Iowa City West plays the part of defending champ well

CEDAR RAPIDS – Steve Bergman has been sick as a dog the last few days, feeling awful. The flu-ridden Iowa City West boys' basketball coach has missed class time and everything.

But you could still hear him repeatedly barking at his team from the bench Tuesday night at the U.S. Cellular Center.

'Move!” Bergman yelled on more than a dozen occasions. 'Move!”

It's why Bergy is closing in on 500 wins in his career, is two away. While the average fan saw West beat down another opponent, the old coach saw a lot of things his club needs to work and improve on before next week's state tournament.

'I can't talk,” a raspy Bergman said, after his three-time defending Class 4A champs dissected Cedar Rapids Washington, 79-50, in a substate final. 'I did not talk all day, other than being on the phone for five minutes. Then I lost my voice again.”

It came back for the game apparently.

'We can always hear him,” smiled West's David DiLeo.

'Ah, we did a little standing around the last four minutes of the first half,” Bergman said. 'We kind of settled (offensively). Then defensively it wasn't so good the first three minutes of the second half. We just said ‘Hey, let's make life easy.' We've had little issues with that all year.”

And, yet, West is 23-0 and a clear favorite to four-peat next week. The Trojans will play Sioux City North (14-9) in a Wednesday quarterfinal at 1:05 p.m.

Five really good starters, all who average double-figure points, a lot of length and ever-improving man-to-man defense will do that.

'We needed to come out focused,” said DiLeo, who led the way offensively with 16 points. 'We made a point of that, and I thought we did that really well.”

West put to bed any notion of a shocking upset by running out to an early double-digit lead on Washington (13-10). The Trojans flustered the Warriors, who you could tell were a bit tight.

'They're extremely good. That's all you can say. They're just really, really, really good,” said Washington's Jared Printy. 'And I think we had some nerves. This is the biggest stage we've been on … Playing the number one team in the state, I thought we had some jitters. We got down early. After that, we did fine, we hung with them. We just dug ourselves too big of a hole to get out of.”

'We made them go to Plan B on offense. We didn't let them go to Plan A,” said West's Devontae Lane said. 'We had to get up into them … play physical defense and box out on the boards.”

Lane and Connor McCaffery finished with 13 points each for West. Keion Wills led Washington with 14.

'That team we played tonight is explosive,” Bergman said. 'We didn't let them explode.”

--------------------

AT U.S. CELLULAR CENTER

C.R. WASHINGTON (50): Keegan Moore 1-3 0-0 2, Maurice Arrington 2-7 0-0 4, Jared Printy 3-7 1-2 8, Steven Kramer 2-4 0-0 5, Hunter Strait 1-4 0-0 2, Keion Wills 5-7 4-5 14, Laveechie Williams 1-4 2-2 4, Julian Good-Jones 3-6 3-3 9, Drew Hoeger 0-3 0-0 0, Trey Richmond 0-1 2-2 2, Trevor Thulin 0-1 0-0 0, Logan Hatfield 0-0 0-0 0, Jabe Gonder 0-0 0-0 0, Christian Beard 0-0 0-0 0, Ross Kennedy 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 18-47 12-14 50.

IOWA CITY WEST (79): Wyatt Lohaus 3-5 2-4 8, Wali Parks 3-4 2-2 8, David DiLeo 4-10 7-7 16, Connor McCaffery 3-5 7-9 13, Devontae Lane 4-11 5-6 13, Alex Henderson 3-3 2-2 9, Dallas Majors 2-3 0-0 4, David Pederson 0-1 0-0 0, Griffin Blackhurst 2-4 0-0 4, Nate Barnes 0-0 1-2 1, Bryson Adcock 0-0 0-0 0, Logan Carter 0-0 0-0 0, August Nicklaus 0-0 0-0 0, Ankit Choudhury 1-1 0-0 2, Bo Nock 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 25-46 26-32 79.

Halftime - West 37, Washington 17. 3-point goals - Washington 2-11 (Moore 0-1, Arrington 0-1, Printy 1-3, Kramer 1-2, Strait 0-1, Wills 0-1, Hoeger 0-1, Richmond 0-1), West 2-7 (DiLeo 1-4, McCaffery 0-1, Lane 0-1, Henderson 1-1). Rebounds - Washington 23 (Good-Jones 6), West 33 (McCaffery 7). Total fouls - Washington 22, West 13. Fouled out - None. Turnovers - Washington 13, West 8.

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com