Wallace, who was a starter on last year’s regional team, was tentative in his first few minutes. “I had to try to find my knee,” Wallace said.
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The second half was different. Wallace came off the bench with 5:10 left in the third quarter and moved more freely. Then with two minutes to play in the quarter, he was suddenly all the way back. He stole the ball near midcourt, took off toward the basket and finished a contested layup.
“After that first steal, I was back to normal after that,” Wallace said.
And as normal, the unbeaten Wildcats won again. They put two good halves together for one of the few times this season, gave what Carson said was their best defensive effort, got 19 points from RaHeim Moss and continued to show off their backcourt depth for a 48-33 victory over Lebanon. The Warriors came in with one loss and ranked No. 3 in the Dayton Daily News Division I power rankings. The Wildcats are No. 2.
Early in the fourth quarter, Wallace led the fast break with a drive into the lane for an off-balance left-handed basket that opened the Wildcats’ lead to 36-22. He finished with six points and no turnovers and played half the game.
“Our leader was back tonight,” Carson said. “Once he saw it go through on that layup, he was phenomenal for the rest of the night. And we expect that.”
Expectations have fueled the Wildcats to a 9-0 and 5-0 GWOC National East Division start. The emergence of Moss as a scorer is not a surprise to the team. Earlier in the season, senior leader Leonard Taylor said Moss was good enough to become the leading scorer on the team. And now he is at 15.4, including 22.7 the past four games. He’s shooting 71.2 percent from the field and 72.3 percent on free throws.
“RaHeim’s one of the best athletes, one of the best players in the league, period,” Carson said. “I knew that coming in. I was feeding that into his head because he is.”
Because of injuries to starters Wallace and JaJaun Rodgers (out two more weeks with a hairline fracture in his foot), Carson put expectations on young guards David Sanford, Jeff Tolliver, Larry Stephens and Jordan Howard to perform at a high level. Sanford is a junior and the others are sophomores.
“My sophomores played phenomenal tonight,” Carson said. “Jordan Howard deserves a big shoutout because that kid played his butt off. He was all the way locked in, he was physical, he was rebounding.”
The Wildcats were forced to play defense for long stretches against the patient Warriors (9-2, 3-2 GWOC National West), who held on to first place in their division. Harrison Hoofkin led the Warriors with 17 points, but the team that leads all of the GWOC in shooting percentage (53.4 percent entering Friday) shot 36.1 percent and committed 15 turnovers.
“Sometimes OK, sometimes not,” Lebanon coach Kevin Higgins said of his team’s offense. “They’re really good. We knew coming in it would be a challenge. We just weren’t aggressive enough, we got sloppy with the ball at times. Credit to them. They’re one of the top teams and took us out of what we wanted to do.”
Carson said playing a team that plays Lebanon’s style is good preparation for tournament time. Last year the Wildcats made it to regional semifinals and lost 47-46 to La Salle.
“Tonight I thought we took a step toward that big picture of being great,” Carson said. “If we can be great early on and continue to get better, we’ll be in good shape.”
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