Although he's known simply as Joe, every piece of state tournament literature refers to him as Joseph Bean.
Even the announcer for Wednesday morning's Class 4A state quarterfinal game repeatedly referred to him as Joseph Bean.
You should make that Sir Joseph.
The senior guard did it all, including leading the Cedar Rapids Kennedy boys basketball team out of a first-half slump to a 66-45 victory at Wells Fargo Arena.
Top-seeded Kennedy (24-0) can put last year's stunning loss to Pleasant Valley in the 1-8 quarterfinals behind it. It advances to Thursday's 4A semifinals against Ankeny/Dubuque Senior.
Kickoff time is set for 5:30 p.m.
"Absolutely. We're relieved to get through the first game," Kennedy's Micah Schlaak said. "Now we can just focus on the next game. Yeah, that feels pretty good."
Much of the credit for this rematch victory goes to Bean, who played so well in this tournament last year as Cedar Rapids Xavier advanced to the Class 3A championship game. He hit three three-pointers in a row as part of Kennedy's three-point tyranny.
All of the Cougars' points in the second quarter came from behind the arc, including two three-pointers by Griffin Gerdes, who came off the bench. Those seven threes gave Kennedy (24-0) a 30-20 halftime lead.
"I would say we just felt something in the first quarter," said Bean, who had team-highs in points (18), rebounds (7) and assists (5). "Then in the second quarter we started doing some things, and it just clicked. I started to feel it."
"Joe is a player," Kennedy's Cyrus Courtney said. "He can do everything: he rebounds, he shoots, he warmed up. They started taking him out of the game and everybody started scoring because he gave us the energy we needed."
That energy carried over into the second half, and Kennedy opened the gap even more. This was the Cougars team you're used to watching: aggressive on defense, up-tempo on offense.
Courtney added 15 points and seven rebounds for Kennedy. Schlaak had 14 points and six rebounds.
After a 4-for-12 start in the first quarter, Kennedy shot 50 percent for the game, hitting 8 of 10 shots in the fourth quarter, most of them layups after breaking DC-G's desperation press.
