Novi holds on to top Walled Lake Central on the road

COMMERCE TWP. » There’s a process to learning how to win, and part of that is knowing when to keep your foot on the gas, and when it’s OK to ease off.

Still trying to ingrain those nuances into habit, the Novi Wildcats built an early lead on host Walled Lake Central, eased off, then built it up again, finally holding on to win, 54-51, when the Vikings intentionally missed a free throw with a second left, but couldn’t get off the game-tying shot before the horn sounded.

It’s something that the Wildcats (1-1) are still trying to get a handle on, something that Housey is hoping carried over from last year, when they started 0-5 and 1-11 before winning three of their final four games, including a first-round game in districts.

Even a 67-60 loss to Bloomfield Hills on Tuesday wasn’t really much of a consolation, which Housey took as a good sign.

“One of the things last year that little streak at the end of the season did for us was give us give us some confidence and some desire. You know, these guys, especially this group right here — this sounds cliche to say — but they want to win. And hanging around in games isn’t enough. You know, it’s funny: Tuesday night, we left the locker room, nobody was happy. Bloomfield is a really good team, and we played hard and we battled and you know, could have been a moral victory. But none of these guys were even close to accepting that. They were mad. They were angry,” Housey said. “And I think you saw that a little bit in the first half, them trying to take our frustrations out here. But you know, like I said, we just got to maintain when you play teams that play tough like Bloomfield Hills or while these guys we get we got to just maintain that intensity and focus the whole time. … That (finish) last year, that showed our guys a little bit of what winning tastes like and they were able to carry that mentality over to this year.”

The Wildcats did start out like they were playing angry, a 10-0 run pushing their lead up to 12-2 early on, then a 12-0 run making it 24-5 after Te’John McGowan’s 3-pointer with 4:30 left first half. A 3-pointer by Johnathan Mikhalov was answered by Hackman’s dunk, but set up a run by the Vikings to end the half.

It certainly didn’t help that Central — playing its first game, after Wednesday’s contest against Hartland was canceled — had only had one practice in a week, and looked rusty early on.

In that late first-half run, the Vikings used pressure to create turnovers, picking on a Novi lineup that was a bit jumbled at the time by foul trouble to starters, but it wasn’t a well they could go back to with regularity on Friday.

The Wildcats took a 4029 lead into the fourth quarter, then — after some of that back and forth counterpunching — reclaimed that 11-point cushion with 3:05 left, when McGowan faked a pass off an offensive rebound and hit a turnaround jumper to make it 51-39, giving him 20 points on the night.

Needing to foul to even get into the bonus before they could trade fouls for clock stoppages and free throws, the Vikings were able to capitalize when Novi went 3-for-6 from the foul line in the final 64 seconds — missing the back end of one-and-ones three times — allowing Central to 12 of the final 15 points in the game.

Senior Ryan Nelson had 14 of his game-high 21 points in the fourth quarter, as the Vikings were able to cut it all the way down to five points. Mikhalov split at the free-throw line with four seconds left to make it a four-point game, but the Vikings tracked down the rebound of his miss, and Nick Hopkins ended up on the line with one second left. He hit the first to make it a three-point game, and missed the second, with the carom finding Mikhalov in the far corner, but the buzzer sounded before he could get a shot off.

The Vikings would certainly like to carry over some of the momentum they finished the season with a year ago, as well — after ripping off six straight wins after a 2-6 start — but it’s less likely to happen, simply because this is a far different team.

“This is a brand new year. I mean, I only have three players that that even wore a varsity uniform last year. I mean, we talk about it and those three guys do mention some of the things, but a lot of things are just reteaching and getting back to the basics of what it does take to win (a bunch of) games in a row.”