Madison East takes down Sun Prairie

In a slight upset, Madison East took down Sun Prairie and claimed first place in the conference having beat Sun Prairie head to head. This was an upset by record only thought because Sun Prairie is without their Marquette recruit 6'3 senior Nick Noskowiak who is currently dealing with depression, which was reported on wishoops via Noskowiak's twitter. Wish Noskowiak all the best dealing with his issue and hope to see him back on the court soon, whether with Sun Prairie or Marquette in the future.

Playing without Noskowiak really puts a wrench in the Cardinals plans as he is their primary ball handler and it puts a lot of pressure on Sun Prairie junior 6'0 Sam Kerr. Kerr really is the only true ball handler right now and he is forced to start and play a lot more minutes then he has in the past. Sun Prairie really came out flat in this one and East took it to them all game., East jumped out early behind the strong play of their leading scorer 6'3 junior Deang Deang who was able to get to the middle of the SP zone and also knock down a pair of threes in the first half. Fellow junior 5'10 Tre'vone Irby chipped in as well knocking down some deep threes. This was kind of a slow game and East took the first half lead 23-15.

In the second half Sun Prairie continued to play the 1-3-1 zone defense and East was very content to sit back and run the clock down because they had the lead. East's outside shooting slowed a bit but, they did a great job on the offensive glass getting second and third shots and most importantly ran the clock down with long offensive possessions. Sun Prairie finally did get back in to the game pressing and pushing the ball where Kerr and fellow guard 6'1 senior Malik Robinson seemed to excel in and spent a lot of time at the line where they could score with the clock stopped. Sun Prairie did cut the score to three late but, just couldn't get a shot to fall or find an open shot for that matter. Some chaos at the end with turnovers led to an eight point win for Madison East and a big dunk from 6'5 senior D'Angelo Millon to seal that game.

 Box Score 
SP- Kerr 13 Robinson 10 Ben Hauser 6 JT Ruffin 5 Nate Verstegen 2 Rod Johnson 1 Deshawn Black 0
East- Deang 16 Irby 11 De'Shawn Burks 8 Kenny Jones 6 Millon 3 Keshawn Justice 0 Cameron Cratic 0 Oliver Allison 0

Top Players
Sam Kerr 6'0 junior Sun Prairie- Right now might be Sun Prairie's best player. Handles the ball very well showed the ability to get inside and score and was really good in the transition game and finished well at the rim.

Malik Robinson 6'1 senior Sun Prairie- Outside of Kerr really the only other guy that looked to get to the rim and score. Just seems like a great athlete that could play any sport and excel.

Deang Deang 6'3 junior Madison East- Very smart player and he just knows how to score. Showed that he can hit the three and was able to beat the zone by himself getting to the middle of the zone and scoring.

This really was an ugly game considering it was for first place in the conference. I still believe that the Big Eight is one of the top conference in the state but, they don't have the power house teams of the past but, top to bottom the conference is pretty good. Madison East seems to be going in the right direction right now and Sun Prairie is going the opposite. Noskowiak may be out for Sun Prairie but, they are still a pretty good team and should be playing better then this.