Elgin on verge of title at BG
On a day where many were in a rush for doorbuster deals on Black Friday, the Elgin Maroons boys basketball team busted down a couple doors of their own.
In tournament play at the Bison Classic at Buffalo Grove Friday night, the Maroons raced out of the gate to 20-point first quarter lead on Holy Trinity (0-4). Their scoring output in the first quarter and suffocating defense throughout which forced 30 turnovers allowed the Maroons (3-0) a 61-38 tournament victory and a chance to lock up the tourney title against Christian Liberty tonight at 6 p.m.
“The defense is about attitude,” Elgin coach Mike Sitter said. “So as long as we come out in an aggressive attitude, we've done that really well so far this tournament just not let teams run what they want to run and that continued tonight.
“And hopefully that's our mantra for this season.”
Aggressive might be an understatement in this instance for Elgin, which forced 10 first-quarter turnovers, 5 in the first 3 minutes. The defense led to offense, including four 3-point baskets, two by Arie Williams (8 points) and one each from Dennis Moore (9 points) and Kory Brown (9 points, 4 rebounds).
Brown's 3-pointer with 4:10 left in the quarter had Elgin up 17-4. Moore capitalized on numerous fast breaks scoring 9 in the first as the Maroons went 10 of 21 from the field while the turnovers kept piling up for Holy Trinity. Much of the game was decided in the first quarter alone.
“In that first quarter, we tried to keep the intensity up, tried to build a good lead so our bench could come in and play hard, which they did,” Williams said, who also dished 3 assists.
“Our first group shoots it pretty well,” Sitter said. “That helps us get to a fast lead when you can shoot that well because we did miss 5 or 6 layups early, I thought we should have been up 10 or 12 more at half.”
Holy Trinity actually shot a better percentage at 54 percent which bettered Elgin (24-for-61, 39 percent). But it took well into the fourth quarter for the Tigers to equal the shots made by Elgin in the first quarter. Notch that to the Maroons' defensive effort, which created 16 steals, Brown accounting for 4, and won the battle of the boards 29-16.
“Compared to last year, much different team,” said Tigers coach Ray Kang. “I've seen them (at the Bison Classic) for five years now and this is the best Elgin team I've seen.”
Most of Jordan Dean's game-high 15 points and 4 rebounds came in the early stages of the third quarter. Those contributions allowed Sitter to empty his bench for the rest of the half.
“We're pretty strong 1-16 this year,” Sitter said. “They don't have to be stars, they don't have to score, they just keep it in the offense, they have to guard their man and be fundamentally sound. Honestly, all of them did a good job. There's nobody I singled out for playing poorly.”
Jobari Adams and Adam Soto both scored 10 apiece for Holy Trinity.