Glenbard West 61, Naperville North 45
Glenbard West's John Shurna certainly did his share of heavy lifting on Monday.
But this looked more like all-for-one than one-for-all.
The 6-foot-8 Shurna led all players with 21 points and 15 rebounds in Glenbard West's 61-45 win over Naperville North in the Huskies' own Class 4A regional quarterfinal in Naperville.
Unlike the Hilltoppers' last game, a loss in which Shurna scored 28 of his team's 37 points, he had assistance.
Strong Chris Watt scored 19 points before fouling out late. Bryant Venson scored 6 with 8 rebounds and fellow guard Dave McCaffrey added 6 rebounds.
Bottom line, No. 13 seed Glenbard West (14-12), which faces No. 4 seed Wheaton North today at 7:30 p.m., was more team than one-man gang. It translated to 24-of-49 shooting from the floor.
"Everybody was contributing today," Venson said.
Glenbard West leaped to a 24-6 lead after a quarter on Shurna's 3 from the top of the circle while falling on his pants with 4.7 seconds left.
Six different Hilltoppers scored in the first eight minutes, as opposed to four in the entirety of Friday's loss.
"I think it was knowing that we have to play for these seniors," said Watt, who converted two three-point plays and scored 10 points to help Glenbard West go up 35-18 at the half.
"Any day could be their last game, so we have to keep playing for them as juniors."
No. 17 seed Naperville North (11-16), which had won 7 of 11 games in 2008, shot just 28 percent from the floor (17-of-60) and was out-rebounded 45-22.
The Huskies, led by Jake Hasse and Austin Weiss each with 12 points and Joe McNicholas with 11, hoped to cut that halftime deficit.
Instead Glenbard West spread it to 46-22 when Watt banked home a 3-pointer at 3:38 of the third quarter.
"They just started feeling really good, easy, in rhythm, and they were really having fun especially offensively," said Naperville North coach Mark Lindo. "And every one of our possessions, we seemed to be playing with an urgency like we had to catch up in immediate fashion."
There was no quit in the Huskies, who got 3 steals from Weiss and hustle from all, including reserves Dan Hess and Derrius Hawkins.
Naperville North closed the third quarter on a 12-4 run only to have Shurna and Watt bump Glenbard West's lead up to 57-39 with 3:45 to play, ending the careers of Huskies like Weiss, Hasse, Danny Grimley and Brian Bogart.
"I'm going to miss them," Hasse said. "That's the biggest thing about tonight."
Geneva 73, West Chicago 41: The abiding image of Monday's Geneva-West Chicago boys basketball regional-opening contest isn't of West Chicago turning over the ball -- which the Wildcat did on 26 occasions.
No, the image etched in stone is what happened next, which all too often was Geneva converting those turnover into points.
Geneva built a pair of large first-half leads by making the Wildcats pay for their mistakes. The Vikings put the game away in the same fashion in the third quarter.
By the end Geneva had a 73-41 victory in the Class 4A Naperville North regional quarterfinal.
The victory moves the No. 12 seed Vikings (17-11) into Wednesday's second round contest with No. 5 Naperville Central.
"We just wanted to make sure that we could keep (West Chicago) at arm's length and to sustain that," said Geneva coach Tim Pease. "We've shown we've been able to do that, but at the same time, to let teams right back in."
The Vikings jumped to a 13-2 lead in the opening quarter and never trailed in the game.
"We wanted to play fast and we wanted to get easy shots," Geneva forward Max Cary said. "We didn't want to rely on the jumper early on. We got good looks and got layups early on, which helped our confidence the rest of the game."
Cary and teammate Alex Turnowchyk scored 14 points apiece to lead all scorers.
After No. 21 seed West Chicago (1-25) closed to 15-11 the Vikings went on another long scoring run, this time an 11-0 blitz that included 5 West Chicago turnovers in three minutes.
"I thought that once we got it to 15-11, we'd handled some of their pressure and then we'd move forward," said West Chicago coach Kevin Gimre. "But right after that it went from 15-11 to 19-11 to 23-11. We had a tough time handling the pressure."
The final flourish came at the start of the second half, when Geneva outscored West Chicago 11-3 and built a 45-18 margin.
Rob Tauscher didn't enter the game until the third quarter but ended with 13 points, just behind Cary and Turnowchyk for game-high honors.
"I got my chance, which was nice," Tauscher said. "That's how our offense is. A lot of my points tonight came from passes from my teammates. I think I only created one shot on my own."
Jon Reyes scored 12 points to pace West Chicago. Clark Hudmon added 9 points for the Wildcats.
"Hopefully we see that we need to do a better job defensively in order to stay in games," Gimre said. "We can't keep giving up 60-70 points in a game and hope to win games, because we're not going to outscore you."
-- Darryl Mellema