St. Charles East press frustrates WW South
Luke Matheny couldn't imagine being the point guard against St. Charles East's pressure.
Fortunately, the Saints senior gets to take part defensively and watch other ballhandlers have to deal with the 32-minute, relentless pressure put on by him and his teammates.
The Saints were at it again Tuesday night at Wheaton Warrenville South, causing 20 turnovers in a 63-55 win to remain tied atop the DuKane Conference.
The victory was the eighth straight and 11th in the last 12 games for St. Charles East (17-6, 8-1 DuKane Conference), who stayed level with rival St. Charles North atop the conference. The two teams play Feb. 14.
"I think (facing the Saints' pressure) would be a nightmare," said Matheny, who was one of three Saints in double figures with 10 points. "There's a lot less thinking that goes into just bringing the ball up against one guy ... I think it's extremely hard to prepare for playing us.
"Teams think they have a plan for our first trap, but then the ball gets swung to the other side, and there we are again with another trap. From there, it seems like the plan goes out the window."
Though the Saints' pressure caused problems often for the Tigers (16-9, 4-5), they seemed to handle the pressure on their home court well early. WW South jumped out to a 10-2 lead thanks to 3-pointers from Parker Brown and Ben Bastian.
However, the Saints caused 12 of those 20 turnovers before halftime to climb back in the game, tying the game after one quarter and taking a 29-27 lead into the break. St. Charles East also used a 16-3 run in the third quarter to pull ahead by as many as 15 points.
"It's not fun," WW South coach Mike Healy said of the Saints' pressure. "It's not too fun coaching in a game like that. We told our kids you have to just continue to battle and battle. They just throw so many bodies at you out there. As a coach, you sometimes feel helpless because you don't know where to put guys at times to make the right play ... That's a sectional- (caliber) team and (Saints coach Pat Woods) does such a good job with them."
Sean Sullivan, who scored a game-high 22 points for St. Charles East, said his team has used the word relentless over and over this season when it comes to defensive pressure. The senior forward scored nine points in the fourth quarter, all of which came after WW South pulled within 49-44 with 4:37 to go.
After starting the season 6-5 overall, there was never a question as to whether the change to the up-tempo, deep rotation style this off-season was the right call by Woods and his staff.
"I think we've always known this could have ended up being the results we'd get from playing this way," Sullivan said. "I think initially we struggled, but it's always tough to change styles of play, but we always believed in it. We've been relentless not only on the court, but relentless in preparing to play this way."
"I give credit to WW South for the way they started the game fast on us, but I think they just weren't able to keep the pace," Woods said. "I think meeting with our other coaches this off-season, we decided the play this pace of play with the depth we had.
"I thought this gave us an opportunity to win a lot of games this season. I think it's working and we're going to keep tweaking it and working to get better. We're never satisfied as a group, but always focusing on how we can get even better before the next 32 minutes."