Askwith's 25 leads Marmion over Immaculate Conception
While it's true Marmion's Greg Askwith lit up Immaculate Conception with a career night Wednesday, that fact alone doesn't do justice to the senior guard's breakout performance.
That's because it took a mere 8 minutes and 16 seconds for Askwith to reach his career high when he buried his fourth 3-pointer of the game on the first possession of the second quarter.
That gave him 16 points, and he went on to score 9 more to finish with 25 in the Cadets' 67-46 victory.
Usually it is senior forward Mark Peters putting up those kind of numbers. Instead, the Cadets' leading scorer played the distributor role, drawing an extra defender and finding Askwith for Marmion's first two baskets, a pair of 3-pointers for a 6-1 lead.
Peters finished with 6 assists, five of them going to the red-hot Askwith, who is normally known as the Cadets' top defender.
"I usually don't get those looks but Mark was going for the assists today," Askwith said. "(I was) excited, pretty pumped."
Knights senior Michael Randick, who battled foul trouble all night and eventually picked up his fifth early in the fourth quarter, split free throws to give Immaculate Conception its only lead of the night, 1-0.
The Knights stayed within 15-12 until Askwith ignited a 14-0 surge with a 3-pointer and ended the run by finding Eddy Grahovec on a backdoor cut. The Cadets led 29-12 at that point, and their lead stayed between 15 and 22 points the rest of the night.
"I think we play much better (with the lead)," Askwith said of the fast start. "When we play at our pace, we don't let the other team take control."
Marmion (10-7) rebounded from a mini 2-game losing streak, including Saturday's trip to Bloomington Central. The Cadets only scored 31 and 38 points in those last two defeats.
With Askwith, Peters (17 points, 14 rebounds) and Grahovec combining for 57 points, Marmion made 50 percent of its shots (25 of 50) Wednesday.
"Definitely a good bounce back game," Cadets coach Rashon Burno said. "Greg, he was able to hit open shots and that got us going. Eddy is another tremendous shooter. We try to put shooters around Mark so you have to protect the 3-point line."
Immaculate Conception (10-10) had hoped to start in a zone and switch to a man in the second half, but Askwith's shooting - plus sixth man Grahovec's 15 points and two 3-pointers - made the Knights adjust those plans.
"No. 2 (Askwith) ate us alive," Knights coach Darren Howard said. "They got us out of our zone pretty quickly.
"Once they had the lead they did a tremendous job of being patient on their offense and we're not good enough defense in man to be able to fight through 10 screens."
Demetrius Mobley led the Knights with 15 points and 10 rebounds. Nobody else reached double figures.
"We just didn't run our offense well," Howard said. "When we run our offense well we score 65 to 80 points a game. We forced some shots. You miss those, long rebounds, and they did a great job of pushing the ball out and putting it in the basket."