JEROMESVILLE – If Hillsdale was supposed to be rusty due to limited practice opportunities before its basketball season-opener, the team broke out a sandblaster Tuesday night.
With just six practices under their belt following the football team’s run to the state championship game, the Falcons put on their best offensive display in eight years, drubbing Loudonville by a 94-39 count at home.
Hillsdale finished with 39 field goals – including 12 3-pointers – while committing just four turnovers, pushing out to a double-digit lead on the Redbirds (1-4) a little more than halfway through the first quarter.
The 94 points were the most for the Falcons (1-0) since a 99-85 win over Black River on Dec. 10, 2016, and only twice last season did they allow fewer than 40 points.
“The biggest, fastest and strongest win 90 percent of the time,” first-year Loudonville coach Tim Brafford said. “We’re not the biggest, fastest or the strongest, and they showed us tonight how good they are.
“They had a great year last year and they’re gonna have another great year. … I wasn’t sure how good their shooting would be with only six days of practice, but it’s on. They’ve got some players.”
Returning All-Ohio senior post Bradey Krichbaum (20 points, 12 rebounds) and incoming freshman point guard Lowen Ferguson (18 points, 13 assists and 5 rebounds) both notched double-doubles for the Falcons.
Juniors Troy Bennett (19 points) and Hayden McFadden (12 points, 8 rebounds) combined for another 31 points while senior Holland Young (9 points, 4 rebounds) and sophomore Kael Lewis (7 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists) played lockdown defense on Redbirds standout forward Judah Layton.
The senior led the Mid-Buckeye Conference in scoring last season and entered Tuesday averaging more than 20 points per game this season despite playing on a sprained ankle. But Layton (eight points) managed just one field goal against the Falcons, who forced a running clock (35-point lead) less than halfway through the third quarter.
“They’re definitely the best team that we’ve played so far,” Layton said. “They ran us out of here; there wasn’t much we could do about it. … They lit us up in all areas.”
Loudonville senior guard Dilan Wade – another returning all-conference player – netted a team-high 14 points and senior forward JJ Guilliams chipped in seven. But the Falcons didn’t give the Redbirds any breathing room from the get-go.
Second-year Hillsdale head coach Ben Ferguson said he wants his team to hold opponents to less than 50 points per game on average this season. He also was worried about potential sloppy passing and ball movement as the season opened.
Neither was an issue on Tuesday.
“We’ve got great athletes, we have great shooters and we have the most dominant big man in the area,” the coach said. “Turning the ball over negates all three of those things, so that’s why I focus so hard on not turning it over.
“(Opening night) went better than I would have expected,” he said. “… I love the way the boys shared the ball.”
Krichbaum said he still needs to get into basketball shape, but he went on a 10-0 run all by himself in the second quarter. It included a pair of and-1 buckets and stretched the Hillsdale lead from 30-17 to 40-17 in just two minutes.
By halftime, the Falcons had a 50-23 lead behind eight different scorers, including five guys with a 3-point basket.
“No disrespect to Loudonville, but we knew they weren’t going to be the best team we play (this season),” Krichbaum said, “so we just wanted to focus on trying all of our different defenses and seeing what works on offense.
“We’re off to a really great start with the team chemistry and I feel like we just kind of flow together well.”
In the third quarter, it was Lowen Ferguson who took over. The freshman hit three of his six 3-pointers for the game in a two-minute span and also notched four assists in the quarter while helping force the Redbirds into seven turnovers.
That effort helped spur a 22-3 Hillsdale run that made it 74-29.
“I missed a few that I should have made, but for my debut, I feel like I shot pretty well,” Ferguson said. “And we’ve got five, six, seven guys that can easily go for 20 points on any night, so I feel like our defense will win us a lot of key games this year.”
Krichbaum said he was excited to see how the freshman point guard kicked off his varsity career Tuesday night. It’s the only season the two will be able to play together, and it looks like they could be one of the best inside-outside tandems around.
“I know he probably has the most heart of anyone on the team and the most basketball knowledge,” Krichbaum said. “I knew he was gonna do what he needed to do to not only score, but get other people to score.”
Sophomore Knox Lewis kicked in six points and eight rebounds off the bench for Hillsdale on a night the Redbirds were limited to fewer than 46 points for the fourth time in five games this season.
Loudonville is playing in its first season as a member of the Knox-Morrow Athletic Conference after a long-standing membership in the MBC.
With a new head coach in Brafford – a 1977 Crestview graduate who last year led Clear Fork to a 10-13 record – the Redbirds are trying to build a new identity this winter.
“I see glimpses of us becoming a mid- to top-tier team in the conference,” Layton said, “but right now, that’s not where we’re at. We have to develop.”
Loudonville will have a quick opportunity to try to bounce back, with its next game coming Wednesday at home against Fredericktown (4-2, 2-0 KMAC) in league play.
Hillsdale, meanwhile, gets its first road game of the season Friday at Waynedale (2-4, 2-1 WCAL), which also will be the Falcons’ conference opener.
Coach Ferguson feels like he has a luxury with an eight-deep rotation that offers balance and scoring capability throughout.
For him, the focus is on bringing it all together quickly and turning it into something even better than last year’s turnaround, 18-7 team.
“We had no scrimmages – we hadn’t really had any intersquad scrimmages – so we’re trying to figure out what we really have,” Ferguson said.
“I don’t know that we were a whole lot better at the end of the year than we were at the beginning of the year last year,” he added. “I’m not letting that happen again.”