting their runs a little bit,” Bellevue West coach Steve Klein said. “We were shooting crazy lights-out, and I knew they were not going to quit. Coach [Josh] Luedtke’s too good of a coach and that’s too good of a program; they’re not just going to quit. I told them at halftime, ‘Guys, they’re not going to quit; they’re going to keep making runs at you. You have to be able to stop the runs and be able to guard enough to get yourself through and go get a win.”
As a team, Bellevue West shot 13-of-26 from 3 while holding Prep to 7-of-17, an 18-point advantage in a 12-point win. The Thunderbirds have now won 12 straight and are 14-1 on the season.
Coach Speak
“We did a good job of being able to execute, run some clock and did a good job of finishing the game, which is something that we’ve been kind of working on a little bit because we hadn’t really handled that real well before,” Klein said. “And so we did a good job of finishing that and that’s a really good win. That team is really, really good. They are a load to handle.”
Standout Performers
The star of the show was Bellevue West senior Jadyn Cascio Jensen. Midway through the second quarter, the 6-foot-4 wing was outscoring the Junior Jays by himself. He put up 23 points in the first half and knocked down all seven of his 3-point attempts, finishing with 26 overall on 9-of-12 from the field and 8-of-10 from deep.
Cascio Jensen had been struggling with his shot somewhat this season, heading into the game shooting 12-of-45 (26.7%) from 3 after shooting 36.6% from deep as a junior at Fremont last year. However, he found the range on Thursday and his teammates did a great job of feeding the hot hand. Cascio Jensen is the third Thunderbird to hit eight 3s in a game this season, joining Robby Garcia and Steven Poulicek. The school record is nine by Jeff Martin.
“It’s huge,” Klein said of Cascio Jensen’s shooting display. “We were just talking in the locker room, one night it’s Steven, one night it’s Robby, one night it’s Jaden Jackson, the next night it’s Eldon [Turner], and also now it’s Jadyn Cascio. It’s good for him and he’s been struggling a little bit from a shooting standpoint. I know he’s been getting frustrated with it a little bit, but he didn’t let that get to him. I knew eventually the night was coming because I’ve seen it too many times. I coached him in the summer and he had games where he would hit seven or eight like this, and so I knew it was going to come eventually. The question was going to be when it was going to happen.”
Jackson, a South Dakota State signee, is a prolific 3-point shooter himself but did most of his damage at the rim on Thursday, finishing with 18 points on 8-of-12 shooting including just one trey. He also dished out six assists without a turnover and recorded four steals.
Senior Jacob Arop provided a boost off the bench with 12 points and seven rebounds, including four on the offensive end. The 6-foot-7 Arop, a South Dakota football signee, gave Bellevue West a chance to match up better with Creighton Prep’s frontcourt of 6-foot-8 senior Dillon Claussen and 6-foot-8 junior Trinell Parker.
“It was good to have him back,” Klein said of Arop. “We didn’t have him last Friday because he was sick and we had him just little minute-spurts on Saturday against Bryan. It’s good to see him back and be healthy because he makes a difference on this team. He is really, really hard to get around in terms of guarding and guarding on the perimeter and makes a difference because when you put him in the game with Robby, now you can put him on Parker and you can put Robby on Claussen which makes us match up a little bit better.”
Claussen led the Junior Jays with 16 points on 50% shooting and 5-of-7 from the foul line plus 10 rebounds. Parker chipped in 10 points, four boards and two blocks. Sophomore point guard Torran Carter-Brown shot 3-of-6 from deep and scored 13 points off the bench while senior starter Marquis Toliver put up 12 points, four boards and four assists.
