Young Conant finds positives against Wheaton North

With a young basketball team playing in a long tournament, Conant's definitely focusing on the positives.

There were plenty in Monday's 60-56 victory over Wheaton North at York's Jack Tosh Holiday Classic boys basketball tournament in Elmhurst.

At the top of the list was the final minute and a half that saw Conant turn a 1-point deficit into a 4-point victory. The Cougars advance to the tournament quarterfinals to play Downers Grove South at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Conant (9-2) may have surrendered an 11-point fourth-quarter lead and fell behind to the Falcons, but the young Cougars showed tremendous composure in recovering.

"As young as we are, we're disappointed that we gave up the lead but not surprised," said Conant coach Tom McCormack. "I thought our guys showed some nice composure there at the end. At times we had two sophomores and three juniors on the floor with some seniors sprinkled in."

Conant surged to a 48-37 fourth-quarter lead, only to see Wheaton North (8-2) respond with a 14-2 run to claim a 51-50 lead on Rowan McGowen's 3-pointer with 1:57 left. The Cougars didn't stay down long, answering with a 3-pointer by Ben Schols off an offensive rebound.

A Wheaton North miss led to Chima Oduocha's three-point play and a 56-51 Conant lead. When Ryan Davis added a putback just seconds later, the Cougars finally found themselves safely ahead at 58-52 with 23 seconds left.

"We stayed calm as a team," said Conant senior guard Brandon Vinson, who scored a team-high 16 points. "We just executed and played good defense. We've got to play well every game and just advance to the championship game."

Wheaton North built its biggest lead of 15-8 in the first quarter, but Conant's 14-0 run put the Cougars ahead until McGowen's go-ahead 3-pointer.

McGowen led all scorers with 18 points while Michael Gehl scored 12 points and Luke Anthony had 10. Jimmy Sotos scored 12 points for Conant.

"I don't want to point to the last two minutes, I thought the second quarter was where could have easily fixed some things and won that game," said Falcons coach Dave Brackmann, whose team plays Palatine on Tuesday. "We played really hard. We just made some mistakes that cost us some points. But there's a lot to build off of. We battled."