ND, Jackson meet in rematch of tourney final

~ Just 13 days after the Indians' eight-point victory, the two rivals meet again.

Jackson vs. Notre Dame Round II.

Tonight marks the rematch between two of the top high school boys basketball teams in the area -- the Indians and Bulldogs -- who last dueled in the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament title game 13 days ago.

Jackson was the victor in that contest, beating the Bulldogs 61-53.

Game time today is scheduled for approximately 7:15 p.m. at Notre Dame.

"It's a conference game and every conference game is important," Notre Dame coach Paul Hale said. "It's a rivalry game."

Notre Dame will look for some revenge despite not practicing three days this week (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday) because numerous players were sick, including starters Ryan Willen, Mark Himmelberg, Ty Williams, Austin Greer and Nick Koeppel.

Hale said he is not sure how much Koeppel, a sophomore guard, will play because he has been battling the flu, but will see some action tonight.

"We're going to be a little bit weak, but we're on the road to recovery," Hale said.

Jackson coach Darrin Scott said Thursday the only player his team will be without is 6-foot-5 senior post player Antonio Garritano, who primarily comes off the bench. Scott said it is because of a team discipline issue, adding that he does not know how long his senior will be out beyond tonight. He declined to comment further.

Notre Dame must find a way to stop Jackson senior Jake Leet, who created numerous problems for the Notre Dame defense last time the two schools squared off. In that contest, he scored 31 points, including four 3-pointers. Willen said after that game that the Bulldogs had trouble finding Leet, who does a nice job getting open looks.

"We might have to concentrate more on Leet a little bit and try to control him a little bit better," Hale said. "We need to concentrate more on where he is at and have everybody be aware of him. We've got to do what we always do. We're not going to change too much. We've just got to play a little bit better.

"They've got big players, they've got nice size and they're deep and very experienced."

Offensively, Hale said his team needs to do a better job of scoring inside.

"We shot the ball like 3-for-22 on the inside," Hale said, discussing the Christmas tournament title game. "So we're going to score better there. We got the ball inside quite a bit. We've got to score better when we do get the ball inside."

Scott said his defense must focus on stopping Willen.

Indians 6-5 senior Hunter Grantham was matched up against Willen the last time and held Willen to two points in the first quarter and 12 points in the first half.

"He's a tough matchup because he can shoot on the perimeter and he can post up and score so well," Scott said of Willen. "It's going to be tough for us to do that. Plus they've got so many kids who can shoot it so well from the perimeter. They're playing at their place, so they're going to shoot it even better. It makes it hard to double them because if you do double, you have to get out quick on their shooters. So it's going to be a tough challenge for us."

Scott said some other Notre Dame players his team must watch out for will be Greer and Williams.

Williams, a senior guard, will play after sitting out with an an injury in the last game against Jackson. He adds depth to the Bulldogs' guard rotation.

Scott said he'd like to see more scorers on his team get involved, in addition to Leet and Grantham.

One of the players he mentioned was 6-6 senior Spencer Goodman.

"Coach Hale does a good job as the game goes of changing some things up out of his matchup -- how they rotate and how they keep Ryan around the basket or if he comes out more," Scott said. "So I'm curious to see what changes he'll make in his matchup. Hopefully, whatever changes he makes we can come up with some way to still get some offense."

Other big local games on tap tonight are Scott County Central at Charleston, Scott City at Sikeston and Central at New Madrid County Central.