To Blaise Meredith and Neuqua Valley, practice makes apparently much closer to perfect.
The Wildcats practiced six times the week before Christmas.
The theme never wavered.
“Is it possible to shoot any more than we did in those six practices?'” Neuqua coach Todd Sutton asked an assistant. “We shot and shot and shot and did every shooting drill you could think of.”
It clearly paid off.
Meredith made four of Neuqua’s nine 3-pointers, and that hot shooting paved the way to a 75-61 win over East Aurora in Thursday’s third-place game of the East Aurora Holiday Tournament.
Meredith, a 6-foot-2 senior guard named to the all-tournament team, scored 19 of his 24 points in the first half. The Wildcats (8-5) shot 9-for-22 from 3-point range, 51.9 percent total in their high water mark point total. They also broke 60 points for the third time this week, a feat they hadn’t accomplished since the season’s second game.
Meredith knew where that started.
“Normally after the first week we just do fundamental stuff in practice, defense and rebounding, but we tried to shoot more,” said Meredith, who shot 7-for-13. “It was some intense, competitive, game-situation drills. We shot pretty nice here.”
The Wildcats rolled right out of the gate, knocking down their first six 3-point attempts.
Meredith made three of them, but Jonathan Tan, Connor Gentry and Christian Oliveras also got in on the act.
“When you’re making shots, it helps everything,” Meredith said.
It certainly did help the Wildcats.
Tied at 19-19, Oliveras hit a 3-pointer to spark a 13-0 run. Nathan Scott, who scored 13 points, turned a steal into a breakaway dunk to punctuate the half with Neuqua ahead 41-22.
“We shot better this week than we have all year,” Sutton said. “People that haven’t made shots all year were making shots.”
Meredith only scored five points after halftime, hardly indicative of a drop-off in energy in his coach’s estimation.
He also had four assists and 11 rebounds, and always guards the other team’s best player. In the second half, with Neuqua’s lead in hand up 21, Meredith came out of nowhere with help defense to block a shot off the backboard.
“I see him playing great and that’s without him scoring,” Sutton said. “It’s all the other things that he’s doing.”
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Alex Filo added 10 points and Tan had eight points and five assists for the Wildcats, who had 19 assists a day after getting 18 to beat Oswego East. Junior Davonta Faulkner led East Aurora (2-11) with 27 points.
Sutton isn’t ready to proclaim his team’s turned the corner, but he did see progress.
“We’re not day to day — we’re minute to minute,” Sutton said. “We just want to get better that next minute. We have a long way to go, but we’re getting better.”
Joshua Welge is a freelance writer for the Naperville Sun.