Dokubo, Conant edge Schaumburg

Physical, low-scoring, bruising, defensive-minded and occasionally agonizing usually describes the typical Schaumburg-Conant boys basketball game.

It doesn’t even begin to describe Friday’s battle.

Typically, after 31 minutes and 55 seconds, the two Mid-Suburban West rivals were separated by just 1 point with Schaumburg leading.

And Conant had the ball. At midcourt. No time outs left for either team.

The play “was diagrammed to pass it into Brian (Wadsworth),” said Conant point guard London Dokubo about the Cougars’ sharp-shooting forward.

With Schaumburg defenders waiting for him on a hot shooting night, Wadsworth went back to Dokubo, who had scored 2 points all night and sort of abdicated scoring duties to Wadsworth.

With no time and no choice, Dokubo went down the middle with Saxons defenders closing in on him and flipped up a floater.

“We’re used to this,” said Dokubo about the close game. “We’ve been here before.”

The game clock expired just several tenths of a second after his shot kicked off the backboard and through the net for a 40-39 Cougars victory.

But that wasn’t why Conant (14-6, 5-3) won.

“I think we lead the area in (fewest) points allowed,” Dokubo said.

And they do, just 48 per game.

“It’s definitely our defense,” he said.

“I thought our defense was very good. I thought their defense was very good,” said Cougars coach Tom McCormack.

The defenses were so smothering that points became precious, leads were never wider than 5 points and only two players were in double figures.

Conant had a chance to extend that margin after it finished an 8-point run from the second quarter into the third behind Wadsworth’s 6-of-7 shooting, Avery Osby’s free-throw shooting and Dylan Bartuch’s lone 3-pointer.

But Schaumburg (9-10, 5-3) grabbed the lead back thanks to Mark Bielanski’s huge 3-pointer, set up by Javon McDonald, and Saxons high-scorer Kurt Kempema’s 3-point play to complete some nifty passing between him, Jimmy Lundquist and McDonald.

The game seesawed through a tightly played fourth quarter until Lundquist hit a clutch 3 and Kempema added 2 more free throws. Then Dokubo did his thing.

“It was two good teams. Everyone played their hearts out. They made one more play at the end,” said Saxons coach Matt Walsh, who played for McCormack.

“I thought Matt did a great job,” McCormack said of his protégé. “It was a really exciting finish.”