Auburn's spurt singes Rolling Meadows
Rolling Meadows didn't allow its turnovers to turn into a damaging number of points for Rockford Auburn through 2½ quarters of Tuesday's quarterfinal game in the 36th annual Elgin Holiday boys basketball tournament.
Then came the game-changing flurry that occurred in a hurry from Auburn's pressure defense to damage any hopes Meadows had of making a comeback in a 64-45 loss at Chesbrough Fieldhouse.
“They're explosive and we knew coming in they could score in a hurry,” said Meadows coach Kevin Katovich of the 17-2 tear that lasted 2:43 and gave Auburn a 52-28 lead with 34 seconds left in the third quarter.
Auburn (8-1) scored 11 points off 5 turnovers in that stretch after getting only 10 points off the first 15 miscues by Meadows (4-7). That sent the Knights into today's 6:30 p.m. semifinal against Elgin, a 62-54 winner over Las Vegas Centennial.
“In the first half you have to give Rolling Meadows credit, they were just keeping things at the tempo they wanted to play,” said Auburn coach Bryan Ott, whose team is in first place in the NIC-10. “We certainly weren't able to dictate.
“At halftime we talked about how it would continue to be a struggle until we made better decisions on offense.”
Meadows, which plays Centennial at 3:15 p.m. Today, got within 23-22 on a pull-up jumper by Brian Nelms (11 points, 7 assists) with 57 seconds left in the half.
Auburn countered with a baseline jumper by Anthony Strickland (16 points) and a 3-pointer off a turnover by Fred Van Vleet (15 points) one second before intermission.
But Meadows felt good considering Tyler Gaedele (11 points, three 3-pointers) sat the last 6:38 with 3 fouls and it also got some solid inside play from 6-foot-6 Paul Volkman (9 points, 8 rebounds).
“We ended the first half pretty strong and Paul was playing pretty well in the post,” Nelms said. “Then we came out and turned the ball over too much. When we got the ball past half-court I felt we did all right but their full court pressure was good.”
And it eventually became too much after Nelms hit a pull-up jumper to get Meadows within 35-26. Auburn literally ran away with a barrage of breakouts, rebound baskets and free throws.
“We didn't do what we talked about doing at halftime in the third quarter,” Katovich said after Meadows had 24 turnovers. “Every game it seems like we have stretches mentally where we're not there. We need to play four quarters, especially against a team like that.”
Meadows' only points in Auburn's decisive spurt came when Nelms inbounded the ball off the back of a defender to himself for a short jumper.
“We didn't put ourselves in position to win this game and obviously they're a really good team,” Nelms said. “We played well in the first two quarters and the fourth quarter.”
But the last half of the third quarter was more than enough for Auburn.