Elgin 4-0 for first time since 2002
The Elgin boys basketball team didn't raise its Bison Classic tournament trophy above its shoulders during a team picture at Buffalo Grove Saturday night. The team merely balanced it on 5-foot-5 inch Arie Williams, their shortest player.
“If they can win a trophy, they can balance it wherever they want to balance it,” Maroons coach Mike Sitter said.
And Williams already eyed the next opportunity. “Hopefully the holiday tournament of our own,” Williams chuckled.
Clearly, Elgin knows its capabilities.
The Maroons are 4-0 for the first time since 2002 because of a 62-39 win over Christian Liberty (1-3), which sealed the Maroons' first Bison Classic championship in as many years.
“It's been a long time since we've been 4-0,” said tournament MVP Kory Brown, who averaged 13.7 points per game at Buffalo Grove. “It's great. To us it's a big thing. It shows a lot to the other teams this year that we gunning for that top spot.”
And Elgin's calling card looks to be a prolific shooting game fueled by an agitating defense. For the second-straight game, Elgin forced 20-plus turnovers, 23 against the Chargers and connected on five 3-pointers, 3 from Williams and one each from Jordan Dean and Derek Strohmaier. Four Maroons scored in double figures but Brown's main concern was the defense. He captured 3 steals along with Williams' 5 to total 13 for Elgin.
“I love to play defense,” Brown said, who led Elgin with 15 points. “When we do something defensively, like charges or causing turnovers, it just excites me. You get the rest of the team in the flow and start rolling from there.”
“They were running that trap in the corner a little bit off the first pass which we had to make an adjustment for,” said Christian Liberty coach Ken Kramer.
A 6-2 run by Christian Liberty midway through the first quarter closed Elgin's lead to 10-6. It sparked a 17-2 run into the second led by Brown, where he scored the bulk of his points.
Off an inbounds pass at midcourt with 6:16 left in the half, Brown's steal and lay in off the glass gave Elgin a 27-8 lead. Later on, Williams buried his third 3-pointer in the right corner to make it 30-14. Brown's turnaround off the right block made it 32-14 Elgin with 3:00 in the half.
“I thought Kory stepped up,” Sitter said. “He's our on-court leader, off-court leader, he's our practice leader, our vocal leader.
“Kory is more demonstrative and the kids feed off that. ”
Elgin shot 37 percent on 67 shots. Christian Liberty, which shot likewise, was outrebounded 33-19. Beside Luke Comerouski's 21 points, Elgin held the Chargers to just 18. The lead exploded to 27 when Brown went for 7 in the first 4 minutes of the third.
And Sitter loves that his Maroons savior each game one at a time.
“The very first practice of the year I asked the kids what their goal was. And usually they say ‘man, I want a regional, I want to win conference, I want to score 20 points'. And Dennis Moore, God bless his heart, stood up and goes, ‘I want to beat Buffalo Grove.' He goes, ‘that's our first game, that's all we can worry about right now.'
Game by game, we stepped up and did it. That's the best answer I ever could have had from a 17-year-old kid. I wanted to kiss him on the lips. It got us off to a good note and we haven't been 4-0 since 2002.”
Moore, appropriately, was also named to the all-tournament team.
Elgin opens Upstate Eight River play next Saturday at St. Charles East.