Hot-shooting De Smet defeats Jefferson City to win Missouri Class 5 boys basketball championship
COLUMBIA, MISSOURI – This was the goal.
When Kent Williams took the job as the head coach of the De Smet basketball team, he knew about the Spartans' proud history of five state championships and set out to win the school's sixth title – and first since 1999.
That goal was achieved on Thursday night as hot-shooting De Smet, led by juniors Riley Massey and Dillon Duff, got off to another strong start and defeated Jefferson City 75-56 in the Missouri Class 5 championship game at Mizzou Arena.
"We've been talking about this for a long time," De Smet coach Kent Williams said. "When I first got the job here the one hashtag I put out there was #MissionBackToTradition. I put it on there for seven straight years and we were knocking on the door – tradition was back, we've been relevant – but to get over the hump and win a state championship was was why I came here and why I know a lot of these guys came here to be part of something like this."
Massey, a 6-foot-3 junior guard, had 21 points, six rebounds and six assists and Duff, a 6-4 junior forward who has committed to play quarterback at Kansas State, had 17 points (with five 3-pointers) and seven rebounds.
Freshman guard Will Foulk added 12 points off the bench and junior Liam Russo and sophomore Jordan Boyd added nine points apiece for De Smet (27-5), which shot 60.5 percent from the field (26-43), 64.7 percent from 3-point range (11-17) and 85.7 percent from the free throw line (12-14).
Junior standout Jordan Martin, an Arkansas baseball pledge, led Jefferson City (12-20) with 23 points and 10 rebounds – both game highs – while sophomore guard Rowen Buffington added 12 points.
Just like in its semifinal win, De Smet came out strong and knocking down perimeter jumpers and surging out to an early lead.
Duff scored nine of the Spartans' first 12 points and had 15 in the first quarter.
The Spartans led 42-24 at halftime after knocking down 10 3-pointers in the first half – on just 11 attempts! – with Duff sinking five and Riley Massey hitting three. Duff scored 15 points in the first half and Massey added 13.
"Tonight was a tough night. We ran into a buzz saw," Jefferson City coach Josh Buffington said. "De Smet's a really, really good basketball team and we knew some things had to bounce our way for us to stay in the fight. We needed them to miss more shots, number one, and then we had to rebound those misses and get out and go in transition more. We also needed to be able to fly around at them and get them to speed up their minds a little bit mentally because they are such a high IQ basketball team.
"We just ran out of steam. They got off to a hot start. I thought we did a good job of contesting shots and mixing up defenses on them, but it was just one of those nights where they could do no wrong. We just couldn't get any momentum going in our direction early in that game."
Missouri Class 5 boys basketball championship: De Smet - Jefferson City
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- Nate Latsch | latsch@scorebooklive.com | @SBLiveMiz
