DePue dominates Lowpoint

PRINCEVILLE — Complete domination is the only way to describe what the DePue Little Giants did to the Lowpoint-Washburn Wildcats to kick off Illinois’s longest-running continuous high school basketball tournament Monday, Dec. 26, at Princeville.

Other teams and coaches in attendance at the opening game of the 89th annual Princeville Holiday Tournament between DePue and Lowpoint-Washburn were put on notice as the Little Giants pummeled the Wildcats 70-16.

It didn’t take long for the Little Giants to start dropping points on the Wildcats, and they continued to pour it on until they were throttling LW and had them staring at a 45-0 deficit.

“We swarmed them right out of the gate but LW has a young squad, and once we got a couple of steals and turnovers, things kept going our way,” DePue coach Charles Klinefelter said. “We knew we had the advantage coming in, but those kids from Lowpoint were scrappy and never showed any sign of giving in.”

Lowpoint finally got on the board with 1:03 left in the first half on a Trent Hofstatter three from the top of the key, and that was only the eighth shot of the half for the Wildcats.

The defensive frenzy the Little Giants showed around the court forced 22 turnovers on just 32 Lowpoint possessions, and Lowpoint was held to only nine shots in the first half.

For the game, DePue forced turnovers on 33 out of 51 Wildcat possessions and LW was only able to muster 20 total shots.

The Little Giants hung a goose egg over LW for the first 14:57 seconds of the game and came up with a combined 18 team steals for the game, led by six from Rafa Puga.

Extra playing time for guys coming off the bench will be an asset to the Little Giants in the future when those players may be tabbed for more minutes as the season progresses.

“We tried to work on some offensive and defensive schemes when we got up. We got the opportunity to get those guys some playing time who maybe don’t see the court that often,” Klinefelter said. “That experience will be invaluable to us as a team down the road when they are called upon because they will already have that experience.”

Puga did more than just pick pockets and dish out assists (7), he put the rock in the basket and led all scorers with 16 points, all of which came in the first half.

Rahim McKee-Strong played a key role in an offense that had 10 players notch their names in the score book as the big man had nine points of his own and dished out a game-high eight assists.

* The top-seeded and undefeated Little Giants (13-0) slipped past No. 4 Galva 36-31 Tuesday night to advance to Wednesday's championship game at 7:30 p.m. against No. 3 Elmwood, which knocked off No. 2 Henry 75-48 Tuesday.