5-seed Grundy Center will take on 4-seed Treynor in a 2A quarterfinal at the IHSAA State Basketball Tournament inside Casey’s Center Wednesday. It’ll air on 99 The Wave.
The Spartans (23-1) are making the program’s third consecutive state tournament appearance, having been defeated in the quarterfinal round in the previous two seasons.
Treynor (22-3) is also in the state tournament for the third consecutive season, bowing out in last year’s quarterfinal. Unlike the Spartans, the Cardinals have four players with previous state tournament experience on the roster. Alec Lovely leads with 17.4 points per game, and the entire starting lineup has shot better than 43 percent on the season.
Grundy Center Coach Owen Thomas says it’ll be among the more physically demanding games of the season.
“We’ve got to be ready physically,” Thomas says. “That’s going to be probably the most aggressive defensive team we’ve played all year on film. They play extremely emotional basketball, which is dangerous because when things go well for a team that plays like that, it goes really well. But on the same hand, when it rains, it pours. And when things go bad, they usually tend to go bad. So we’re going to do our best to control, play at the speed we want to play. We struggle when teams slow us down a little bit. We like to play out in transition and use our speed.”
The winner will advance to a semifinal against either Kuemper Catholic or Union. Pregame coverage will start at 11:45 a.m., followed by the tipoff at 12:15 p.m.
