Naperville North puts clamps on Glenbard East
Senior Baylor Griffin and his Naperville North boys basketball teammates could be proud of their first-half defensive effort Friday against Glenbard East.
They and coach Jeff Powers agreed it could be even better.
"Coach told us we're not playing team defense as well as we would like. He emphasized that at halftime," Griffin said. "We definitely turned it up. We were rebounding and we weren't hacking as much."
That defensive clamp allowed the Huskies to score the first nine points of the third quarter and provide the cushion to hold off a late charge and defeat the Rams 45-36 in the opening round of York's Jack Tosh Holiday Classic.
After a back-and-forth first half, Naperville North (6-4) opened a 27-17 lead over the first four minutes of the third quarter and led by at least six points the rest of the way.
The Huskies lost last year's Classic opener to Metea Valley 66-64 on a last-second shot. This year they're on a four-game winning streak with 40 points or fewer allowed the past two games.
"We got a lot of touches. We were pretty active. I'm real pleased with our defense," Powers said. "After the first eight minutes (up 11-9), we really buckled down. We got hands in the passing lanes. We pretty much shut down most of their three-point shots."
In the second half the Huskies made 6 of only 11 shots while 14 of their 27 points came on free throws.
"When shots aren't falling on offense, coach gets on us we have to play better defense. I personally think defense leads to offense," Griffin said.
It did Friday. After his scoreless first half, the Huskies' Zach Tuxhorn opened the third-quarter scoring with a 3-pointer and free throw. Griffin scored off an inside pass from Brian Dalton, and 6-foot-6 Deon Merrill led more aggressive inside play with three free throws moments after a big blocked shot.
"Once we got the ball moving from side to side, that's the strength of our game (offensively)," Powers said.
"We talked about just raising our intensity and concentrating just a little bit more (in the second half). Just little things. Having a Christmas break and a day off, I think our minds weren't up to that intensity. I think they played with that intensity in the second half."
Glenbard East (5-6) was limited to 4-of-26 shooting in the second half, including 1 of 10 from 3-point range, after going 7 of 12 in the first half.
Griffin, whose main responsibility was the Rams' Zach Walsh in man-to-man defenses, was excited to hear after the game that he was scoreless in the second half. Walsh scored 9 points in the game.
"I just try to play with my teammates. We're always talking," Griffin said. "We played a little zone pressure, so we always came back into our zone and we just matched up. We had to talk to find out where (Walsh) was and played off of that."
The Rams still had their chances. With 3:34 left they closed to 39-33, but then a second made free throw was nullified by a teammate's lane violation. That was followed by a missed a wide-open 3 that would have cut the deficit in half.
"The first half, too many turnovers (12 overall), you get a poor shot. Those are just lost opportunities. I thought the second half we executed better, but we just didn't make shots," Glenbard East coach Scott Miller said.
"A positive was we played hard defensively. That kept us in it. We were able to change defenses and did a really nice job with that. We just didn't score."
The Huskies received fourth-quarter help from sophomore reserves Winston Elston, Cam Hardy and Mitch Lewis. They combined for 11 of the team's 16 points for the period.
"(Elston and Hardy) learned a valuable lesson as young sophomores," Powers said. "The last three wins we had, they were both in the starting lineup. They were getting taught that it's important to be on time (for practice)."