Huntley makes it a three-peat at Sycamore
Huntley senior guard Jake Brock picked the right moment to make a bold move.
A savvy athlete who quarterbacked the school's football team this fall, the senior guard didn't score a point against Dundee-Crown until he drove the lane and was fouled with 3:27 left in the championship game of the Leland G. Strombom boys basketball tournament at Sycamore Saturday.
The three-point play put Huntley ahead to stay, but Brock wasn't done. His baseline drive for a layup with 55 seconds remaining gave 6-foot-6 sophomore Amanze Egekeze (20 points) just enough offensive support to lift the Red Raiders to a 54-49 victory and their third straight Sycamore Tournament championship.
"I thought Jake Brock made two outstanding basketball plays getting to the rim for the three-point play and then driving the baseline for a layup at the end," Huntley coach Marty Manning said. "It was tied when he got the three-point play, and that got us momentum."
"Coach told us to run our transition offense," Brock said of his first basket. "I came off the screen and saw an opening. I just took it to the hoop and it worked out."
The game had been nip and tuck to that point. The rivals from the Fox Valley Conference's Valley Division entered the fourth quarter tied 30-30.
"They made some plays and we didn't," Dundee-Crown coach Lance Huber said of the difference between the teams down the stretch. "They got that and-1, and then (Brock) drove and we were snoozing.
"In a tight game like that it's going to come down to one or two plays. They made them. Unfortunately for us, we didn't."
Dundee-Crown (3-1) played a suberb first half. The Chargers turned the ball over only 3 times, they sank 9 of 16 shots, including all 5 attempts from 3-point range, and they limited Huntley (4-0) to 18 points on 7-of-22 shooting. That included a 1-of-5 showing by Egekeze through two quarters. D-C led 23-18 at halftime.
Things changed drastically after intermission. Huntley's guards regularly fed the ball inside to Egekeze, who used his 61-inch wingspan to shoot over his defender, even 6-foot-7 center Brandon Gordon. Egekeze scored 18 of his game-high 20 points in the second half on 6-of-10 shooting.
"Coach kept stressing that I was getting good looks, but the ball just wasn't going in the first half," said Egekeze, who was named tournament MVP. "I just had to relax and focus a little more on my shots. I felt like with my length they really couldn't block my shots, so I just kept going with the right hook and they couldn't stop it."
Meanwhile, Dundee-Crown was held to 7 points in the third quarter. "We weren't moving the ball as well and they were playing better D than us," said D-C guard Will Stupar, who scored all 10 of his points in the first half.
Dylan Kissack scored 12 points and Brandon Rodriguez finished with 10 for the Chargers.
Troy Miller and Justin Frederick each scored 9 points. They and senior Bryce Only have started for all three Huntley title teams at Sycamore.
"It's a great accomplishment for those guys," Manning said.
The teams will face each other twice more in division games. Their next meeting is slated for Jan. 28 in Carpentersville.