Maybe the word “traveling” should be added as part of the nickname for the Bishop O’Connell Knights boys basketball team.
Over many years, the varsity high-school squad often has traveled to far-flung tournaments as part of its regular-season schedule.
This season, the Knights have made as many as five such trips, including to competitions in Texas, Illinois and South Carolina, as well as the Bahamas.
“We try to vary it and give our players different life experiences with these trips,” O’Connell head coach and school athletic director Joe Wootten told ARLnow.
“We’ve been very fortunate to get invited to some of these tournaments,” he said. “There were 4,000 people watching our players play in one of our games. That doesn’t happen at a regular high-school game.”
Those 4,000 spectators were watching during O’Connell’s most recent trip, where the Knights won both of their games at the Quincy Shootout in Quincy, Ill.
The Knights defeated Booker T. Washington of Tulsa, Okla., 90-85, in double overtime in their first game, then topped host team Quincy Senior, 53-46, in the squad’s second.
“We didn’t play our best against Booker T, but better against Quincy,” Wootten said. “I love how this team plays defense.”
O’Connell’s Shane Lincoln was chosen as the Player of the Game in each contest. He scored 27 points against Booker T., 18 against Quincy, and had 13 total rebounds in the two games.
Other top scorers in the two games were Darius Bivins (31 points total), Liam Koelsch (24 points), Aiden Caulker, Wyatt Norton and Makel Minor.
In previous tournaments, O’Connell won the Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C., with a 3-0 record, went 1-1 in an opening-season event in Texas, went 0-2 in the Bahamas and won its one game at The St. James MLK Classic.
Overall, O’Connell had a 17-5 record this season through Jan. 28 action. That includes a 4-2 mark in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference.
The Knights defeated host and WCAC rival St. John’s, 62-57, in their most recent game since returning from Illinois.
Norton (four points, five rebounds) made two key free throws with 15 seconds to play to clinch that victory over St. John’s, followed by a steal from Lincoln (11 points) seconds later, then an additional foul shot by Bivins (21 points).
Caulker scored 13 and Koelsch 11 with seven rebounds.
NOTE: O’Connell’s victory over Booker T. Washington was the 550th of Wootten’s coaching career. All of those wins have been at O’Connell, where he took over as head coach in the 1999-20 season.
