Heights clinches City League boys basketball title with win over Southeast

Three words are written atop a whiteboard just inside the Heights boys basketball team’s locker room.

“Clown Free Zone.”

After a grueling regular season, Heights clinched the City League title Tuesday with a 52-44 victory over runner-up Southeast. Coach Joe Auer said there is a correlation between the sign and the championship.

Auer turned to his top three seniors after the game, Devin Davis, Curtis Profit and Braxton Kirkendoll, and asked them “How we define ‘fun?’ ”

They all answered: “Winning.”

Heights has been the most consistent team in the league this season. Southeast started hot, going 10-1 in league play with a 69-64 win against Heights. Carroll has ended the season similarly, winning 13 of its past 14 games, including wins over the Falcons and Buffaloes.

Despite compelling stories surrounding seeming every other team in the City League, Heights kept cruising. The Falcons have gone 13-2 in league play and done so unselfishly.

Davis averages 15.6 points per game. Behind him, seven players score at least five a night. That has helped Heights close the league out, Auer said.

“How many nights have we had four or five guys in double-figures?” he said. “Devin is a guy that could probably score 25 a night, but that’s not how we’re gonna win.”

Davis has said he wants to be remembered as the greatest leader in Heights history. There is no statistical measure of leadership, but he said a City League championship is a great way to end his high school career.

“Every game is an elimination game from here on,” Davis said. “I’ve been down that road before where we’ve lost the sub-state championship, and we probably should have won state that year.

“It’s all about staying consistent.”

Tuesday’s game could have easily gone the other way. Southeast led after the first quarter and went on a spurt to start the third. Auer said Heights was lucky to survive the 13-8 quarter.

Heights slowed its pace. Auer said he wanted to combat Southeast’s quickness in transition with longer possessions. The Falcons often passed on their first open look, and waited for a better one.

The Buffaloes entered scoring 67.3 points per league game. Tuesday was their lowest-scoring City League game of the season.

“It was an ugly game,” Auer said. “It was two teams that know each other really well, and there wasn’t a lot of free space. It was just a two-handed championship game played by a bunch of kids that wanted to be City League champions.”

It’s challenging to get a group of kids to commit to one another for more than three months straight. Because of that, winning a league title never get old, Auer said; the Falcons have now won two in three years. But still, Profit said winning it proved to him nothing will come easily.

With Class 5A sub-state starting Tuesday and the state tournament March 7, Heights has more to play for.

But for now, the Falcons will enjoy the title “City League champs.”

“Coach is always talking about getting up on the wall,” Davis said, pointing to past title-winning teams in the Heights gym. “And this did that for us.”

This story was originally published February 20, 2018 at 11:22 PM with the headline "Heights clinches City League boys basketball title with win over Southeast."