Warren's depth yields title; Round Lake snaps skid

It took a village for the Warren boys basketball team to win the Mundelein Thanksgiving tournament.

The Blue Devils used a deep rotation in each of their four tournament games last week, usually getting 10 players meaningful playing time.

“And it's not always the same 10 either. We have a very deep team, even beyond 10 players,” Warren coach Jon Jasnoch said. “We've got a lot of different looks with guys who can play different roles, depending on the style of play of our opponent or matchups.

“And we want to play really up-tempo, fast-paced and pressure defense. For guys to be able to do that for the whole game, you've got to have subs. The nice thing is, the talent level really doesn't fall off much from the top guys. We have a lot of talent on this team.”

Warren defeated Lake Forest Academy, Deerfield and Mundelein in the tournament but fell to Fremd. The Blue Devils tied Lake Forest Academy for first place with a 3-1 record but Warren earned the title based on defeating Lake Forest Academy head-to-head.

It's Warren's first championship at the Mundelein Thanksgiving tournament in at least six years.

“We are fairly inexperienced this year with a lot of juniors in their first varsity games who play key roles for us,” Jasnoch said. “So to come out and win early like this in a tournament gives us a lot of confidence and faith in ourselves. I think it does a lot for our mental outlook for the rest of the season.”

Junior forward Adnan Sarancic was named to the all-tournament team for Warren.

A returner from Warren's 19-win season last year, Sarancic averaged a team-leading 16 points and 6 rebounds over the course of the tournament. He had 24 points in Warren's double-overtime victory over Deerfield.

Guard Sawyer Shrake averaged about 13 points per game over the tournament and had 22 points in the Deerfield win. After Sarancic and Shrake, Warren's scoring was spread out quite a bit due to the deep rotation.

“We got contributions from a lot of guys,” Jasnoch said. “That's what happens when you play 10 guys, the points are spread out.”

Little things: In the first games of the season, coaches are often looking at other things besides who is scoring points.

They also want to know who can do the little things, like defense and rebounding and leadership, which are actually pretty big things.

For Warren coach Jon Jasnoch, he got some valuable, nonscoring contributions from senior Alex Manoiu and junior Juan De La Cruz last week over the course of the Mundelein Thanksgiving tournament.

“We've got a pretty young team and Alex comes in and gives us some great senior leadership,” Jasnoch said. “He also flies around and makes things happen on the defensive end. We need that.”

Then there's De La Cruz, the North Suburban Conference player of the year in football who is still getting his basketball legs going. And yet, he was big on the boards for the Blue Devils over Thanksgiving.

“I'm sure there are still some bumps and bruises from football going on for Juan,” Jasnoch said. “He didn't score a ton of points for us over Thanksgiving, but we are so much better defensively with Juan on the floor. He is such a great athlete and he gives us a really good defender and rebounder.”

Nice start: It was a long-time coming for Round Lake.

The Panthers started off the season with a win, defeating Marian Central Catholic in double overtime last week in the Woodstock Thanksgiving tournament.

But this wasn't just any old season-opening win. This win was big in the history book too. The win snapped a 39-game losing streak for the Panthers that ran nearly two years.

Round Lake's last win was over North Boone (72-56) in the Marengo tournament on Dec. 28, 2016.

Round Lake went winless last season, 0-27.

“This was a big win for us. We've had 15 wins over the last five seasons,” first-year Round Lake coach Jay Iden said. “The funny thing is, when I walked into the locker room after the game, I expected it to be crazy in there. I thought the kids would be all emotional. But they kind of just looked at me like, ‘Ya, we did that.'

“It was really interesting. But we have been hitting it hard since May. These guys have been working so hard. I think they could see things coming together. I think they were expecting to win this year.”

New this year: Sophomore guard Hakim Williams is one of four transfers on the Round Lake varsity this year.

Williams is from Iowa, but seemed like he was right at home in Round Lake's season-opening win against Marian Central last week.

The 6-foot-4 Williams who plays in the post had 20 points on 8-of-11 shooting from the field.

He also had 23 points against Woodstock and 11 points and 7 rebounds against Woodstock North.

“It's been a nice surprise to have Williams walk through the door,” Round Lake coach Jay Iden said. “He is a great kid and has a very high ceiling. One of the first things I noticed about him is his vision on the floor. He sees everything.

“Hakim also has a low-post repertoire of moves that I haven't seen out of a kid his age in a long time. He backs people down like Charles Barkley. He shot fakes and pivots. He's got some great moves.”

Youth movement: First-year Round Lake coach Jay Iden isn't the only one learning on the job.

He is starting four sophomores, Hakim Williams, Nick Pierre, Isaiah Nixon and Jeremiah Jordan.

“I'm really comfortable with it,” Iden said of his young lineup. “There are ups and downs every day, but that's going to happen. We're just trying to teach them about the level of intensity that you have to play with each day at the varsity level. They are learning.”

Like Williams, Pierre also put up big numbers over Thanksgiving at Woodstock.

Pierre had 18 points on three 3-pointers against Marian Central and had 11 points against both Woodstock and Woodstock North.