I will be covering the Whiteford-Madison District final tonight for The Evening News. We will have someone at each of the four District final games tonight while Niles Kruger is in Battle Creek for the state wrestling finals. We will have a lot of information on our Web site tonight and in Saturday’s Evening News.

While doing research to get ready for the game, I’ve put together some pregame information on the Whiteford-Madison contest that I’ll share with you:

Game notes:
Madison (21-1) vs. Whiteford (19-3)
7 p.m.
Class C District championship
At Blissfield High School

WIN STREAK: Madison is on a 15 game winning streak. The Madison school record is a 17 game win streak by the 1978-79 Trojan team (23-2) coached by Jim Hartley, now Madison’s superintendent. Jeff Webster, Madison’s current coach, played on that team.

COACHES: Both coaches played on TCC championship teams for the teams they now coach. Jeff Webster has a 74-53 mark since taking over Madison. He is in his 6th year. Brad Stevens is 58-48 and is in his 5th season at Whiteford.

COACH NOTE II: Jeff Webster is the only person in TCC boys basketball history to play on and coach a Tri-County Conference champion.

ALL-STATE: The Michigan High School Basketball Bulletin (formerly called bankhoops.com) has released its Class C All-State team. Tonight’s game features several players from that list:
First Team: Josh DuPree (Whiteford)
Fifth Team: Vince Beekel (Madison)
Eighth Team: Dave Gust (Whiteford)
Ninth Team: Chase Mann (Madison)

MORE POST-SEASON HONORS: Josh DuPree was named one of the Top 25 players in the area by The (Toledo) Blade.

TOP SCORERS: Josh DuPree and Dave Gust finished 1-2 in the TCC scoring race. It is the first time in TCC history that two players from the same team finished 1-2 in scoring. It is also the first time in Whiteford history that two Bobcats have scored more than 400 points (all games) in the same season.

20 WINS: Madison has reached the 20-win plateau for the second time in school history. The other time was the 1978-79 team that went 23-2. Whiteford will be trying to reach the 20-win mark for the third time in school history. The 1982-83 team, which current Bobcat coach Brad Stevens played on, went 20-2. The 2002-03 Whiteford team went 23-1. Never has two TCC teams won 20 games in one season.

DISTRICT TROPHIES: Whiteford last won a District title in 2003. Madison’s last District championships came in 1983.

POINTS: Whiteford enters tonight’s game averaging 73.8 points a game. The Bobcats set a record by scoring 1,169 points in TCC games this season – topping the previous record of 1,131 by the 1986-87 Morenci team. Whiteford played 16 league games this year, compared to 14 games by that 1986-87 Morenci team. Whiteford 73.1 per-game average in TCC play is good for 12th best in league history. The overall season average (73.8 points) is the third-best in school history.

POLL: Whiteford appeared in all eight Class C Associated Press polls this season, including a high of No. 6 on Jan. 22. They were ranked No. 17 – the lowest of the season – in the final poll on Feb. 26. Madison appeared in four polls, reaching a high of No. 10 in the final poll. The Trojans have spent 51 weeks in the AP poll since 1973-74, second among TCC teams behind only Whiteford, who has been in the poll 75 weeks since 1974.

DOUBLE-DOUBLES: Dave Gust leads Whiteford in double-doubles this season with 12. Cody McCartney has five.

TOP SCORER: Only three different players have led Whiteford in scoring this year: Josh DuPree (13), Dave Gust (8) and Jake DuPree (1). Jake’s 18 point effort was in the District semifinal Wednesday. Madison has been led in scoring by Chase Mann (8), Jake Agruda (5), Vince Beekel (6), Jon Vallejo (2) and Jacob Crison (2) [Mann and Beekel shared team honors once].

FINALS: Whiteford is 8-10 all-time in District final games. Madison and Whiteford have met once in the District finals (1982) with Madison winning that game, 66-54. Madison went 16-8 that season and Whiteford was 19-3. … Whiteford has appeared in one District game in its history on the Blissfiel court, 1961. Whiteford beat Dundee in that game.

1,000 POINTS: Josh DuPree topped the 1,200 mark Wednesday and now has 1,204 career points. That ranks him third on the all-time school scoring list behind Eddie Sharpe (1,693) and Brad Nieman (1,280). He ranks ahead of his father, Everett, who scored 1,072 points in his career. Josh’s career high is 40 points (vs. Whitmore Lake).

700 POINTS: Dave Gust has 720 career points, ranking him No. 20 on the school’s all-time scoring list. He needs 15 points to move into the No. 16 slot – which would put him one place behind Bobcat coach Brad Stevens on the school scoring list. If Gust scores 35 points tonight he will bring his average up to 20 points a game. His career high is 33 (vs. Britton).

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.