A fundamental Wheaton North victory
Wheaton North's boys basketball team went back to basics Friday night.
And, basically, the strategy worked perfectly.
Focusing on stingy defense and quality shots on offense, the Falcons rolled to a 52-37 DuPage Valley Conference cross-town victory at Wheaton Warrenville South.
"Great team win, everybody played their part really well," said Falcons senior Jake Heggeland. "We've been drilling defense all week after going through film and kind of noticing we were going back to old bad habits. We picked it up in practice to really get the fundamentals back, and it showed in the game today."
Wheaton North (13-4, 4-2) allowed single-digit scoring to the Tigers (9-12, 2-4) in the first and second quarters when it built a 23-13 halftime lead. WW South never came closer than 5 points away in the second half, and when it did come that close the Falcons responded with an 8-0 run early in the fourth quarter to boost the margin back to 13 points on Luke Anthony's 3-pointer.
The Falcons have the shooters to knock down 3s at a furious rate, but they didn't need to on Friday. With only 10 3-point attempts the entire game, most of their points came in the paint.
"I thought defensively we were battling, but offensively we were a mess," said Tigers coach Mike Healy. "The kids are working hard. We just didn't look real ready offensively."
Both teams were balanced offensively. The Falcons held WW South leading scorer Josh Ruggles to 10 points and held the entire team to 6 points for 13 minutes spanning the second and third quarters.
Matt Waldron 3-pointers at the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth pulled the Tigers within 31-26, but Wheaton North silenced the run with Nick Traversa and Luke Anthony 3-pointers in addition to a bucket by Heggeland.
Nick Jordan led Wheaton North with 14 points while Traversa scored 13 points and Heggeland added 8 points.
"We really got back to basics this week defensively," said Wheaton North coach Dave Brackmann. "We kind of challenged the kids to pick up our pressure and try to make more defensive plays and get more deflections and tips. That was huge for us because it helped our offense."
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