A rarity occurred last week, something that hadn’t happened yet in 2024: The Devils Lake boys’ basketball team lost a game.
So, what exactly went wrong? This was the first blip in the Firebirds’ otherwise impressive season in nearly two months. With the end of the regular season nearing, here are three principle takeaways and questions from the defeat.
They need to clean up their fouls
First, the most obvious. Devils Lake fouled 29 times last Tuesday, and Grafton scored 29 points on free throws — including 16 in the fourth quarter.
The Firebirds displayed frustration with the refs all night. Head coach Dustin Brodina criticized the refs after the game while, at the same time, acknowledging that they needed to clean things up on their end. He conceded that they must have been out of position if they were fouling that many times, even though he felt like they were charging the basket just as hard as Grafton was. The Spoilers were only charged with 11 fouls.
Overall, fouls haven’t been this big of an issue for Devils Lake, at least not to the extent that they were Tuesday night. The Firebirds have to hope that it was just an outlier.
One of their players who has struggled with fouls, Joel Nelson, actually cleaned things up and had the best performance of any Firebird on Tuesday. Nelson has progressively gotten better about limiting his fouls over the course of the season. He only committed two against Grafton and led Devils Lake with 25 points. He’s blossomed into one of the Firebirds’ best and most consistent contributors after a sporadic start.
Can Devils Lake survive without Wylee Delorme at his best?
Speaking of the Firebirds’ best contributors, Delorme had an off-night on Tuesday. He swished a three-pointer in the first quarter, but fouls got the best of him in the second quarter. He sat out the third quarter and couldn’t regain his rhythm in the fourth.
The story nearly every week for Devils Lake is usually about its depth, and how it’s able to survive when one of its best players doesn’t have his best game. That’s what makes the Firebirds so good: their depth.
But Delorme didn’t have his best game, and Devils Lake finally lost as a result. Suddenly, it calls into question how much of a decrease in production for Delorme it can really afford. At the very least, it proves that Devils Lake is human.
But the bright side goes back to Nelson, who stepped up and kept the Firebirds in it for much of the game. Parker Brodina is often the “fall-back” scoring option if Delorme isn’t at his best, and he had a good game as well with 16 points despite fouling out at the end. But having Nelson on such a tear is a big boost for Devils Lake.
And if Delorme can get back to carrying this team the way he has for much of the season, a trio of him, Brodina and Nelson could be insanely scary for any postseason opponent. With the talent that Delorme possesses, there’s little reason to doubt he can get back to that level of production. But Delorme is human, and the Firebirds are going to need to be prepared to battle through unideal circumstances.
The Devils Lake-Grafton saga might not be over
Devils Lake beat Grafton in a game for the ages on Jan. 11. Last Tuesday, the Spoilers got their revenge.
And though they won’t see each other again in the regular season, they could face off in the playoffs when there’s even more on the line. The Region 2 standings are still very tight; Devils Lake dropped from first to third place with its recent loss. But Grafton and Four Winds/Minnewaukan both have a 6-2 region record, while Devils Lake is right behind at 5-2. By the season’s end, those three teams could line up in any order. The Firebirds have an advantage in the case of a tie, being that they have the best overall record in the region.
In the Region 2 tournament, the No. 2 seed will play the winner of the No. 3 and 6 seeds. It’s very likely that Devils Lake will be either the No. 2 or 3 seed, and that Grafton could be the other. The winner of that game will likely play the No. 1 seed — which, again, could be either the Firebirds or the Spoilers. No matter which way you slice it, the probability of another showdown with Grafton is high.
The same goes for Four Winds/Minnewaukan, which also split its regular season games with Devils Lake. In that case, the Indians won the first battle, while the Firebirds got their revenge recently.
Brodina said his team will need to be better in every facet of the game if they want to beat Grafton in a potential rematch. It’s why the work never stops for this squad — even when they had a 13-game winning streak going.
“The season’s not over,” Brodina said. “Sometimes losses can feel you back to where you need to be: getting back to working hard at practice. And that’s where it’s gotta be.”
Joseph “Mojo” Hill is a reporter covering Lake Region sports for the Devils Lake Journal. Contact him on Twitter @mojohill22 or at jhill@devilslakejournal.com for any tips, questions or story ideas.
