Beckman comes up big for Grayslake Central at BG
Late last season, 6-foot-7 Jack Beckman began coming into his own for Grayslake Central's boys basketball team.
The pattern is continuing, and it showed clearly Monday night in the Rams' 61-45 win over host Buffalo Grove in the Bison Classic.
"I built up a lot of confidence last season," said Beckman. "We had some great seniors on the team and they would encourage me to shoot and play aggressive. I was a bit timid last year but they really worked with me."
Beckman started out the season strong in both teams' opener with 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting. His performance included 5 of 7 from the free throw line and 9 rebounds.
"Jack has really made some good progression," said Grayslake coach Kosta Kougias. "He does a good job in the post and the rest of the players rallied around him. He's got good size and worked hard on his game this summer. He led the team in taking charges for us and I think that's pretty good for a big man. He's got the intangibles that you want as a coach."
The Rams (1-0) broke out to a 13-4 lead on Sam Ruhlman's putback basket with 2:50 left in the first quarter. Grayslake led 17-9 after the first quarter thanks to a defense that forced 5 Buffalo Grove turnovers.
"It was big to get off to a quick start in the game," said Beckman. "We got some new guys starting, and I think it was good for their confidence to get off to a fast start and get the win."
"I felt we needed to protect the ball at the start of the game," said Kougias. "We had 21 turnovers but when we had to we were able to regroup when we had to.
Grayslake Central opened a 32-16 on a putback by Beckman with 3:31 left in the first half.
Four points by senior center Hans Haller and a basket by Jack Vaselaney trimmed the score to 32-22 with 2:42 left for the Bison.
Buffalo Grove never again got closer than 10 points.
The Rams built a 54-34 lead with 3:08 left in the game to but away the contest.
Ruhlman played well with 13 points as the only other double-figure scorer for Grayslake. Billy Drevline added 8 points off the bench.
Buffalo Grove coach Keith Peterson was at a loss after the game.
"We had a great summer and the two weeks in practice went very well," said Peterson. "We came out and we might have been too calm, and maybe overconfident. When things started to go bad we couldn't recover. We had some good minutes from our young players. They played well in spots. When things didn't go our way we took a step backward. I was disappointed with our execution."
Vaselaney led the Bison with 11 points. Haller had 8 points and Joey Pinakidis had 7. The Bison were outrebounded 26 to 14.