Rev up the playoff engine

Prologue
One of my favorite traditions during the opening round of the playoffs is the Thursday night small school game.  Its always a nice reprieve from the big school games.  Also a nice lead-in to the big school section semis.  Tonight, leave the defense at home as Kaleidoscope visits Hope Academy.  Hope won the regular season meeting 87-80.

Game Time
The 2 stars not getting cheated in this one.  Elijah Wade 3 early buckets for a 9-8 Hope lead.  Michael Jude with 2 technical free throws for a wrong jersey on the home team.  Official scorer gets fired for that, if you're the home scorer you just fix that.  Jude adds a triple on the possession for a 18-16 Kaleidoscope lead.  Wade hoop and harm to tie the game at 23 at 9:32.  Wade and Jude trade pairs of buckets.  30-27 Kaliedoscope at 5:40.  Hope closes with 2 assisted Kaleb Dube layups and a Jordan Brown triple just before the buzzer.  38 all going to halftime.

Hope totally dominates the second half. Wade 1-2 free throws, then a steal for a bucket and another steal that he'll dish for an assist.  Then a straight away 3.  Zak Ruhland with a 3 off a great Dube hustle play to save an errant shot.  Ruhland adds another bucket.  Its a 20-3 Lions run before Kaleidoscope can make a bucket in the half.  That run only takes 5 minutes.  

A slight bit of drama as Wade picks up his 4th foul with 12 minutes left.  Matt Aasen with a 3 and a bucket.  Isaac Freeman with a putback with 6:30 left to cut the lead to 13.  Wade playing thru 4 fouls as he quickly came back in with just under 10 minutes left.  Comets only make 1 more field goal, a late Jude triple.  Hope scores 17 of the last 22 to win big.  Lions win 83-58.

Post Game
Kaleidoscope finishes their season 10-8.  Soph PG Michael Jude leads the Comets with 24 points.  Comets shoot 6-38 in the 2nd half.  With the exception of 1 senior, the Comets do return their entire lineup next season with a large group of sophomores in this year's rotation.

Hope advances to play at top seeded Legacy Christian on Saturday afternoon.  Elijah Wade 29 points to lead the Lions.  Jordan Brown 12 points.  Kaleb Dube and Eyuel Temesgen with 14 points each playing off those 2, particularly Wade who was everywhere.  Kaleidoscope had no answer for him anywhere.  Hope just went to the rim at will.  If it wasn't a direct layup it was a dish to Dube for easy points.

Four Factors

FACTOR	Hope	Kaleidoscope
Effective FG %	50.7%	31.8%
Offensive Rebound %	42.9%	42.1%
Free Throw Rate	9.2%	13%
Turnover %	14.9%	24%
Points Per Possession	1.12	0.77

153 shot attempts in this one meant plenty of offensive rebounds available.  The teams combined for 40 of those.  Kaleidoscope really tries to get shots up but some of those are quick difficult rim finishes.  That was part of their struggle in the 2nd half.  But they had plenty of solid looks that didn't go in.  Hope also won the turnover battle forcing 18 of them.