Panthers avoid upset vs. Kahoks
O’Fallon 49, Collinsville 48 • Poor shooting night nearly leads to loss for top team.
O’FALLON, ILL. — Coach Rick Gibson was looking for anything positive after watching O’Fallon survive a 49-48 scare from visiting Collinsville on Friday night in a boys Southwestern Conference basketball game at the Panther Dome.
And it was hard to find anything after watching the Panthers make only 16 of 38 field goals and just 14 of 33 free throws in their triumph.
“We got a win against a good team,” Gibson said. “You got to find something positive when you play that bad. That’s the positive. You miss 19 free throws. You miss a lot of bunnies. You usually come out with a loss. Our defensive effort was still pretty good. To be able to walk out with a win, you’ve got to at least take that positive.”
The win improved O’Fallon, No. 1 in the Post-Dispatch large-schools rankings and No. 2 in the Illinois Associated Press Class 4A state poll, to 20-1 overall and 9-0 in the conference.
The unranked Kahoks fell to 15-8, 4-5 as Deonta Smith had a team-leading and game-high 15 points and Daryn Foster added 13.
“I don’t know if it was so much stuff they were doing,” Gibson added. “They kept fouling us and we couldn’t make free throws. If we make half of them (19 missed), we win by double digits.”
Collinsville led for a majority of the contest, including 22-16 at halftime. In the third quarter, the Kahoks were in front 27-22 after Austin Ash drained a 3-pointer on the right wing in front of his bench with 4 minutes 15 seconds left.
But O’Fallon didn’t back down and eventually grabbed a 38-36 advantage after a steal and layup by Roosevelt Jones (team-high 12 points) with 3:48 left. That started the Panthers on an 8-3 run that gave them a lead they would never relinquish.
“We came out slow on the offensive end,” said Jones, who made only four of 11 foul shots. “We weren’t focused for the game. I’m going to make sure we’re focused for every game from here on out. We’ve got to stop looking at all the records and rankings and all the hype and stuff.”
First-year Collinsville coach Darin Lee, whose team committed 19 turnovers, said “we battled ‘em, but we have to get better in other areas. I thought we could have played a little better. I was disappointed by some of our turnovers. Some of them were careless.”
