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Conant quickly re-establishes winning identity

How well would Conant's boys basketball team respond after Friday night's emotionally difficult MSL West loss to Fremd?

Trailing 12-7 in the first quarter Saturday night to a Deerfield team shooting lights-out on 3-balls, it didn't appear as though the response from Conant would be too heartening.

But the Cougars straightened out and hit their stride, sparked by their defense, in a 65-44 nonconference win at home against a Deerfield team that is among the Central Suburban League's best.

"Well, it was good to see us get going," said Conant coach Tom McCormack, whose 16-4 club held Deerfield to just 3 points in the second quarter and raced to a double-digit halftime lead.

The Cougars scored 18 straight and senior leader Jimmy Sotos (16 points) sparked them with a steal for a hoop to close the first quarter, an alley-oop feed to Mike Downing (17) to open the second quarter and another steal for a fastbreak hoop as Conant recaptured its identity.

Sotos knows this young team looks to him for his senior leadership and he refuses, regardless of of how worn out he may be, to let them down.

"My teammates trust in me. I've got to lead by example," he noted.

One example was a gamble, when he raced diagonally across court, for all intents and purposes abandoning his position in Conant's matchup zone. Sotos intercepted the pass and turned it upcourt on the gallop for one of those buckets in the 18-point run.

"Sometimes, I've just got to do what instinct tells me," he said.

"It was good to see him get going," McCormack said of his star guard's stepping up his level of play after a tough stretch against difficult competition.

He had plenty of help. Sophomore forward Ryan Davis finished with a team-high 18 points, asserting himself with aggressive drives to the basket and knocking down a 3-pointer with his soft touch. Junior forward Downing combined with Davis for a couple of blocked shots along with several other altered or just totally abandoned attempts.

"Ryan and Mike did some damage inside," McCormack noted as Conant pulled away in the third quarter with 9-of-12 shooting from the floor. That spurt included a 3-pointer from Ben Schols, while Sotos and Downing finished off streaks of hitting 5 consecutive shots apiece, stretching back to the second quarter.

Defensively, the Cougars were finally closing out on Deerfield's deadly 3-point shooters - except Ben Bizar, who had a game-high 20 points and hit his first 6 attempts from beyond the arc.

McCormack feels like the win over Deerfield on the heels of the loss to Fremd was just the elixir his club needed.

"It's good to have a game after a tough loss," he said. "Otherwise, it's a long week till you get back on the court."

Glenbrook South 62, Palatine 59 (OT): The host Pirates came up short in nonconference play despite 17 points from Johnny O'Shea and 16 from Cortez Hogans.

Lamon Berry had three 3s and finished with 11 points for Palatine (8-15), which outscored the Titans 11-5 i nthe fourth quarter to force the extra period.

Matt Giannakopoulos had six 3s and scored a game-high 30 points for Glenbrook South.

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