New Kennedy Coach Jon McKowen had a few words of advice for Drew Heitland when basketball practice began in November.

Get a haircut, son.

"He was like, 'You can't be looking like a girl,'" Heitland said Tuesday night. "So I just cut it and it's out of my face now.

"I just went down the street to Cost Cutters from Kennedy and they chopped it all off."

Heitland has a good look at the basket these days without all that long hair in his eyes and he proved it Tuesday with a big game against the Xavier Saints.

The burly football player scored a career-high 17 points to help the Cougars outscore the Saints, 85-76, in an entertaining game at the Xavier gym.

A.J. Carter collected 26 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds and 4 steals for Kennedy and Cole Murdock popped in 16 points as the Cougars raised their records to 8-1 overall and 5-0 in the Mississippi Valley Conference.

Heitland was averaging 7.1 points when the night began, but he poured in 14 in the second half alone as Kennedy pulled away from a 32-32 deadlock at intermission. Heitland did most of his damage near the basket with quick layups on crisp feeds from teammates.

"Drew has those skills," said McKowen. "It's just a matter of Drew realizing it at times."

McKowen is a no-nonsense coach who pays attention to all the little details, including the length of his players' hair.

"We want to present ourselves like we're going for job interviews," the coach said, "because everywhere we go, people are judging us. In football, it's something you hide under your helmet. But in basketball, it's a hindrance."

Kennedy made 30 of 47 shots from the field for 64 percent and was 8 of 13 on 3-pointers, with Murdock knocking down four of them. The Cougars committed only nine turnovers in the fast-paced game and scored 53 points in the second half.

The 85 points are the most they've scored all season.

"The guards played really well," said Heitland, a 6-foot-4 center. "They found me when I was open when I was making my cuts. So all the credit goes to the guards.

"They (the Saints) weren't getting back on defense as fast as they probably should have and I was able to sneak out and get open layups."

Carter played a strong all-around game for Kennedy.

"Any game against Xavier, no matter what sport it is, it's always going to be intense," said Carter. "It's the Battle of 42nd Street and you always want to take that win home.

"We just spread them out, and we knew their big guys didn't want to come outside the lane. So we just attacked and things were open right away. We kept exploiting what was open right away."

Matt Nelson, Xavier's 6-foot-8 center, picked up three fouls in the first half and began the third quarter on the bench. Heitland took advantage of Nelson's absence and made three baskets in the first 90 seconds of the second half.

Heitland scored nine points in the third quarter as the Cougars opened a 61-47 lead. The gap reached 16 points at 78-62 on a pair of free throws by Heitland with 3:31 left and Kennedy took it home from there.

"We've been practicing like this for about two weeks," said McKowen, happy with his club's performance. "And then we played Friday and Saturday and go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, where's our team at?'"

Kennedy won low-scoring games Friday against Jefferson and Saturday against Reedsburg, Wis., but McKowen wants to raise the tempo and score more points.

"This wasn't a surprise to the coaches or the team," he said, "but we were hoping it came sooner rather than later."

Kennedy will face a big test Friday when it hosts top-ranked Dubuque Senior.

The Cougars nearly cracked the Associated Press Top 10 rankings this week, receiving the 11th-most votes in Class 4A. They feel like they belong in the Top 10 and hope to prove it against Dubuque Senior.

"We've been talking about it and we're ready to make that leap forward," said Carter. "We've got a big one on Friday."

McKowen thinks he might have a top-10 club on his hands.

"I hope so, but it really doesn't matter to us," he said. "We haven't talked about it. It's not something we've watched. The most important thing for us is finding a way to play in Des Moines (at the state tournament)."

Adam McDermott led Xavier (5-4, 2-3) with 20 points. Nelson scored 17 points for the Saints and Calvin Winker had 15.

KENNEDY (85): Daniels 1 4-4 7, Carter 10 5-8 26, Jacobus 1 2-2 5, Bil 2 0-0 7, Murdock 6 0-0 16, Heisler 2 0-0 4, Holzer 0 0-0 0, Manning 1 1-3 3, Heitland 6 5-7 17. Totals 30 17-24 85.

XAVIER (76): Downey 1 0-0 3, McDermott 5 8-8 20, Burger 2 0-1 5, Ramlo 2 0-0 5, Welch 1 2-2 4, Hill 2 0-0 5, Winker 6 2-2 15, Nelson 6 5-7 17, Bisenius 0 2-2 2. Totals 25 19-22 76.

Halftime - Kennedy 32, Xavier 32. 3-point goals - Kennedy 8 (Murdock 4, Daniels 1, Carter 1, Jacobus 1, Bil 1), Xavier 7 (McDermott 2, Downey 1, Burger 1, Ramlo 1, Hill 1, Winker 1). Fouled out - Heitland, Burger.