Burlington Central falls short vs. Hope

Burlington Central took a double-digit lead on Chicago Hope Saturday only to fall victim to the dreaded shooting drought in an 84-71 loss.

The Rockets did everything they wanted in the first quarter of the third-place game at Sycamore's Leland G. Strombom Boys Basketball Tournament. They played solid 1-2-2 zone defense against the longer, more athletic Eagles, they won the rebounding battle 7-6, shot 8 of 15 from the floor compared to 5 of 15 for Hope and took a 22-11 lead after eight minutes.

Then the Rockets misfired. Again and again.

Central missed its first 11 shots of the second quarter and eventually finished the period 4 of 20 from the field. They went 5:37 between field goals, a stretch during which the Eagles outscored the Rockets 15-0 to take a 26-22 lead.

Hope caught fire because the Eagles wrangled nearly every Central miss and used the defensive rebounds to ignite their fast break. Hope (2-1) hit all 13 shots it took in the second quarter because most were transition layups by talented 6-3 sophomore Jalen James (28 points) or rangy 6-5 junior Torrance Johnson.

"A lack of execution," Central coach Brett Porto said of the Rockets' lack of transition defense. "That's all we talked about in the morning shootaround. We tried simulating that the best we could.

"When we had the lead 22-11 we missed 2 technical free throws and had some other opportunities in which we caused turnovers or got long rebounds and turned the ball right back. I felt if we could have extended that lead a little bit there and stayed in what we wanted to do in our game plan, it would have made a big difference.

"In the last two games here we've gotten a little bit cold from the outside and we let that affect us too much. We don't find a way to get it inside and get a five footer or 10 footer. So that's been a bit of a problem."

Central stayed within 41-34 at the half, but Hope soon stretched its lead to double digits in the third quarter and went up by as much as 16 points in the fourth.

The Eagles won the battle of the boards 38-20, meaning they outrebounded the Rockets 32-13 in the final three quarters. The Eagles' domination of the boards kept the off-target Rockets from making any headway on the deficit throughout the second half.

"Sometimes you hit shots, sometimes you miss," said Central senior Sam Klein, who had 14 points. "We had a good streak going in the first quarter and we had them down, but we couldn't keep it going. We have to continue to fight and we continue to keep shooting and knocking down shots by getting better in practice."

Junior Ray Hunnicutt led the Rockets with 17 points and 8 rebounds and senior Tim Sullivan added 13 points.

Central senior Luke Fleming (6 points) was name to the all-tournament team