Todd Sutton has changed his mind about his Neuqua Valley boys basketball team.
“I’m going to quit doubting these kids,” the third-year Wildcat coach said with a laugh this week. “Last weekend I never would have expected to beat St. Charles [East] at St. Charles and then beat perennial state power East Aurora. But we came away with two wins.”
Neuqua topped the Saints 78-65 last Friday behind 23 points from Keelan Amelianovich, and then blasted the Tomcats 86-61 the next night as Amelianovich scored 19 and Scott Dunn added 18 points.
But the challenge gets tougher this weekend for the Wildcats (12-3, 5-1 Upstate Eight) as they travel to Waubonsie Valley for Friday’s cross-district grudge match and then host unbeaten and league-leading DeKalb on Saturday night.
The Barbs, 16-0 overall and ranked ninth in the latest Tribune survey, slipped past the Wildcats 67-64 in overtime on Dec. 9.
“If we get a couple of wins, I’ll be doing cartwheels,” said Sutton, who has coached the Wildcat varsity through its three years of existence. “A split would be OK. We can’t complain with a split. And if we go 0-2, well, those teams should beat us [because] they’re more talented.”
Challenging for the conference championship in only their third season is pretty heady stuff for a team that was 6-22 in its first varsity season and 11-16 last year.
“I was never too concerned about [wins and losses],” said Sutton. “What we tried to do was build a program here. … In terms of wins and losses, I probably didn’t expect to be this good, but I did expect us to be a good team. We had high expectations.”
The Wildcats have a balanced attack. Amelianovich leads the way with a 14 points per game average followed by Henry Davis (13), Dunn (12) and Jordan Dunsmore (11). In preparing for this weekend, Sutton and his staff are deliberately taking one game at a time.
