Kaneland rolls past Aurora Christian in Johnson's debut

It truly was a new beginning for the Aurora Christian and Kaneland boys basketball teams on Tuesday night.

Both teams played for the first time this season, facing each other in an opening round contest in the Leland G. Strombom Holiday Tournament at Sycamore.

It was also the beginning of new eras as both schools have new coaches. Steve Hanson, the first coach not named Davidson in Aurora Christian basketball history, will have to wait until another day to earn victory No. 1 as Brian Johnson picked up his first career win as his Kaneland Knights rolled past Aurora Christian, 82-53.

Kaneland will play Hampshire on Friday for an opportunity to play a championship on Saturday while Aurora Christian faces Dundee-Crown on Friday in the loser's bracket.

Aurora Christian (0-1) was competitive for most of the first half, doing most of its damage from long range, hammering home five 3-pointers. The Eagles put a brief scare into the Knights, jumping to a 23-17 advantage on a Nick Marema trey with a little more than 6 minutes remaining in the first half.

The momentum shifted quickly though as Kaneland answered with a 14-0 run.

"We talked a lot about working the ball offensively and once we spread out the floor we were able to get better looks," said Johnson, who coached with Gordie Kerkman at West Aurora last year. "Obviously it's nice to have a 6-9 kid who is Division I player."

That special player is senior Dave Dudzinski who proved to be unstoppable most of the evening. Dudzinski drained a 3-pointer to enter the scoring column and would add a number of inside moves, layups and a dunk en route to scoring 26 points and collecting 15 rebounds.

"The big guy is outstanding," Hanson said. "I'm not sure we'll see a better player than that this season. He really hurt us."

Aurora Christian only trailed 39-32 at the half, but its outside shooting went cold in the third quarter while the Knights up-tempo style heated up. The Knights scored the first 10 points of the second half and transitioned missed shots by the Eagles into easy scoring opportunities on the other end.

"We've been working on it and try to have fun with it," said Knights guard Ryley Bailey who led several successful fast breaks. "One of our big things is going to be pushing the ball."

For the Knights, Bailey and Chaon Denlinger both scored 11 points. Donavan Williams added 10.

Sophomore Nick Marema and Ryan Suttle, who was playing on the eighth grade team last year, both tallied 12 points to lead the Eagles.