MONROE — Slow starts to games are not uncommon by the Monroe boys basketball team this season. Despite being ranked seventh in the state in the WisSports.net Coaches Poll and a 9-1 record, it’s often taken a full half before the Cheesemakers go on a run to finish off an opponent.

Case-in-point, Monroe had back-to-back wins over Monona Grove and Watertown on Jan. 21 and 23. Monroe led MG by just two at halftime, then outscored the Silver Eagles by 16 in the second half to win 72-54. Two nights later, Monroe closed the first half with a 10-3 run on Watertown to go into the half ahead by 6, then opened the second half with a 15-4 run. The lead reached as much as much as 22, and the Cheesemakers walked off the court 63-44 winners.

“(Watertown), hat’s off to that team. They drove down here with eight kids and they battled,” Monroe coach Brian Bassett said. “They were missing their best player who hit four 3s against us the first game. There’s a lot of teams that would have said ‘You know what? Forget you. Without our best player, we’re not coming.’ So I appreciate them coming down and battling us.”

Junior point guard Carson Leuzinger scored 43 points in the two wins, including hitting four 3-pointers in the second half alone against Watertown. 

Leuzinger is averaging 15.8 points per game this season, but that number is down a bit due to an off-night against Janesville Parker Jan. 16, in which he connected on just a single free throw in Monroe’s lone loss. In the three games since, he’s scored at least 20.

Adding offense in both wins were senior big man Cade Meyer and junior forward JT Seagreaves. Meyer, a UW-Green Bay commit and semifinalist for the WSN Senior Post Player Award, had 16 and 18 points in the MG and Watertown wins, and added 11 rebounds against Watertown. Seagreaves added 19 and 15 points.

“(Seagreaves) has learned a lot this year. The big thing for him has been to not try to do too much,” Bassett said. “Last year he shot 57% from the left side of the floor behind the arc, but then every time he tried to drive in to the paint he did something silly. Most of the time when JT takes more than two dribbles, we’re in trouble. Tonight, for the most part he caught the ball and shot it. He’s automatic. And most kids that are guarding him aren’t 6-6, so he gets a good look.”

In the win over Watertown, Seagreaves opened the scoring in the second half with a drive and a thunderous dunk. Just over two minutes later, Meyer threw down a dunk of his own to cap a 10-0 Monroe run.

“We’ve got the two best big guys in the league, and we said to give them the ball,” Bassett said. They ran a play multiple times in a row, a slight variation of their screen and post up play that freed up a post player on the opposite block for an easy bucket.

The second half scoring against Watertown was much more efficient than the first half. Monroe was 13 of 31 (41.9%) from the field in the opening half, but 13 of 23 (56.5%) in the second half. In fact, Monroe opened the first half just 4-for-15 (26.6%) from the field.

Part of the reason the second half shooting numbers were better than the first half was due to the type of turnovers. Watertown had 10 of its 17 turnovers in the second half, but six of those were steals that led to fast break points, compared to just 2 steals of 7 turnovers in the first half. 

“We came out with early high hands and didn’t give them the open 3-point looks they had early in the game. In the second half, hands together, hands in their faces and we were getting deflections and everything else,” Bassett said. “The defense started everything.”

Bassett, the offensive guru of the team, designates defensive coaching duties to assistant coaches Jake Grinnell and Josh Trame. 

“I love defense and I believe it wins championships. For 15 years with Murph (former coach Pat Murphy), I worried about the offense and he worried about the defense,” Bassett said. “They (Grinnell and Trame) did a great job of talking about early high hands and our guys listened.”

The Cheesemakers were slated for just one day off after Watertown before hosting Janesville Craig (), which would be the seventh game in 14 days for Monroe. The Cheesemakers would then have five days of rest before a road game at New Glarus Jan. 30.