Balanced Jacobs downs Carmel
Jacobs maintained its offensive balance to overcome a pair of heavily-weighted performances from Carmel on Monday night.
Chrishawn Orange's 16 points led the Golden Eagles as their starting five all hit double figures in an 84-71 second-round victory in their Hinkle Holiday Classic boys basketball tournament game in Algonquin. C.J. Duff and Shareif Bailey finished with 26 and 25 points respectively for Carmel.
But the Golden Eagles (7-3, 2-0 pool play) also had perfect inside-outside balance as it clinched a spot in Friday's 7:30 p.m. semifinal no matter what happens in today's 7:30 pool-play finale against Grant.
"One of our goals was to win the Christmas tournament," senior guard Cory Boeckh said after hitting three 3s and scoring 15 points to help Jacobs make the semifinals for the second straight year. "We've set ourselves up for that so that's pretty exciting."
Six-foot-4 Matt Bindi (15 points) made all 8 of his shots in close and had 5 rebounds and 6-8 sophomore Cameron Krutwig (12 points) was 6-for-7 from the field and had a game-high 13 of Jacobs' 39-21 rebound advantage.
Northern Michigan-bound guard Kenton Mack scored all 11 of his points in the second half and had 4 assists. Orange had 7 rebounds and 6 assists as the Golden Eagles shot 58.5 percent from the field (31-for-53).
"We don't have a 25-point-a-night guy but at the same time our five starters are five good basketball players," said Jacobs coach Jimmy Roberts after his team's best offensive output of the season.
"I think we're a very talented group," Bindi said. "We all grew up playing together since sixth grade except for Cameron but we all knew about him. That gives us more of an advantage because we have more chemistry when we play together."
Boeckh hit all of his 3s and Krutwig scored 8 points inside as the Golden Eagles led 21-13 after a quarter. Bindi then scored 10 points as they hit 10 of their first 11 shots in the second quarter en route to 67 percent shooting from the field (20-for-30) and a 48-31 lead at halftime.
"If one guy goes down we always have one guy step up," Boeckh said. "We have a balanced effort from everyone and we have a very talented group."
Duff and Bailey each hit a pair of 3s but Carmel (3-6, 1-1 in pool play) went just 1-for-11 behind the arc in the second half to finish 7-for-23. The Corsairs trailed by as many as 22 but got in the second half was 82-71 with 33 seconds left.
"Overall it was a big step forward for us," said Carmel coach Zack Ryan, whose tallest starter is Duff at 6-2. "They're a really good team and it's a tough matchup for us. But I told the guys two or three weeks ago we would have gotten blown out by these guys by a lot more.
"We're getting better and better every day and starting to get it now. That part is exciting."