BELLEVILLE — The transportation upgrade from school bus to charter did not provide the level of comfort expected from the Champaign Central boys basketball team on a frigid Tuesday.

“We had a cold bus ride down,” Central coach Jeff Finke said. “The heat didn’t work for three hours on our charter. But our guys came out ready to play.”

And the Maroons came out hot, firing in five 3-pointers in the first quarter and routing the Alton Redbirds 84-50 in the first round of the Belleville East Chick-fil-A Classic.

“It was nice, our guys came out and hit shots,” Finke said. “We didn’t really execute our offense much, but when you’re making shots you just kind of roll with it.”

Central, making its first appearance in the tourney, moves to 11-5 and will play Belleville West (15-1) in a Friday night semifinal. Alton is 10-6 and will play Belleville Althoff (3-14) in a consolation semifinal at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

Central and Alton combined for a tourney record 19 3-pointers, with the Maroons making 11 of 28 from the arc. Nine of those 11 treys came from 16 attempts in the first half. Alton converted 8 of 21 from 3-point range, but the Redbirds were never a threat to the Maroons.

“We were just flat,” Alton coach Eric Smith said. “We didn’t move, we didn’t box out. Offensively, that was probably the worst we’ve looked all year long. Not a whole lot of player movement, not a whole lot of ball movement. That was the frustrating part.”

The Maroons buried the Redbirds with a 17-0 run covering a four-minute stretch early in the first quarter to go up 19-2. The lead grew to 27-9 after one quarter and, despite 3-pointers from Alton’s Darrell Smith and Donovan Clay early in the second quarter, eclipsed 20 points after A’Kieon Gill’s fourth and fifth 3-pointers in the first half made it 39-17.

Alton has allowed as many as 84 points in a game just four times in the last five seasons and two of those came against the Maroons from Champaign, who beat the Redbirds 86-79 last season at the Centralia Tournament.

Alton closed the second quarter on a 9-3 surge to draw within 42-26 at the half. But with Tim Finke scoring 11 of his game-high 27 points in the third quarter, the Maroons continued to own the night.

Gill, a 6-3 senior, finished with six 3-pointers – one off the tourney record – and scored 18 points. Khailieo Terry, a 6-4 freshman, finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds, and 6-3 senior Jonte Coleman had 13 points for Central.

Tim Finke, a 6-foot-7 Grand Canyon recruit and one of the state’s top seniors, is the Maroons’ headliner. But Central flashed much more against Alton.

“Quite honestly, all five of our starters can score,” coach Finke said. “Four guys are averaging in double figures and the fifth – Jaden Aikens — is averaging about seven a game. Tim’s our leading scorer and our leader and he’s been playing varsity for four years. But A’Kieon can score, Jonte can score, Lieo is a freshman, but he’s scores it really well, too.”

It was an impressive outing for the Maroons, but they showed nothing that caught the Alton coach by surprise.

“That’s pretty much who we’ve seen and what we expected,” Smith said. “We’ve seen them in person and we’ve seen them on film. That was pretty much who they are.”

Alton was without 6-2 junior starter Josh Rivers, who sustained a leg injury in Friday’s victory at Edwardsville. Kevin Caldwell Jr. scored 13 points and Malik Smith had 10 for the Redbirds, who shot 35 percent (19 of 53) from the field.

Jeff Finke also was familiar with the Redbirds. And the Central coach said his Maroons caught Alton on an off night.

“We’ve gotten to know them, we respect their program,” Finke said. “We know Rivers is out, which kind of set them back a little bit on the inside. For us, attacking the middle early was a goal although we didn’t do it well, it kind of exposed them. We made shots, they had to run from behind. That wasn’t the best Alton team that I’ve seen this year and I’ve seen them multiple times.

Now, the Maroons advance to the winners side of an eight team-bracket that is expected to include Chaminade (11-2) and St. Mary’s (13-2). Those teams open tourney play Wednesday night. Friday’s date with West will be the second for Central, which lost to West 62-61 in the title game at the Centralia Tourney on Dec. 30.

“That’s why we’re here,” Finke said of the loaded Chick-fil-A field. “Last year, we had a 10- or 12-day stretch where we didn’t play games in mid-January. This was tournament we wanted to come to. We looked at Salem, but with the big 4A schools downstate, we wanted to come here. We typically play pretty well in the St. Louis area.”

CHAMPAIGN CENTRAL 84, ALTON 50

Central 27 15 27 15 — 84

Alton 9 17 15 9 — 50

Central (11-5) – Finke 27, Terry 16, Coleman 13, Gill 18, Booker 6, Rossow 2, Weatherall 2. FG-32 3FG-11 FT-9

Alton (10-6) – Caldwell 13, M. Smith 10, D. Smith 6, Clay 6, Sanders 5, Miller 6, Jam. Jones 2, Jac. Jones 2. FG-19 3FG-8 FT-4.