Dwayne Bacon leads Oak Hill Academy past Wesleyan Christian to win 2015 Bass Pro Shops TOC

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – After scoring 30 or more points for the third consecutive night at the Bass Pro Shops Tournament of Champions, fans lined up to get pictures and autographs of MVP Dwayne Bacon.

His 33 points Saturday night helped give No. 6 Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.) a surprisingly easy 82-59 championship game victory over No. 8 Wesleyan Christian Academy (High Point, N.C.).

Just call him "Mr. Springfield."

"It was a great experience," Bacon said. "I got a great kick out of it. I’m glad that we could have that performance and win the Bass Pro."

Thanks in part to Bacon’s scoring exploits, Oak Hill Academy (26-1) took the drama out of things early by racing to a 14-2 lead. The 6-foot-6 Florida State pledge had 21 at halftime as the Warriors built a 46-29 halftime lead in front of a record crowd of 10,604 fans.

Oak Hill’s big bodies and zone defense compounded the problems for Wesleyan (21-3), which committed 12 turnovers in the first 16 minutes.

"That’s not something we’ve done a lot prior to this year," Oak Hill Academy head coach Steve Smith said of his zone approach. "We were getting beat earlier this year at Quality Education and we went to it and they couldn’t score. I got it from (John) Beilein at Michigan. We don't want to do it for 32 minutes but some nights we do it for 20-25 minutes, mix it up, make the other team think a little bit."

Despite Bacon’s leading role, Oak Hill Academy got big contributions from most of the eight players it suited up.

Missouri-bound point guard Terrence Phillips scored just two points but dished out 13 assists. Future Ohio State Buckeye Daniel Giddens, a 6-10 post, scored 15 points and grabbed nine boards. Joe Hampton and Iowa signee Andrew Fleming went for 14 points apiece, combining to hit 6 of 7 3-point attempts.

Wesleyan’s star junior forward Harry Giles piled up 23 points and 15 rebounds but hit just 10 of 25 attempts from the field. Fellow junior Jalen Johnson added 14 points for the North Carolina powerhouse.

Oak Hill Academy, which is 26-1 in regular season tournament play since the 2010-11 season, won’t have to wait long for its next big test. The Warriors meet unbeaten national No. 11 Villa Angela-St. Joseph (Cleveland) on Monday at the Spalding Hoophall Classic in Massachusetts.

"I don’t know if it is accurate, but somebody told me teams traveling to the Hoophall from Bass Pro are 1-11," Smith said. "We are happy now but we could be sad Monday if we don’t play well."

Bishop O'Dowd (Oakland, Calif.) 65, Paul VI (Fairfax, Va.) 64

Ivan Rabb supplied 31 points and 15 rebounds for No. 10 Bishop O’Dowd, but it was teammate Paris Austin who delivered in the clutch for the Dragons.

Austin, a 5-11 senior point guard, scored on a pair of drives in the final minute to help give O'Dowd (9-3) the third place trophy. The future Boise State Bronco finished with 21 points and eight assists.

The game featured 13 ties and 12 lead changes – including three in the final minute. Paul VI (7-9) held the largest lead at 10 late in the third quarter.

Junior wing V.J. King piled up 28 points and 10 rebounds while Syracuse-bound guard Franklin Howard added 21 points, five assists and four rebounds.
 
Chino Hills (Calif.) 86, Bentonville (Ark.) 73

We weren't planning on devoting a lot of space to this consolation matchup, but that all changed as Bentonville's Malik Monk went for 50 points in a losing effort while Chino Hills sophomore LiAngelo Ball countered with 41.

Monk came up eight points short of the tournament record for points in a single game, set by Teddy Dupay of Mariner (Cape Coral, Fla.) in 1998. The 6-3 junior guard hit on 17 of 28 field goals and also grabbed eight rebounds.

Monk's 50 was the second-most prolific scoring outburst in TOC history, besting names like Tyler Hansbrough, Todd Day and John Wall, who all went for 40-plus in Springfield. He also won the dunk contest immediately following his historic performance.

Meanwhile, the Ball brothers of Chino Hills were at it again. LiAngelo hit 14 of 31 field goal attempts while older brother Lonzo Ball – a 6-6 junior guard committed to UCLA – had an incredible triple-double with 17 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists.

LiAngelo Ball's 41 tied for the fifth-best scoring performance in tournament history. He averaged 27.6 points per game in three outings at the Bass Pro.

Chino Hills (12-3) will head back to Southern California with the consolation trophy after dropping its opening-round game to Oak Hill Academy.

Waynesville (Mo.) 49, Parkview (Springfield, Mo.) 25

Indiana-bound Juwan Morgan piled up 27 points and 11 rebounds as Waynesville went out a winner in the seventh-place game.