Arrowhead’s Gilmore learns to lead
TOWN OF MERTON – The physical gifts were already in place.
Carter Gilmore was 6-foot-7 as a junior and versatile as a player, comfortable handling the ball and playing around the rim. While hard work and will would make him stronger and more polished, he was one of the better high school basketball players in Wisconsin already a year ago.
Still, Gilmore wasn’t complete. A fresh-faced Arrowhead team could use more.
Gilmore and his coach can point to the precise moment that changed: the day after Christmas, during a game in the Wisconsin Basketball Yearbook Shootout against Kimberly, which was ranked fifth in the state.
“We came into halftime down by 15 and at first I was saying to myself I was going to jump on the guys and get mad, but that’s when the switch kind of flipped,” Gilmore said after a recent practice. “I said I’ve got to be a leader, and I just picked ’em up and we all became positive and that’s when we all came together.
“In the second half we came back and won it in overtime and I had, like, 20some points in the second half and overtime, and that’s I think my best game just because I grew as a player and a leader and I had a good game too.”
Gilmore finished with 32 points – six short of his high set last March and matched six days before the Kimberly game – and added 11 rebounds and nine assists as Arrowhead rallied to win, 7876.
“That game he had to step up on both ends of the floor, and I thought it was a significant statement he made defensively blocking … just some massive blocked shots, and that got his offense going and he knew he had to step up,” Arrowhead coach Craig Haase said. “He did that. And he also found his teammates.
“So I thought game did really tell the tale for him that he could really dominate on both ends of the floor, and moving forward he’s done that the rest of the way.”
Gilmore, who averaged 19.9 points a game last season, is averaging 25.8 this season and has become a stronger finisher at the rim. That strength will be valuable at the next level; Gilmore committed to Wisconsin as a preferred walkon.
Arrowhead has a program-best 21-1 record. Ranked sixth in the Journal Sentinel area rankings and third in the most recent Division 1 state coaches poll, Arrowhead next plays Sheboygan North in a regional semifinal Friday.
Although teams can struggle with maximizing a dominant player’s potential without becoming one-dimensional, Haase and Gilmore haven’t found that to be a problem.
“He leads our team in almost every category, but one of the biggest ones he leads it in is assists,” Haase said. “So when your best player is willing to pass the ball and give it up, that goes a long way to getting other people involved.
“He leads by unselfishness, but at the same point he knows the right times to take it himself. He’s got a really high basketball IQ, which makes the rest of our guys better.”
Junior wing Sam Hytinen is a 55.2% shooter from three-point range and averages 12.9 points, and senior guard Chris Burg adds 12.4. Six-foot-four guard Mac Wrecke contributes in 9.6 as a freshman.
“Our team was young coming in,” Gilmore said.
“As we became close, I … began to know what helps them play better and play harder. Being the best player, you know they’re all going to look to you. … You’ve got to keep your head up and know they look to you and tell them everything’s going to be all right when we’ve been down.”
Just as Gilmore can point to his best game, he knows his worst, statistically, at least.
Waukesha North’s diamond-andone held Gilmore to nine points on five shots. But Wrecke stepped up with 21 points, the Warhawks won by 14 and the team came away stronger for it.
“Credit to them,” Gilmore said. “It was the best defense against me. Was it the best defense against our team? Probably not, because there were so many guys open.
“That game I didn’t score as much as I normally do, but I was able to find open teammates and we were able to come with a win and that’s all that matters. I realized how much I score doesn’t matter, (what’s most important is) just coming out with the win and learning from the experience.”