Indy Chronicler

Kokomo’s boys basketball team quickly established its dominance against Western in the teams’ season opener Tuesday night.

Junior guard Zion Bellamy drilled three 3-pointers in the opening three minutes to ignite a 17-0 opening run and the No. 2-ranked Wildkats kept complete control the rest of the way in beating the Panthers 69-22 in front of a crowd of 4,716 at Memorial Gym.

Bellamy finished 4 of 4 from 3-land and scored a game-high 16 points to lead a balanced Kat attack.

“Zion is going to have a big year. He had a really good summer and fall for us,” Kokomo coach John Peckinpaugh said. “When teams leave him open, he’s going to hit shots and make them pay.”

Also for the Kats, Karson Rogers scored 15 points, Flory Bidunga scored nine points, Korbyn Hammel had eight and AP Mitchell had six. Five other Kats also scored. Kokomo shot 28 of 45 (62.2%) from the field including 5 of 11 (45.5%) from 3-land. Rogers was 7 of 8 from the field.

Western limited Bidunga’s touches inside and kept him from getting out in transition. He finished 3 of 3 from the field with two dunks.

“I thought we did an incredible job of being physical with Flory, having a guy in front and behind him all night, but they’re a really good basketball team and they have multiple weapons,” new Western coach Cam Bennington said.

Bidunga remained plenty active. The Kansas recruit grabbed 13 rebounds and also had four assists, two blocked shots and two steals. He drew nine fouls.

“I thought they did a really good job of making it hard on Flory,” Peckinpaugh said. “Offensively, they did a good job of taking care of the ball and making us guard for long amounts of time and I think that slowed us down more than expected because we weren’t able to turn them over and get out and run, but I thought our guys valued possessions for the most part.

“We have to do a better job sharing it and trying to create for others. I thought at times we got into a mode of, ‘It’s my time to shoot’ which we have to avoid,” he added.

Defensively, the Kats hounded the Panthers throughout. Western finished 6 of 36 (16.7%) overall and 1 of 23 from 3-land.

“We didn’t know exactly what they were going to run offensively [with a new coach],” Peckinpaugh said. “We knew we wanted to put pressure on them and make them uncomfortable. We didn’t allow them to have too many open looks from 3. I thought we did a pretty good job.”

Kokomo’s 17-0 opening run was a knockout punch. Bellamy had 11 points during the run and Max Feuerle, Bidunga and Hammel also scored. The Kats went on to lead 21-4 at the close of the first quarter.

“We needed to survive the first three minutes and we definitely did not do that,” Bennington said.

Western shot 2 of 13 in the first quarter and 2 of 12 in the second quarter. Kokomo led 32-9 at halftime.

“I’ll take the first-half effort. We held them to 32 points in the first half. But we didn’t shoot the ball well,” Bennington said. “There was a stretch there where we got four or five stops in a row and missed four or five 3-pointers we were content with taking.”

The Kats exploded for 27 points in the third quarter for a commanding 59-16 lead.

Aidan Quillen led Western with six points and Carter Biggs had five points.

Kokomo honored its 2023 state runner-up team before the game and also honored Bidunga for reaching 1,000 career points during the state tournament run.

The Kats are back home Saturday as co-No. 12-ranked Westfield pays a visit.

“It’s a little different level of opponent coming in. Obviously things will get a little bit tighter around here,” Peckinpaugh said. “We’ll start diving into Westfield [Wednesday] at practice, trying to get ready for that top-15 matchup.”

Western visits sectional rival Twin Lakes on Saturday.