Leyden thriving on lessons learned in close games

It's exciting for the players.

But the coaches could do without so much drama.

Close games, very close games, have become a thing this season at Leyden.

"Four of our losses have been by 3 points or less. We also have three wins by four points or less," said Leyden coach Bill Heisler, noting that two of the close wins came in overtime. "We are like the 'cardiac kids.' But the kids actually love it. They love the competition and when games come down to the wire.

"It's stressful, of course, for the coaches. But the one good thing for us as a staff is that we can point to the value of every possession, which is something that we're always talking about. In those close games, there are a lot of teachable moments about the value of each possession."

Turning over a new leaf: Since Christmas, Leyden looks like a different team, particularly on the defensive end.

The Eagles are 4-2 since the break and defensive pressure has been a big factor.

"Defensively, we are a lot better," Leyden coach Bill Heisler said. "We are getting way more out of our press."

Try 5 to 6 more turnovers per game.

"At the beginning of year, we were a little slow to react on defense," Heisler said. "We've been more active recently."

It's not a coincidence that the timing of the Eagles' surge on defense matches up with the return of guard DaQuan Harris. Harris missed the first seven games of the season with a knee injury that he suffered toward the end of football season.

"DaQuan missed our entire preseason because he was still recovering," Heisler said. "He wanted to try to play in our first game and he did but it was clear that wasn't totally ready, so then he took another month off to continue to work on his knee."

And that's when the Eagles struggled on defense. Harris is the team leader in steals and his absence was clearly felt.

"DaQuan is our best defender. He is active and athletic, he has speed and is long at about 6-feet," Heisler said. "The way he plays, he just energizes everyone else. He gets everyone going. He's the energy guy."

With Harris healthy and back in the mix, Heisler says that his team, which is now 10-8 overall, is forcing turnovers in the full court, and also with a more aggressive half-court defense. The Eagles are now at about 20 forced turnovers per game.

Ocean's 1,000: Coming off a big junior year, Leyden forward Ocean Johnson hasn't been able to sneak up on anyone this season.

"People have been really keying on him," Leyden coach Bill Heisler said. "I think that made Ocean press a little bit. At the beginning of the year, he was kind of forcing it sometimes.

"But he has settled down and now he's getting things more in the flow. He's scoring better now and that's opening things up."

Johnson is scoring so well that he recently scored his 1,000th career point in a loss against Proviso East.

On the season, Johnson is leading the team in scoring at 18 points per game.

"Ocean's confidence is back and he is making very good decisions," Heisler said. "Those are two very powerful things when a kid has that and that makes him very tough to stop."

Seeing double: Spreading the wealth has been a top priority for Fremd this season, and a win over Barrington last week was a good example of a near-perfect effort.

The Vikings finished that game with four players in double-figures, led by a team-high 16 points from Jack Schoffstall.

"We also had a guy with 15 points and two guys with 14 points," Fremd coach Bob Widlowski said. "Four in double-figures is hard to do, but that's the way we want to play. We want to move the ball, we want to share the ball."

Speaking of sharing the ball, the Vikings are averaging about 14 assists per game.

Widlowski says that Bryce Hopkins, the leading scorer on the team at 14.8 points per game, is also one of the top facilitators on the team.

"Bryce gets people involved, he shares the ball," Widlowski said. "He's our leading scorer but he's more than willing to make the extra pass and that set a really good tone for the rest of the team. It also makes him even more difficult to guard."

On the books: One of the proudest tweets that the Fremd boys basketball team has made this year was after semester grades came out earlier this month.

The Vikings happily posted that the team grade-point average is a 3.8 on a 4.0 scale, with six perfect unweighted 4.0s.

The perfect GPAs belong to Dean Ganas, Max Wexley, Bryce Hopkins, Kaymar Hopkins, Matt Wingen and Russel Beaupre.

"We discuss the importance with the kids of being both a student and an athlete," Fremd coach Bob Widlowski said. "Our guys do a really good job of taking care of business on the basketball court and in the classroom.

"What we have done academically, we are pretty proud of."

Big jump: It was just a matter of time.

Conant coach Jim Maley knew that forward Devon Ellis could do big things for the Cougars. It was just a matter of the young sophomore settling in and feeling comfortable at the varsity level.

He seems to be all comfy cozy now.

Ellis went from averaging 4 to 5 points per game at the beginning of the season to about 12 points per game over the last 10 games.

"It's more experience, more confidence for Devon," Maley said. "One of our seniors, Raj Mittal, has really taken Devon under his wing and that has really helped Devon. When young guys get some confidence and experience, they just keep getting better and better and that's happening with Devon."

Ellis is a 6-foot-4 inside-outside dual threat for the Cougars, who are 8-10 on the season and recently got a big win over Barrington.

Shot selection: One of the most pleasant surprises of the second half of the season for Conant has been 6-foot-4 senior forward Jon Kolev.

Kolev is a sharpshooter for the Cougars and he's been sharpening up his shot even more lately, especially from 3-point range.

"Jon was struggling early in the year with his confidence," Conant coach Jim Maley said. "As of late, he's really turned it around. He's been hitting a lot of big shots.

"We've been on him all year to be aggressive and to take certain types of shots, open 3-pointers where he just steps into his shot and shoots. When he does that, he just makes shots, a lot of shots, and he helps us a lot."