“A little adversity here or there isn’t bad for a team,” said Kennard, who boosted his career point total to 2,575 and moved into sixth place on the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s all-time scoring list.
“We’ve just got to find that click again. I know the guys that we have. We’ll be ready to go in practice. We won’t let that happen again.”
Franklin coach Brian Bales said his squad didn’t have quality ball movement on offense most of the evening while playing in front of a screaming, standing-room-only throng in the MHS gym.
But it was the defensive performance that really had Bales steamed.
“I did not think we brought it defensively at all,” he said. “There’s no excuse for what we were doing out there defensively. We were very lackadaisical.
“If we’re going to go where we want to go, we’ve got to hang our hat on defense, and we didn’t do that tonight. It’ll break our hearts if that doesn’t change.”
The Hornets took a 30-point beating from the Wildcats on Jan. 6 and never led in the rematch, but Monroe was fearless all night.
Ethan Jeffers (19 points, six rebounds), Braden Hatton (14 points) and Christian Jones (eight points, 11 boards) powered the Hornets, who fell to 5-11 overall and 2-7 in the SWBL. Franklin is 16-1, 8-0.
Jeffers said there was no reason for Monroe to be intimidated.
“What’s the point in being scared?” he said. “I’m 18 years old. I play basketball and love it. We’re in high school, so any team can beat any other team on any given day. Just a certain amount of things have to go right, and we were a couple things short. But if you play hard, you can be in the game, and we were in the game for sure.”
Hornets coach Casey Popplewell loved his players’ want-to, though they started to lose some steam early in the fourth quarter. The Wildcats led 50-44 at the third stop, then marked 10 straight points.
“We had five straight turnovers and didn’t get a shot, and that was the ballgame,” Popplewell said. “They were trapping us and pressuring us, and we handed them the ball. Great teams like Franklin will take advantage of that.”
He said one of the keys against Franklin is getting off to a competitive start. The Wildcats tend to overwhelm opponents early, but Friday’s score after one stanza was 20-17.
“We switched up a couple matchups from the last time we played them and exploited what little weaknesses they have,” Jeffers said. “It just didn’t quite pan out.”
Popplewell pointed out that Monroe finished the first three quarters poorly. The Hornets allowed one point in the last 14.2 seconds of the first period, three points at the buzzer in the second period and two points in the final 1.4 seconds of the third period.
Evan Crowe scored 15 points and converted a trio of treys for Franklin, which committed seven turnovers (the hosts had 21). Austin Doliboa added nine points.
The Wildcats were 24 of 31 at the foul line, with Kennard hitting 19 of 22. The future Duke Blue Devil only got two 3-pointers to fall and looked as frustrated as a player scoring 43 points could look.
“I didn’t have the shot that I usually have,” said Kennard, who grabbed seven rebounds. “It was just a feeling, even in warmups. It happens to shooters sometimes. I’ll be in the gym sometime tomorrow getting some shots up.”
He still outscored the Hornets by himself (15-13) in the fourth period.
“He’s a great player who’s going on to the next level and maybe even the level after that,” Jeffers said. “He’s going to get his. We’ve just got to try to get ours too. That’s what we were thinking.”
“Luke’s the best player I’ve ever coached against, and it’s not close,” Popplewell said. “And I spent 12 years on the bench in Division I at Mason. He doesn’t talk out there. He just plays. That’s fun to watch.”
Monroe does a better job than most SWBL teams when it comes to slowing Franklin down. The Wildcats have had two of their worst offensive showings of the season against the Hornets (the first game was 64-34).
“Their coach always does a great job against us,” Kennard said. “They’re always changing stuff up. I like their team. They’ve got some pretty good players.”
“Casey’s done a great job,” Bales said. “They want to slow the game down. They handled our pressure and made us play halfcourt defense, and we didn’t play good halfcourt defense. We didn’t bring our energy. I’ll take the blame for our problems on offense and defense tonight. These guys are only human. It’s still better to learn and grow from a win than it is to learn from losing.”
Franklin is riding an eight-game winning streak and will visit Oakwood on Tuesday.
Kennard passed three players on the OHSAA scoring list Friday. The next two individuals ahead of him are Rex Leach of Vienna Mathews (2,581 points from 1951-55) and LeBron James of Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary (2,646 points from 1999-2003).
Hatton fired in four second-half 3-pointers and Noah Kappers contributed eight points for Monroe, which has suffered six single-digit defeats this year. The Hornets will go on the road to face Bellbrook on Tuesday.
“We’re ready to be 11-11 at the end,” Jeffers said. “We’ve got six more games left before the tournament, and we plan on winning all of them, or at least playing our best. That’s all we can ask for.”
Franklin 20-19-11-22—72
Monroe 17-16-11-13—57
FRANKLIN (16-1, 8-0): Austin Doliboa 4 1 9; Jake Riddell 1 0 3; Luke Kennard 11 19 43; Evan Crowe 4 4 15; Ryan Montgomery 1 0 2. Totals: 21-24-72.
MONROE (5-11, 2-7): Braden Hatton 5 0 14; Noah Kappers 2 2 8; Ethan Jeffers 5 9 19; Christian Jones 4 0 8; Adam Parks 1 1 3; Brandon Aning 2 1 5. Totals: 19-13-57.
3-pters: F 6 (Crowe 3, Kennard 2, Riddell), M 6 (Hatton 4, Kappers 2)
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