Resurgent Warren keeps on winning
It seems appropriate that the Warren boys basketball team capped one of its biggest weekends of the season on the night before Valentine's Day.
Because, if they can stay the current course, the Blue Devils figure to break a lot of hearts. Especially come state tournament time.
Warren continued its amazing turnaround Saturday night.
On the heels of Friday's upset victory at Lake Forest, one of the top teams in the North Suburban Conference, the Blue Devils slay yet another giant in defeating state-ranked Glenbrook North, 64-54, in Gurnee.
In this week's Associated Press Class 4A poll, Glenbrook North, which features Notre Dame-bound Alex Dragicevich and 3-point specialist Austin Weber, the nephew of Illinois men's basketball coach Bruce Weber, was the next highest vote-getter outside the Top 10.
Not a bad victory for a Warren team that was just 3-10 a month ago.
The Blue Devils, who might just be the scariest No. 12 seed the state tournament has ever seen, have won seven games in a row to pull to 10-10 overall. Heck, they're even still alive in the race for the North Suburban Conference title, a notion that seemed preposterous not so long ago.
By beating Lake Forest on Friday, Warren (7-4 in the Lake Division) could possibly share the league title by closing out its league schedule with a win over Stevenson next week.
"Man - this is so fun," said Warren junior forward Jeremiah Jackson, who dropped in a team-high 20 points against Glenbrook North, including 8 fourth-quarter free throws that helped seal the game. "It's so exciting. It's like-I can't believe it. We've just been playing hard, we've been playing tough and we've been playing defense.
"It was so bad, just terrible, going through those losses (at the beginning of the season). But it's teamwork now. We've been playing together. We've got that chemistry going."
Warren had a lot of things going against Glenbrook North, starting with its inside game.
Some of the best assists of the night came from the Blue Devils' post players, who set each other up multiple times for easy baskets with crisp interior passing.
Jackson, Shahron Thomas and Nathan Boothe combined for 6 assists and each had at least a couple of big, clutch buckets.
Boothe tallied 11 points off the bench while Thomas finished with 6 points.
"We've all been working together in practice, passing to each other, cutting and finding each other," Boothe said. "It's really been working out."
The Blue Devils also worked the kinks out of their press breaker.
Glenbrook North was having some success early pressuring the ball full court, forcing Warren into turnovers.
But before long, the Blue Devils found the seams that allowed for some easy layups down at the other end.
"We figured out that the middle was wide open after you got past that initial double team they were putting on," said Warren senior guard Craig Burton, who finished with 13 points. "If you broke from the double team, it was like a 3-on-2 where you had the advantage. We took advantage of that. We've been trying to do that all season."
Sometimes, their plans didn't always work out, especially early in the season. But the Blue Devils never gave up.
"Our team has just kept fighting," Burton said. "We've stepped up our game. We play our hardest every time we step on the court. Now, we're just trying to stay humble and grounded because there is more basketball to play."
Glenbrook North, which got 22 points from Dragicevich and 21 points from Weber, likely has much more basketball to play as well. The 19-4 Spartans are the No. 1 seed in the Niles West sectional.
But they'll dissect this game carefully and use it as a teaching moment.
"They played hard and we didn't and that's just it," said Weber, who is looking hard at IPFW and Quincy as his top college choices. "This is a great learning experience for us. This is a tough place to play and we played a good team that plays a different style of basketball."
All the Blue Devils care about now is that they're playing different basketball than they were just a few weeks ago.
"I was more surprised when we were losing than I am now that we're winning," Warren coach Chuck Ramsey said. "I knew that we could be good, but we're young and it just took a little longer than I thought it would.
"We lost all those tough games early, but we did learn from it. We practice harder now, we play tougher, we're much better on defense. We're playing with a lot more confidence."