Sidney's opponent has won 18 straight entering state tournament

Sidney's opponent for the opening round of the Class B state boys basketball tournament enters on quite a roll.

Aurora is 24-1 and hasn't lost this calendar year. The Huskies' lone loss of the season came Dec. 30 at Gretna, where they fell 66-46. Since then, they've won 18 consecutive games.

The opening round game is set for 8:45 p.m. CST Thursday in the Devaney Sports Center in Lincoln.

"I haven't watched a lot of them, but what I do know is they're a very good team," Sidney coach Erik Kohl said Friday. "They've got a combination of guards who can really shoot it, they've got skilled post players. You know, anytime you're 24-1, you've played well. They have a lot of people that can play well for them."

The Huskies' average margin of victory has been 19 points per game this season, and only four of their wins have been by single digits. They won 49-47 at Hastings on Jan. 12, 45-42 over Crete on Jan. 30, 67-64 in overtime over Bishop Neumann on Feb. 13, and 56-50 at Columbus on Jan. 16.

Aurora enters the contest averaging 63.6 points per game this season. Individual statistics aren't available for Aurora.

One key to beating the Huskies is stopping mammoth post player Austin Allen. The 6-foot-8 junior power forward/center has offers to play basketball at Nebraska-Omaha, South Dakota and South Dakota State and has offers to play football at Nebraska and Central Florida, according to the Aurora News-Register.

Sidney enters the state tournament averaging 57.8 points per game offensively. The Raiders (22-4) have won their 22 games by an average of 17.5 points per contest.

If the game is close down the stretch, it won't be anything the Raiders haven't seen before. They've won a trio of games on last-second shots, including in the district tournament semifinals against Alliance.

"It definitely helps. Our guys are confident," Kohl said. "We've been in a lot of different situations and it's hard to be down late in the game and still be able to think properly and be able to execute properly, and our guys have shown that they're able to do that."

Sidney's last-second wins include a 58-56 victory against Lexington on Jan. 16. In that game, Cutter O'Connell's banked in, falling three-pointer lifted the Raiders to the win. Brady Radcliffe's last-second trey gave Sidney a 70-69 win at Gering on Feb. 5. And with the season on the line, O'Connell's layup with an assist from Tyler Wintholz gave the Raiders a 54-53 win over Alliance in the semifinals of the district tournament.

"Once you've done that a couple times, it makes it so much easier," Kohl said. "Just in that first round of district versus Alliance, we were down, 8.3 seconds we're down knowing you've got to score if you want to keep your season alive. If that was the first time we'd been in that situation, I think there would have been a lot more stress and anxiety. But since we'd been in that before with less time on the clock, I think we just sat down there and said, hey, this is what we have to do and we have to find a way to do it.

"And the confidence definitely helps you do that in the future. I think that has definitely played a role up to this point, and hopefully if it's a close game on Thursday, that will play a role, too."