McCallie basketball coach Dan Wadley exited a jubilant locker room Saturday night and shouted, “That wasn’t pretty, but we’ll take it!”
The Blue Tornado went against their preferred style of play during their Division II state quarterfinal matchup against visiting Memphis University School, milking most of the fourth quarter in a 57-49 victory. By outlasting the Owls, McCallie advances to Friday’s semifinals at Lipscomb University in Nashville.
“It was hard out there, because our game is running,” said McCallie junior guard C.J. Reese. “In practice, Coach is always like ‘Push the ball! Push the ball!’ So we get that in our head, but we’re also smart enough to know there are times you need to slow the ball down. You’ve got to be willing to do anything to win.”
A driving layup by Reese with 6:46 remaining gave McCallie a 48-42 lead and capped a 13-4 run. Wadley then elected to slow the pace, with the Blue Tornado’s next basket being a Chad Lee putback with 3:24 left that gave them a 51-44 advantage.
“We don’t like having to do that,” Wadley said. “We practice what is called stop, score, stop, and that’s what we did early in the fourth quarter. We got it up to six or eight, and then it became them chasing us.”