Egwu, St. Ignatius rout South Elgin
South Elgin boys basketball coach Chaz Taft can accept the fact his team was unable to slow one of the top 100 college prospects in the nation in a 60-38 loss to St. Ignatius in the fifth-place game of the 37th Annual Jack Tosh Holiday Classic at York High School Thursday.
Nnanna Egwu, a 6-foot-10, 230-pound senior center committed to play for Illinois next fall, did his expected damage by leading all scorers with 21 points to go with his season-best 18 rebounds.
What Taft won't accept is a lack of commitment from his players. His team entered the fourth and final game of the tournament with its normal nine-man rotation trimmed to seven because one player missed a week of practice and another didn't show up in time for Thursday's walk through.
“It comes down to commitment to us,” Taft said. “We have a kid who missed a walk through, we had a kid miss a week of practice and think they're going to come play in the tournament?
“My thing to the guys was, ‘Hey, we haven't had our rotation (intact) yet, maybe once or twice at full strength, and you're going to tell me I'm supposed to play you guys because you guys can't wake up or because you can't do something?'
“I'm all about the ethic. I would rather lose games when guys miss and sit. I'm going to sit them. I'm not going to play them rather than play that kid and win. That doesn't make sense to me. I would rather lose the game.”
South Elgin (7-6) finished 2-2 at York and placed sixth overall, tying its best showing at York. The Storm was still in the game after a quarter, trailing 16-12, until St. Ignatius (9-3) turned up the defensive pressure. The Wolfpack held South Elgin to 4 points in the second quarter and 9 in the third to pull away.
South Elgin guard Sammy Sutter, an all-tournament selection, was held to 6 points on 2-of-8 shooting.
“I know it's going to happen,” Sutter said of being tagged by the defense and denied the ball. “I had a couple of good games. If they deny me the ball, I just have to not force shots and take what they give me.”
Meanwhile, Egwu put on a show. He scored on turnaround jump shots, jumpers from the elbow and assorted putbacks. When South Elgin opened the game by triple teaming Egwu, he burned them by kicking passes to the perimeter.
Junior guard Brian Howard was the beneficiary of several such passes from the big center and knocked down 4 outside shots in the first half. That forced the Storm to only double Egwu.
“The coaches knew I could get my shots in and they told the guards to get me the ball,” Egwu said. “Not only did it help me get my shots, but when they came to double team me the guards were open for shots, too. They're good shooters. They know when to shoot and they know where I'm going to find them.”
Howard finished with 9 points while starting guard Jack Crepeau sank 5-of-9 shots for 11 points. South Elgin center Matt Hattendorf (6-foot-4) matched Egwu with 6 first quarter points, but the Illinois-bound big man simply caused too many problems for the Storm to handle.
“He just hit some tough shots and we had some miscommunications on defense,” Hattendorf said. “We got messed up, he got some easy buckets and they got on a roll.”
South Elgin resumes play in the Upstate Eight Conference's Valley Division next Friday against visiting rival Bartlett.