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2/16/2004 Muncie was 1,000 students strong and it was unthinkable to believe that a school 1/10 their size could compete with them, much less win. But, with the game tied 30-30 and 3 seconds to go, Milan’s senior guard Bobby Plump drained a 15 footer at the buzzer, and the rest as they say, is history. The 1988 academy award winning movie “Hoosiers,” starring Gene Hackman chronicled their quest from start to finish, and except for a little poetic license, the movie is very accurate. What’s truly ironic about their odyssey is that it was anything but glamorous. It took a lot of hard work, teamwork and overcoming obstacles from a disparate group of kids. And of course the willingness to buy into a system that had no room for stars, individualism, or self-promotion. The 2004 Novi Wildcats are a quite a story of their own… At 13-2, they are starting to mold themselves into a unit that expects to win, knows how to win, but more importantly, are willing to do what it takes to win. Players like Trevor Hoover, Joey Fratto, and Mark Angelocci have brought their football mentality to the hardwood. Brad Simpson and his soccer accolades transfer nicely to the court as well. Brad Chandler and his all-around abilities compliment the entire gamelan. Meanwhile Mark Moore, an outstanding cross-country athlete and tremendous competitor has stepped up, while transfer Anthony Harbin has acclimated himself to Wildcat Country. Seniors Mark Saurer and Ryan Korte add leadership and maturity and when you mix it all together, you have a group that’s defeated everybody they’ve played this year. Sure, they suffered losses to South Lyon and Howell earlier, but they avenged both of those this past weekend! They may never make a movie about the Novi Wildcats, but we don’t need one, we get to see the real thing every week. So as the Wildcats walked off the floor with a non-descript 37-31 victory over Milford a couple of weeks ago, people might think the game wasn’t exciting, but I can tell you this… winning is never boring. No telling where this team will end up; it’s unlikely anybody is predicting a state championship for this group, but then again no one predicted Milan HS would do it either. In the meantime, just keep winning and we’ll see what happens. When they add up all the wins at the end of the year, boring or not… no one will ask how, just how many.
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