Columbus North’s Austin Perry drives to the basket against Terre Haute North’s Tyler Renn Jan. 9 at Columbus North High School.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
Columbus North is set for a Conference Indiana rematch, and this time, much bigger stakes are on the line.
The Bull Dogs get to see a familiar face in Terre Haute North in the boys basketball regional that tips off at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Class 4A Greencastle Regional. Columbus North’s last regional game came in 2023, and Terre Haute is making back-to-back appearances.
“It’s a CI battle. It’s two teams that know each other really well,” North coach Paul Ferguson said. “(Terre Haute North) coach (Todd) Woelfle and I are good friends. We talk on the phone sometimes and share ideas with each other. We know them, they know us, and though I wouldn’t call it a rivalry game per se, we know each other’s personnel really well. There’s going to be some detailed scouting reports. Whenever that happens, you have to make some adjustments, so we’ve got to make sure that we’re ready to counteract some of the things they’re going to do against us.”
In the regular season matchup between the teams, the Patriots (23-3) gave the Bull Dogs (14-10) their second worst loss of the season, 63-42 in a game that was played at Memorial Gymnasium.
Ferguson said his team needs to improve on three things from the Jan. 9 game. They need to finish well at the rim, have a much better shooting percentage and protect the basketball on each possession.
“For us to beat Terre Haute North, we’re going to have to shoot the ball better. We didn’t make as many open shots as we needed. They are very physical defensive team. We’re going to have to finish contested shots at the rim, and we’re going to have to take care of the basketball,” Ferguson said. “The version of the Bull Dogs you saw last weekend, our stats in the sectional championship game against Whiteland, we had three turnovers. We did a great job all weekend of taking care of the basketball. We planning on taking care of the basketball again on Saturday.
“We challenged our guys, especially in the last part of this season, to establish their toughness and grit in the first few minutes of the game,” he added. “For us, that means being a great offensive and defensive rebounding team. It means winning 50-50 balls and being to go get on the floor and do dirty work, and we showed that in the sectional. I thought we played like the toughest team in the sectional, and we want to carry that forward into the regional.”
The Bull Dogs are led by the 1-2 punch of junior Austin Perry and senior Caleb Ferguson. Perry leads them in scoring (19.3), rebounding (5.5) and steals (2.3) and is second on the team with 3.2 assists per game. Ferguson leads in assists (5.5) and is second on the team with 15.4 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.1 steals.
It’s safe to say Columbus North will be the underdog heading into the rematch Saturday. According to the Jeff Sagarin Rating, Terre Haute North is a 16-point favorite. The Patriots, who have won 20 in a row going into the regional, have enjoyed recent success with this is being their fourth time in the past five seasons winning more than 20 games.
“Given some of their recent tournament success is that they would probably feel a little more pressure. They’ve been to the regional before. They beat Whiteland in the regional game last year. I’m guessing they would like to go farther than they did last year,” Paul Ferguson said. “They’ve had a great season, and so I think they maybe feel more pressure, but we’re not content with winning just the sectional. We’re going up there to win the regional, and sometimes when I go to bed at night, I still think about our last regional game against Bloomington North, up six with a minute left. We played a fantastic basketball game, and had a really bad last minute, and we missed some crucial free throws down the stretch. We went 0 for 4 at the free throw line in the last minute and lost the basketball game that we really should have won.”
