Collinsville wins three out of four at Marion

Scott Marion STLhighschoolsports.com

With five new starters, the Collinsville boys basketball team had plenty of  question marks entering this season.

Many of those question marks remain, but for the most part, coach Darin Lee  liked what he saw during the Kahoks' first four games.

Collinsville was 3-1 at last week's Pyramid Plus Tournament in Marion,  beating Salem (68-37 on Nov. 20), Herrin (53-32 on Nov. 21) and Mount Vernon  (41-36 on Friday) before finishing with a 49-36 loss to Marion on Saturday.

"We had some ups and downs," Lee said. "We guarded pretty well for the first  three games, but not as well as I would like in the last three games. We have  some guys that are coming along as far as making the transition to varsity  basketball."

Senior Falando Wilkinson, the Kahoks' most experienced player, leads the team  in scoring with 14.5 points per game. He had 14 points against Salem, 23 against  Herrin and 18 against Mount Vernon.

"He didn't play very well Saturday night, but in three out of four games, he  played really well," Lee said. "He's drawing a lot of attention from defenses  and sometimes they're double-teaming him. When that happens, we've got to be  able to find the open man."

Against Salem, the Kahoks had four players in double figures including  freshman Zeke Moore (14 points), senior Briley Kellison (12) and senior Chris  Mathes (12). Against Marion, Wilkinson was held to three points while Moore and  Kellison scored 14 and 11 points, respectively.

Moore and Kellison were both named to the 10-man all-tournament team.

"We've got to run our offense a little better because we had 17 turnovers in  each of the last two games," Lee said. "They weren't putting that much pressure  on us, but we were forcing things and making bad decisions."

Collinsville opens its Southwestern Conference Friday at home against  Edwardsville (4-0), which is coming off a first-place finish at the Waterloo  Thanksgiving Holiday Tournament. The Tigers return four out of five starters  from last season, including leading scorers Garret Covington and Tre'  Harris.

"They've just got a lot of talent and they put five really good players on  the floor," Lee said. "They're tough to stop no matter what you do and they can  put a lot of points on the board in a hurry. We have to try to contain those  guys and put a few points on the board ourselves."

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