Boys Basketball: Thornton pulls upset, ends Crete-Monee’s season

Updated: February 28, 2012 8:30PM

Thornton held Crete-Monee scoreless for nearly 13 minutes Tuesday and put itself in position for a big upset. All the Wildcats needed was one more basket.

Marvin Jones delivered it, scoring inside off a fine pass from Marcus Ford with five seconds left to lift 13th-seeded Thornton to a 39-37 win over the fourth-seeded and fourth-seeded Warriors in a Class 4A Thornton Regional semifinal.

“It’s (Ford’s) birthday today and he gave me a great gift,” Jones said. “It was a great pass, I just had to put the ball in. Words can’t describe how it felt.”

Marvie Keith (11 points) missed an off-balance three-pointer at the buzzer for Crete-Monee (18-8).

Joshua Russell scored 13 points and Justin Taylor had 10 points and 13 rebounds for Thornton (12-15), which will meet Joliet West or Plainfield South in Friday’s title game.

The Wildcats turned a 23-10 deficit with 4:37 left in the second quarter into a 31-23 lead with 20 seconds to go in the third as Crete-Monee fell apart offensively.

“I have no idea what happened,” Warriors coach Tom Cappel said. “I tried to correct it, but we didn’t execute. We wanted to take the ball to the hole, and we weren’t.”

Down 33-25 after three, the Warriors rallied behind Mark Conner, who scored all seven of his points in the final quarter.

Conner gave Crete-Monee its final lead at 37-36 with 1:41 to go. Taylor split a pair of free throws to set up the final heroics.

“I’ve been down on my guys this year, but they really stepped it up tonight,” Thornton coach Troy Jackson said.

LaQuan Treadwell had seven points and seven rebounds and Michael Orris was held to four points for Crete-Monee, which finished 14-of-53 from the field.

Edward Buie had six points and seven rebounds for Thornton.

“Everyone’s been saying we aren’t like the old Thornton,” Jones said. “We wanted to show we can play.”

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