Huntley, Miller shoot down Zion

Huntley junior Troy Miller's shooting touch had been missing for three games prior to Monday afternoon's second round of pool play in the Jacobs Holiday Classic boys basketball tournament.

But Miller regained it and the last of seven 3-pointers he made with four seconds left gave the Red Raiders (8-1) a dramatic 55-53 comeback victory over Zion-Benton.

“I didn't ask but he probably took about a thousand shots in the gym on our day off (Sunday),” said Huntley coach Marty Manning after Miller accounted for all of his game-high 21 points behind the 19-foot-9 stripe.

“I kind of got back on track today,” said Miller, who worked with his dad Tom to recapture his form. “I knew it was on line. I didn't know if it was definitely going in but it looked pretty good.”

And that has Red Raiders looking good to make Wednesday's semifinals as the only 2-0 team in Pool III. They can seal that spot with a win at 9 a.m. today against Hope Academy.

Justin Frederick scored 13 points for Huntley and Dylan Neukirch added 9 points. Tyler Brunschon had just 2 points going into the fourth quarter but hit a pair of 3s to aid the rally from a 9-point deficit.

“It would have been very easy against a physical team like that to just submit to them,” Manning said. “I would have been proud of them even if the shot didn't go in by Troy.”

But Manning wasn't too proud to scrap his traditional man-to-man defense after a quarter for a 2-3 zone against Zion-Benton (7-3) and its powerful inside trio of 6-foot-8 Carlyss Jackson (16 points), 6-5 Owen Worthington (13 points) and 6-4 Milik Yarbrough (12 points).

Manning, whose man-to-man roots were planted as the point guard on Hoffman Estates' 1996 Elite Eight team, said the last time Huntley played zone was last year.

“I didn't think we were deep enough physically to play them man-to-man so it was something we had to do,” Manning said with a smile. “Tony (assistant coach Jones) makes me (practice it) because he's a 2-3 zone guy.”