GRAND RAPIDS – Davenport junior JaVontae Ford and his Panthers teammates apparently have learned an important lesson.
“Your offense is not guaranteed to always be there,” Ford said Saturday. “But you can always play defense.”
The Panthers' defense held the Aquinas College Saints scoreless for a stretch of more than seven and a half minutes - and without a field goal for nearly nine minutes - in the first half of what turned into a 72-46 Davenport victory at Aquinas' Sturrus Sports Center on Saturday, Feb. 9.
The lockdown defense turned a 13-13 tie game into a 24-point Panthers lead at 39-15.
Davenport (23-5 overall, 16-4 in the WHAC) led by 21 at halftime (41-20) and allowed the Saints (11-17, 9-11) to get no closer than 16 points (43-27) in the second half.
“We had a good week of practice and coach (Burt Paddock) drilled into us that they beat us on our home court, so we knew what we had to do," Ford said. "Every time we play them it's a dogfight, but we put in a new defense and today we played defense with effort and energy.”
A sports management major who graduated from Forest Hills Northern, Ford led all scorers in the game with 16 points. He drained three of the four 3-pointers he attempted while also leading all players in the game with five assists.
“We put in a 1-3-1 about three weeks ago,” Paddock said. “It has been a good thing for us because our man-to-man had grown stale and our guys are extremely long. The number of turnovers we have caused in the last 6 to 8 games has been twice what it was before we put that in.”
Aquinas turned the ball over 24 times while Davenport gave the ball away only six times.
“Turning it over only six times is a huge reason we won this game,” Paddock said. “We also had some inside motivation though, too.”
That motivation came from having lost to the Saints in overtime at Davenport in early January. In that game, the Panthers came from 17 down at halftime to lead by as many as nine in the second half only to lose in overtime.
Dominez Burnett scored 13 for the Panthers Saturday while Grand Rapids Catholic Central graduate Thomas Drew scored 11 for Davenport. Aquinas was led by freshman forward Joe Ferrici, sophomore forward Bryan Mitzner and sophomore center Nick Gregory, each of whom scored eight points.
Saints coach Dave Hammer sat his starters throughout the second half Saturday.
“They weren't functioning,” Hammer said. “The way they were playing, they weren't going to get it done either. Our other kids have put the time in and they deserved it with their effort.
“I still think (Davenport) is the best team in the league, even if Madonna has beaten them twice,” Hammer said. “I thought we played a good first few minutes, but then all of a sudden we couldn't stop them and we couldn't get a score. We became real tentative with our offense. It's tough for us when we get behind by double digits. Against a team like this, you can't give them that kind of margin. This is the best I have seen Davenport play, defensively.”