Solid as the ground beneath them, Nicolet girls roll to Rathke Tournament title

Glendale - This is not last year's Nicolet girls state championship basketball team.

It doesn't have the all-state frontline of Ashley Green, Alex Cohen or Gaby Bronson nor does it have the overall height and athleticism of that bunch either.

But in a couple of ways, it already has done the 2010-11 group a couple of ways better, as this one will enter the new year of its season unbeaten at 9-0 with the championship of the Franklin Rathke Memorial Tournament as well as a victory over Pius XI under its belt.

Which are three things that the state title group did not do.

This year's squad now also has six wins over teams with state aspirations, including Milwaukee King, DSHA and Grafton, as well as Rathke opponents Franklin, Pius and Oshkosh Lourdes who were dispatched last week in the best girls tournament of the holiday season.

Setting the bar high

Veteran Knights coach Corey Wolf mulled over how this could all be happening despite such steep graduation losses and then came up with a simple answer. It was a combination of defense, character, talent, chutzpah and one other intangible that all coaches everywhere love to see.

"I don't know sometimes," she said, "but (what) I do know, first of all, is that we have leadership. The first day of tryouts I recognized that we have great leaders and people like that can take you a long way, and last year's kids off the bench. Those who didn't play a lot, seeing what happened last year, made them work all the harder.

"They realized that they wanted to play at that level, too."

Take undersized (5-8) junior post Lanoira Duhart, whose physical play on Pius XI's active 5-11 senior forward Alyson Matkovich in the second half of the 48-44 semifinal win helped fuel a remarkable rally from not one, but two, 15-point deficits. She had the bucket that put the Knights ahead for good at the 2:42 mark.

"The confidence in the team is really strong right now," said Duhart who had six critical points, several rebounds and established a physical presence underneath that commanded respect. "… We really don't flinch, even when the score is 14-0 (like it was). We don't give up, we just stick with it.

"As for myself, I consider every rebound that comes near me mine."

That attitude rubbed off a little on junior transfer forward Briana Gray, who helped keep the tenacious host Franklin team at bay in the 52-44 quarterfinal win.

"Yes, sir, I'm feeling a lot more comfortable right now," she said, having transferred in from Mississippi early in the fall, "… We have great team chemistry, and I think together as a team we try to find the openings (on offense) that will help us be successful. Tonight, I just happened to be in the spot that was open.

"All we're doing is trying to be efficient."

Fair continues to lead the way

Something that tournament MVP and returning shooting guard from the state championship team Brittney Fair has adapted as a personal mantra. At times, a scorer (she had 21 of her 28 points in the second half rally against Pius including a go-ahead 3-pointer in the fourth quarter), and other times, a distributor (Gray benefitted from many of her passes in the win over Franklin), she has taken the mantle of leadership seriously.

She had 58 points combined in the three wins to lead the effort.

"Every win is a good win," she said after the Pius effort. "We now have a lot of momentum. Our loss to these guys (in the semifinals of the Rathke) last year really opened our eyes. They took it to us in the first half here, but we were able to return the favor in the second."

"… We have a very interesting group going right now. All we're doing is just figuring out ways to win."

In the 50-39 victory over Lourdes in the final, it was a 28-17 second half that broke a 22-22 halftime tie. It came upon the Knights in a flash and even surprised Wolf, who has seen a great many heroics from this squad already this brief season.

"The experience a lot of these kids got last year just taught them things that you otherwise can't teach," she said. "When they get down, there's almost a sense of calm that comes over them. They bring defensive intensity and things just turn around."

"I don't know what it is, but it makes me nervous as a coach (laughs). … Everybody brings a little something different to the table."

One tangible in that game was that the Knights got to the line 21 times, hitting 13 tries including 5 of 6 by Fair (17 points) and 6 of 9 by returning point guard Courtney Smith (11 points). Lourdes, meanwhile, was only 2 of 5 from the charity stripe.