Taylor Kennedy’s Iland Amerson is swarmed by Belleville defenders during Monday’s state tournament game.
After Belleville’s Calvin Blaydes began the 2016 boys basketball state tournament with a three-point play, the Tigers gave up a free throw to Taylor Kennedy on the next possession.
After that, Belleville (17-4) smothered Kennedy and each time Kennedy (14-7) advanced the ball past halfcourt, it should have been awarded a point.
“We just played with intensity and they didn’t play with intensity,” explained Belleville sophomore sensation Davion Williams. “We came down and make sure we got an early run on them. We’re hungry to play Romulus again.”
That run Belleville wanted lasted 4 minutes and produced 15 straight points, leading to an easy 74-44 Class A district victory Monday night in Belleville.
As a result, the Tigers will play Romulus at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in a rubber match after splitting two regular season games.
After missing a couple of shots on acrobatic moves that no sophomore should be able to possess, Williams settled down and scored 10 of his game-high 27 points in the first quarter.
Michigan high school boys basketball district scores
“I always start inside and go outside,” said the 6-foot-2 Williams. “I feel if I’ve got my inside game going, my outside game will be clicking, too. If I go for ‘threes’ when I first start, I’m not clicking.”
He was clicking on this night, scoring on some breathtaking dunks as well as hitting four three-point shots against Kennedy’s zone.
“If teams haven’t seen a lot of tape on us, they figure we’re not the greatest shooters,” said Belleville coach Adam Trumpour. “But you don’t always have to settle for (perimeter) shooting against the zone. We run some other stuff where we get the ball inside and attack and move the ball a little bit and those jumpers tend to go down a little better. We’re not just a pass-pass-shoot-a-three team versus a zone. We try to still get to the rim.”
Nobody gets to the rim quite like Williams, who began his short stretch of the third quarter by taking an alley-oop pass from Javon Vinson and slamming it home.
“We were just feeling it,” Williams said with a smile. “We made eye contact and I told him: ‘Throw it up in the air.’ ”
Vinson seemed to throw the ball into the stratosphere, but Williams was able to go up and get it.
“He’s got high-major potential,” said Trumpour. “With two years left, he’s got a chance to be really, really good. Last year, he didn’t shoot it well. I think some people still think he doesn’t. He’s really improved his shooting as his sophomore season has gone on.
“I don’t know if there’s another athlete like him in the sophomore class. He’s got some ability to where he wants to play in the big moments. That’s something that’s hard to teach as well.”
The big moments in this one happened in the first quarter when an under-manned Kennedy team couldn’t handle the press with a couple of starters on the sidelines.
“Our game plan was to play much slower than we actually did,” said Kennedy coach Chad Putnam. “They upped the tempo and increased the pressure and intensity of stuff and I think we kind of fell into some traps on their end of things of playing a little too fast for our skill level and our talent tonight.”
Contact Mick McCabe: 313-223-4744 or mmccabe@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1.