Mankato East’s suffocating defensive effort and 60% shooting performance from the field Thursday night sparked a 75-37 Big Nine Conference boys basketball win over Owatonna at the Easy gym.
Senior guard Brogan Madson tallied 19 points and six assists as the No. 4-ranked Cougars improved to 7-1 on the season and 3-0 in the Big Nine. Senior forward Ganden Gosch ended up with 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists while junior guard Lucas Gustafson chipped in 12 points and four assists.
“We got after them defensively and made them uncomfortable,” East coach Joe Madson said. “Our goal was to make them not see the rim or that easy next pass. We got them to play a little faster than they wanted to. Overall, we had some lapses but defensively we were very good and offensively we did a better job in the second half at getting to certain spots against their zone.
“We started to get clicking and when we get out and run we’re pretty good. They want to stop the ball to get into their 1-2-2 zone and if we beat that first defender then we get some things in transition. They’ve gone to a full zone team and they’ll be tough against some teams. We were able to handle it pretty easily with our passing.”
Owatonna (6-3, 4-1) kept things close early before junior guard Amari Nobles’s layup off an assist from Madson triggered a half-ending 22-4 surge which gave the Cougars a 36-14 lead on Gosch’s head-on 3-pointer. Gosch put through 14 points over the opening 18 minutes while Madson and Nobles added seven points each. Huskies’ senior guard Cole Kruschke scored six of his team-best 12 points.
“We put on a lot of ball pressure and were able to fight through a lot of screens,” Gosch said. “We were switching, talking and knowing where to go. We were ready to go and really defended well on defense. We talked before the game about defense winning this game and it did. We also showed we are a great passing team and our depth was there again. We’re a team that hangs out a lot outside of basketball and we trust each other.”
After the Huskies trimmed the margin to 38-20, Gustafson’s transition basket and Gosch’s left-wing triple began a 15-0 run that produced a 53-20 advantage on Madson’s banker with 12:01 to go. Senior wing Thokwech Puoch’s seven-point flurry — two inside hoops and a right baseline 3-pointer — kept things rolling for the Cougars as the final seven minutes were played with running time.
“Our ball pressure was there and we always feed off Brogan’s rowdy play,” Gustafson said. “Once our defense starts flowing then our offense can cause a lot of trouble. They tried to slow us down but once we started to pick the defense apart and hit our shots things got easier for us. Our best ball is when we move it around and don’t play hero ball. … We like to get out in transition and we were able to do that.”
East, which connected on 30 of 50 from the field compared to the Huskies’ 13 of 43 for 38.2%, won the boards 28-25 and committed fewer turnovers 16-8. Nobles finished with nine points, seven rebounds and six assists.
East hosts Delano Saturday in a 1 p.m. tip-off.