Williams nearly equals Hertz's 40-point burst

When a reporter asked Lakes coach Brian Phelan about the 40 points former standout Sean Hertz scored in a game last year against Round Lake, Phelan was caught a little bit off guard.

"I was kind of like 'What do you mean? Sean isn't even on the team anymore,' " Phelan said. "I didn't know why someone wanted to ask me about Sean after we had just played a game."

But Phelan quickly figured it out.

He was then told that guard Trey Williams had just scored 37 points in Lakes' win over Grant on Saturday. The reporter was just confirming that Hertz, the Eagles' star guard from last year who is now playing college football, had indeed scored 40 points last season and that Williams' outburst wasn't a school record.

"When I found out that Trey had 37, I was like 'Really?' " Phelan said. "I knew he had scored a lot of points. I just didn't know it was that many.

"When Sean scored his 40 points last year, you could feel it, you could feel that he was having a huge night. But Trey's points just kind of happened. They really came within (the context) of the game, which is why it was easy to kind of lose track of the night he had."

Williams, whose first name is highly appropriate, knocked down five 3-pointers against Grant. He also had quite a few nice drives to the basket.

"I'm really happy for Trey," Phelan said. "He took off the fall from soccer so that he could really work on basketball and get himself in the gym to shoot and lift. I think you're really starting to see that (commitment) pay off."

Point unproduction: Many basketball coaches preach defense and like to cite the popular saying that "Offense sells tickets and defense wins championships."

But the truth is, without a potent offense, it doesn't matter how good a team's defense is. Just ask Libertyville, which is struggling to score points just as much as its opponents are.

The Wildcats have been extremely stingy so far this season. They are giving up about 54 points per game, have held opponents to an anemic 39 percent shooting clip from the field and have slowed high octane offenses like Mundelein's to a season-low 57 points.

Mundelein is averaging 80.5 points per game. The Mustangs drained 11 three-pointers in a game last weekend against Lake Zurich but had only 2 a few nights before against Libertyville.

"When your opponents are shooting 39 percent from the field on average, that's crazy good," Libertyville coach Scott Bogumil said. "We are a very long, athletic team and all the guys have bought into our defensive philosophies. We emphasized it all summer and we've been playing good, tough half-court defense. We feel really good about that."

The offense, however, is a different story.

Libertyville is averaging barely 50 points per game, and is shooting the ball even worse than its opponents. The Wildcats are sinking only 37 percent of their shots.

So even though they are playing some of the best defense in the area, the Wildcats are only 2-4 on the season.

"We are really struggling to score," Bogumil said. "We're executing our game plan well and we're shutting down a lot of these teams, but we just can't connect. We're starting to get really frustrated that we're having such a hard time scoring.

"We need to find a way to score more. We need to put the ball into the basket."

Bogumil said that the Wildcats are getting double-figure point production from Joey Aiello (14.6 ppg) and Jeremy Letchford (11.4 ppg), but need other players to step up as well.

That's the point:ŒLibertyville's offensive woes may subside now that point guards Josh Trees and Kevin Johns are back in the mix.

Trees, the starter, missed two games recently after suffering a hip pointer around Thanksgiving.

He was still experiencing a lot of pain as recently as last week, but managed to play sparingly in Libertyville's close loss to Mundelein.

According to Libertyville coach Scott Bogumil, he's getting closer to 100 percent every day and will likely be back to getting his usual minutes starting this weekend.

Meanwhile, Johns has been out for the last month with a stress fracture in his back that he developed during soccer season.

"Kevin hasn't even been able to shoot the ball while he's been out," Libertyville coach Scott Bogumil said. "With him and Josh out at the same time, we've been really thin at that (point guard) spot."

And that hasn't done the offense any favors.

"We run so much of our offense through the point guard," Bogumil said. "It's been difficult because we haven't had much continuity there. We rely on those guys a lot to get us going. It's really going to help us that we'll get that back now."

Post present: If it wasn't one injury, it was another.

That's how much of last season probably felt to Wauconda forward Eric Grozavescu.

He missed a few games early in the year with some kind of infection in his finger and he sat out the last five or six games with a concussion that came from hitting his head during a game.

The fact that the 6-foot-5 Grozavescu is now averaging about 14 points and 9 rebounds may come as a surprise to opposing coaches, who didn't really get a chance to see him play all that much last year.

But Wauconda coach Rich Wolf could definitely see this coming.

"He would have been playing like that last year had it not been for all those injuries," Wolf said. "He was a little (hesitant) because of the injuries, but he spent the summer getting a lot tougher physically and mentally. He did a lot of maturing.

"I just hope he can stay injury-free so that he can do what he's capable of. He's our best post player and we definitely make a point of throwing the ball inside. Our goal is to establish the post."

Line dance: The free throw line.

It's a familiar enough place now. But for those who played varsity basketball for Wauconda last season, it seemed like uncharted territory. During games, anyway.

"Last year, there were times we'd shoot 1 or 2 free throws ... for the entire game," Wauconda coach Rich Wolf said. "I'm not even kidding. Last year, we averaged single digit free throw attempts and we probably had at least five or six games when we shot less than 5 free throws per game."

The lack of free throw opportunities was directly related to the fact that the Bulldogs played a perimeter-oriented offense that centered around long jump shots and 3-pointers.

And when a team doesn't drive to the basket much, or make a point of going inside, they're not going to draw a lot of fouls.

"That hurts when you aren't getting those (free) shots at the basket," Wolf said. "That was such a struggle for us."

Now, the struggle is actually making the free throws.

Thanks in large part to forward Eric Grozavescu, the Bulldogs are getting the ball inside more this year and are drawing more fouls. Grozavescu, the team's best post player, averages around 9 free throws attempts himself.

As a team, the Bulldogs are shooting about 20 free throws a game now.

"We're getting to the line this year and that's been great," Wolf said. "Now our big problem is making them. We've been shooting like 40 percent from the free throw line so far this year."

In a win over Antioch last weekend, Wauconda went 0-for-9 at the line in the first half.

"We were up by 3 points at halftime and we probably should have been up by like 12 or 13," Wolf said. "It's not like we don't practice free throws."

Practice makes ... :ŒIn Wauconda's case, practice hasn't made perfect at the free throw line.

The Bulldogs have been shooting free throws like crazy in practice, and have even done a free throw shooting contest for charity. But all that repetition hasn't exactly transferred to the games.

The Bulldogs are making free throws at a 40 percent clip so far this season.

"We just did a free throw fundraiser and our guys had to shoot 100 free throws," Wauconda coach Rich Wolf said. "We had guys making 70 free throws, 80 free throws.

"And then we get in the game and it's just brick city. I don't know what we're going to do."

Holiday primer: It's just about time for the holiday tournament season to start.

Here's a look at where all of the teams in the Daily Herald's Lake County coverage area will be playing beginning next weekend:

Grant tournament, beginning Dec. 22: Grant, Grayslake North, Lakes, Round Lake

Jacobs tournament, beginning Dec. 22: Mundelein, Wauconda

Glenbard West tournament, beginning Dec. 22: Antioch

Wheeling tournament, beginning Dec. 26: Carmel, Libertyville, Stevenson, Vernon Hills

State Farm Classic (Bloomington-Normal), beginning Dec. 26: Grayslake Central

Pekin tournament, beginning Dec. 27: Lake Zurich

Pontiac tournament, beginning Dec. 27: Warren