Barrington handles Grayslake Central
After a strong showing over the holidays, the Barrington boys basketball team kept the momentum swinging in the right direction on Saturday.
The Broncos took third place at the highly regarded Hinkle Holiday Classic at Jacobs High School with a 4-1 record. In their first game of the new year, they got tough on the defensive end to send visiting Grayslake Central home with a 63-44 nonconference loss.
After giving up 17 points in the first quarter, Barrington allowed Grayslake Central to score just 16 points total over the entire second half.
"We made our emphasis (at halftime) that we really need to clamp down on defense," Barrington senior guard Mark Johnson said. "Our whole thing is to play the same way for all 32 minutes. We let up a little bit early on, so we knew we had to change that."
Offensively, the Broncos, who improve to 12-4 on the season, wanted to do more and more of the same. They were up 18-17 at the end of the first quarter by efficiently hitting 8-of-13 shots.
"We've been moving the ball really well lately, and tonight, we had four guys in double figures," Johnson said. "Everyone is getting a piece of the pie, everyone is scoring and contributing so it's a beautiful thing when we are all contributing."
Johnson was one of those players in double-figures. He finished with 11 points, including one 3-pointer.
Senior guard Jason Boock led all scorers with 13 points while Will Raider finished with 11 points and Connor Keenan had 10 points on two 3-pointers. Boock and Raider each had a 3-pointer as well.
"We feel like we have really good balance and for a coach, that's a luxury," Barrington coach Bryan Tucker said. "We had six seniors coming back and they've given us some really good leadership, too. They've set a great example for our younger kids."
Grayslake Central was feeling it offensively in the first half, too, hitting on 50 percent of its shots (8-of-16) in the first quarter.
If not for a 3-pointer by Boock in the final moments of the second quarter, the Rams would have been down by only 4 points at halftime instead of 7 points (35-28).
"I thought we stuck with them the whole way in the first half," Grayslake Central coach Kosta Kougias said. "We did a really good job, even with three starters in foul trouble.
"But we came out in the second half a little flat and they were playing with energy. And we missed a lot of wide open looks in the third quarter. It's deflating when you can't make layups and free throws. That's when that 7-point (Barrington) lead extended to double-digits."
And when the Rams weren't misfiring on open shots in the second half, they were challenged heavily by a more aggressive Barrington defense. Grayslake Central, which falls to 7-8 on the season, connected on just 7-of-25 shots in the second half, and missed all three of its free throw attempts. The Rams were 0-for-5 from the free throw line for the game. Barrington was 9-for-11 from the line.
"Barrington is a physical team and they made us do things we didn't want to do," said Grayslake Central senior guard Antonio Crews, who was the Rams' only double-figure scorer with 12 points. "They sped us up, and they were trapping and we struggled and they made us take and miss tough shots."