Almost every time Diontae Davis got the basketball in his hands he heard a little voice.
“Give me the ball! Give me the ball!”
It was Davis’ teammate KK Curry.
Davis fed Curry a steady diet of passes from every imaginable angle on the court and so did other teammates.
The big, lanky junior responded with a game-high 29 points and led Cleveland to a surprising 77-47 shellacking of East Hamilton on Tuesday for the District 5-3A tournament championship at Soddy-Daisy High School.
“KK was hungry for the ball, man,” Davis added.
Curry scored 17 first-half points and despite foul trouble, added 12 after intermission.
He was an easy choice for the tournament’s MVP and was joined on the all-tourney team by Davis, Dionte Ware and Romeo Wykle.
“I feel great,” Curry said. “We took over with our defense, getting deflections and steals and got on a roll. This will give us a lot of confidence when we host a region game this weekend. We’re all excited.”
The Blue Raiders (24-3) move on to the Region 3-3A tournament on Saturday and will host Warren County (15-15), the No. 4 team from District 6-3A. Warren lost to No. 3 Stone Memorial 49-46. Stone Memorial will play at East Hamilton.
No. 3 Walker Valley (17-11) goes to No. 2 Cookeville (21-8) and No. 4 Bradley Central (18-10) travels to No. 1 White County (24-6). The Mustangs rallied in the fourth quarter to beat the Bears 64-59 with Cooper Melton scoring 11 of the team’s final 18 points.
White County defeated Cookeville 39-37 for the 6-3A title.
All games start at 7 p.m. local time.
East Hamilton coach Rodney English, who had his ‘Canes in the first championship game in the school’s short eight-year history, could only shake his head after watching Cleveland slice and dice his squad.
“Cleveland kicked our behinds,” he said. “Cleveland was special tonight and deserved the win. They beat us in every single phase. They were more hungry than we were. I have to guess this moment may have been a little too much for us and we just didn’t respond.
“I can’t use that as an excuse. I give Cleveland all the credit because they really took it to us.”
After both teams got off to a shaky start and had trouble adjusting to officials calling 24 fouls – 12 on each team – in the first half, Curry heated up with 17 points, including a 3-pointer from the left wing before the mid-game break. That powered the Blue Raiders to a 31-21 halftime advantage.
Wykle hit a 3 to start the third period ahead of Jordan Munck’s layup.
Curry, who finished second to Bradley Central’s Cole Copeland for player of the year honors during the season, started and ended a quick 10-0 spurt to extend the Blue Raiders’ dominance to 21 points.
Just before Curry ended the run, Wykle got a put-back of the third point-blank miss within 3 feet of the basket with a midway through the period.
That one possession exemplified Cleveland’s want-to spirit against the Hurricanes.
“(My guys) played lights out after we calmed down and got into the flow of the game,” Cleveland coach Jason McCowan said.
East Hamilton, now 1-8 in the postseason after posting its first win Saturday by beating with a win over Bradley, never got over a rough start. The ‘Canes couldn’t make shots. They threw the ball away, got out-hustled to the 50-50 balls, gave the lengthy Blue Raiders too many second chances, couldn’t stop Curry from driving the lane and the frustration was visible in the player’s body language.
English was asked if the Raiders had basically taken his team out of everything it attempted to do?
“Well,” English said, “I think we helped take us out of everything we tried to do. We weren’t aggressive at all. There’s no question we played like this was our first time in a championship game. I guess Cleveland was more seasoned that us and it looks like I didn’t do as good a job with my scheduling as I thought.”
In the last four years, the Blue Raiders have been to three title games and finally won it all Tuesday night with their 11th win in 12 games.
“It’s amazing,” said Davis, who scored nine points. “We want to celebrate this because we worked hard every day to get here and tonight we got the win.”
Cleveland, which loves to play man-to-man defense in an up-tempo horse race on hardwood, came out in a 2-3 zone and appeared to surprise the Hurricanes.
McCowan had a good reason for a change in defenses.
“The last time we played them we were 100 percent man and got beat,” the coach said, referring to East Hamilton’s 78-77 win on Cameron Montgomery’s two free throws with 2.2 seconds left earlier this month. “I figured we’d try to something different and we’re good at that. We had to extend the floor. Coach (Reggie) Tucker and I talked about that on the way here. It was like, ‘Well, let’s see what it looks like.
“(East Hamilton’s Noah) Fager can really hurt you and when (Justin) Dozier can make a lot of things happen when he gets in the lane. We didn’t want to get beat off the dribble. East Hamilton has some players that are explosive with the ball in their hands.
Said Davis, “We didn’t think they could beat us from outside. That would be pretty hard.”
How many times has McCowan utilized the zone this season?
“Not much,” Davis said. “Like maybe four or five times.”
Walker Valley 64, Bradley Central 59: With Bradley leading 56-46 with midway through the final period, Melton got hot and scored 11 of the Mustangs’ final 18 points to spark the come-from-behind victory.
In one stretch, Melton scored eight of his team’s 10 points.
His next-to-last field goal gave Walker Valley a 59-57 lead with 1:39 remaining.
The Bears scored only two points in the final 3 minutes and 47 seconds, that being Copeland’s layup with 16.1 seconds left.
Kolten Gibson and Bryce Nunnelly each scored 14 points for the Mustangs.
Copeland led the Bears with 18 points with two 3-pointers, all coming on six 3s. Ty Beavers added 11 points and Lameric Tucker had 10.
LINESCORES
Championship
East Hamilton 7 14 8 18 – 47
Cleveland 12 19 22 24 – 77
East Hamilton (47) – Wilson 7, Williams 4, Cameron Montgomery 10, Pasley 1, Hughley 7, Randolph 2, Fager 8, Dozier 6, Hammett, Wingard, Hodges.
Cleveland (77) – Wykle 5, Berry 6, Bradford, KK Curry 29, Wood 4, Williams, Dionte Ware 14, Patterson, Davis 9, K. Ware 5, Cobb 5, Black.
3-Point Goals – East Hamilton 5 (Montgomery 2, Wilson 1, Hughley 1, Fager 1), Cleveland 5 (Wykle 1, Curry 1, Davis 1, K. Ware 1, Cobb 1).
Third Place
Walker Valley 16 10 13 25 – 64
Bradley Central 16 18 17 8 – 59
Walker Valley (64) – Munck 6, Westfield 6, Kolten Gibson 14, Cooper Melton 18, Duke 2, Eslinger 3, Murphy 7, Bruce Nunnelly 14.
Bradley Central (59) – Brown 6, Cole Copeland 18, Duggan, Lameric Tucker 10, Saylor Clark 12, Ty Beavers 11, Elrod 2.
3-Point Goals – Walker Valley 8 (Westfield 2, Gibson 2, Melton 2, Eslinger 1, Murphy 1), Bradley Central 5 (Copeland 2, Tucker 1, Clark 1, Beavers 1).
All-Tournament Team
Cleveland – KK Curry (MVP), Deontae Davis, Dionte Ware, Romeo Wykle
East Hamilton – Noah Fager, Justin Dozier, Cameron Montgomery
Walker Valley – Cooper Melton, Bryce Nunnelly
Bradley Central – Cole Copeland, Ty Beavers
McMinn County – Andre Smith
Ooltewah – Cam Chambers
Soddy-Daisy – Hunter Burke
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)