MICDS senior Brandon Clemens remembered the ghosts of Christmas tournaments past – a championship game loss, the wrong end of a buzzer-beater, a narrow semifinal defeat.
“We had our chances and we came up short. This was a huge moment for us. I wanted my last time ever playing in this tournament to end in a win,” Clemens said.
Clemens scored a season high 28 points, Tyler Ray added 19, and MICDS rang in the new year with a 66-50 victory over CBC to win the Don Maurer Holiday Invitational Tournament Tuesday at MICDS.
MICDS (7-1) won the championship of its own holiday tournament for the first time since 2019.
“There’s not a lot these seniors haven’t accomplished as a group the last four years. Winning state is one of them, but they had never won our holiday tournament,” MICDS coach Travis Wallace said. “That’s one thing on the checklist to mark off.”
Clemens placed the Rams on the nice list by spearheading a 22-4 third quarter run that broke open a tight game. He hit a silky, mid-range, turnaround to begin his own 12-point blitz that included buckets from all three levels.
“I was just going with the flow of the game, doing whatever the moment needed, whether we needed a ball handler, a facilitator. Then, when it got to the point where we needed someone to put the ball in the hole, I was feeling it at that moment,” Clemens said.
During the pivotal third quarter, Clemens displayed every aspect of his all-around game.
He corralled a long rebound and fired an outlet pass to a streaking Ray for a layup. He blocked a CBC three-point attempt that created a transition triple for Jason Stokes, and his dive on the floor to retrieve a loose ball placed Ray at the free throw line and earned a celebratory hand slap from Wallace.
“He was awesome tonight,” Wallace said of Clemens. “Once he gets going, he’s hard to slow down.”
CBC (7-3) rose to the moment during a high-level first half played in front of a massive crowd at McDonnell Gymnasium. Pressure man-to-man defense by the CBC guards and strong interior play by Jake Plummer-First helped the Cadets grab a 25-21 lead early in the second quarter.
“We were playing with a lot of emotion, a lot of intensity,” CBC coach Carey Lewis Jr. said.
Impactful minutes off the bench by MICDS junior Nick Weaver and senior Karthik Krishnaswamy, and a 10-point half from Ray helped the Rams claim a 30-27 lead at halftime.
Ray, who missed most of last season with a turf toe injury, excelled on the perimeter and under the rim and became a matchup headache for the Cadets.
“I just try to play my brand of basketball – talking on the floor, sprinting up and down, playing good defense, being positive to my teammates – just doing whatever it takes to win,” Ray said.
MICDS emerged from halftime and enticed CBC to shoot from the perimeter. The Cadets missed badly on their first two attempts and long rebounds led to Rams’ layups on the other end, prompting a quick timeout from Lewis.
“In the third quarter, we just started settling for jumpers. I called a timeout, told our kids to stop shooting threes, and we came right out and shot another three,” Lewis said. “That’s been our problem. When we play teams that are just as good or better than us, our youth comes into play, our inexperience comes into play.”
MICDS quickly took flight and Clemens drove the sleigh, finishing with 28 points, four rebounds, four assists, four steals and a block.
“The maturity factor is there. He understands what it takes to win,” Wallace said.
The key understanding for MICDS this season has been on the defensive end. In practice, the Rams’ defensive shell drill is known for its intensity, where three consecutive stops is called a “kill,” and the defense needs to earn five stops to exit the drill.
During the Don Maurer Holiday Invitational, the Rams pressured the ball, forced tough shots and yielded just 41.5 points per game in wins against Ritenour, Francis Howell, Clayton and CBC.
“We have one goal – to win all the time. To do that, we know we have to win on the defensive side,” Clemens said.
And winning has been the norm for an experienced MICDS team off to its best start since the 2021-22 season. The Rams hope the Don Maurer trophy will be the first of many in the months ahead.
“That’s been one of their goals – to win their holiday tournament,” Wallace said. “I’m just proud of them.”
Clemens added, “We wanted to win this tournament for all the guys who came before us and didn’t have a chance to experience this. It’s a big deal for us.”
For a photo gallery from this game: go to: https://benvessa.smugmug.com/Boys-Basketball-Photos/Boys-Basketball-2025-26/MICDS-vs-CBC-12-30-25