DePaul Prep's defense too much for St. Viator
DePaul Prep's switching defenses gave the St. Viator Lions fits Saturday afternoon.
As part of the annual East Suburban Catholic/Catholic League boys basketball showcase at St. Patrick, the Lions lost to the powerful Rams 58-50.
The contest was a rematch of last year's Grayslake Central sectional final in which DePaul won and advanced to the state finals after getting a forfeit win in the supersectional.
"DePaul did a good job switching defenses on us," said St. Viator coach Quin Hayes. "You can't win a game against a team like that when you make 16 turnovers. Turnovers have been our Achilles' heel this year. The had very active hands. We just didn't take good care of the ball."
The initial quarter was the most hurtful for the 8-3 Lions.
St. Viator turned the ball over four times with DePaul (9-1) converting 7 points from them. For the game DePaul converted 13 points from turnovers. The Lions were not able to convert on any of the 9 Ram turnovers.
Junior Ty Johnson converted baskets on a steal and a turnover as the Rams led 16-9 after the first quarter. Johnson (23 points) scored 5 second-quarter points and Jabari Sawyer tallied 5 of his 8 points in the quarter. Four points came off turnovers.
By halftime DePaul led 30-18.
DePaul shot well from the field going 11 of 14 including 6 of 6 in the first quarter. The Rams finished 19 of 28 while the Lions connected on 17 of 30.
"Our switching defenses is what we are known for," said DePaul coach Tom Kleinschmidt. " We hang our hat on defense. It created offense for us. We nickname our defense, 'The Swarm'. We get a lot of points from our defense. We needed to make sure (Connor) Kochera worked for his points."
Kochera scored 23 points of which 12 came in the fourth quarter, after the Lions trailed 42-26 at the end of the third quarter.
"We played desperate ball in the fourth quarter which is something we didn't do in the first three quarters.," said Kochera. " In the fourth quarter we worked for better shots."
"Their switching defenses threw us off our offense at times. We now have to turn our focus to the Wheeling tournament next week. We need to take each game one at a time."
Connor Benson scored 8 points and Michael Huene 6 points for the Lions, who will face the host Wildcats at Wheeling Monday.
"We played well in the fourth quarter," said Hayes. "We want to use that as a good take-away. The third quarter hurt when we started it with three straight turnovers though. This group didn't give up."
The Rams' D. J. Shower added 12 points and Lance Mosley had 8 points.