Defensive prowess overcomes Lakes’ shooting woes
Shooting slumps happen.
Defensive lapses can’t. At least not while a shooting slump persists.
No team knows this better than Lakes.
The Eagles are having a hard time finding the basket these days. And yet, they are riding high on a stretch of four wins in five games.
In recent wins over Antioch and Richmond-Burton, Lakes hit just 38 percent and 31 percent of its shots from the field, respectively. And against Antioch, even free throws were a problem. The Eagles converted on only 9 of 26 attempts there.
Tough defense has cured those ills, though.
Over the last five games, the Eagles have allowed only 41.4 points per game. And in three of those games, they allowed less than 38 points.
“Our defensive intensity and energy is keeping us around long enough to win games even when we’re not shooting very well,” Lakes coach Chris Snyder said. “We’re not really doing anything different than what we usually do, we’re just playing hard, we’re getting after it.”
Snyder’s players are motivated by the defensive hustle stats his staffers keep. It’s important to them to be among the leaders in tips, charges, steals, falling on loose balls, and so on.
Tanner Blain, Justin Schneider and Justin Bergeron are leading the way there.
“Our guys have really bought into that. They take pride in that. They want to get those hustle stats. They’re always asking about them,” Snyder said. “They’ve just really bought into the idea that when nothing else is working, when our shots aren’t falling, we can make sure our defense is there.”
Taking charge: A huge part of Lakes’ defensive success involves charges, and the take-charge mindset of one player in particular.
Center Justin Schneider has 11 charges on the season already, which is more than Lakes had as an entire team all of last season.
In a win over Grayslake Central in November, Schneider piled up an eye-popping 5 charges.
“He is the backbone of our defense,” Lakes coach Chris Snyder said of Schneider. “His defense and the way he steps in and puts his body on the line has really rubbed off. We’re starting to see other guys try to take charges, too.”
Good out of bad: Vernon Hills had just lost its second game in a row Saturday night.
But head coach Matt McCarty couldn’t help but smile as he left the court.
Even in defeat, Vernon Hills guard Darren Hoveydai sure did play like a winner.
The senior sharp-shooter scored a career-high 32 points against North Chicago by hitting 9-of-11 field goals and all 12 of his free throws.
His 12-of-12 effort at the line is a new school record at Vernon Hills.
“I think Darren played one of the best games a Vernon Hills player has ever played,” McCarty said. “He was going up against a kid who is going to Illinois State in Aaron Simpson, one of the best players in our area, but Darren played great. He had an attacking mentality and he was aggressive.”
Hoveydai, who is averaging nearly 19 points a game for the Cougars, has had some other big scoring games this season.
He rang up 29 points on Maine East, 25 points on Round Lake and 21 points on Guerin. Against Round Lake, Hoveydai was a scorching 7-of-9 from three-point land.
Relishing a role: When Round Lake senior guard Matt Houghton read compliments about his defense in the newspaper, he could hardly contain himself.
He was assigned the task of guarding hot-shooting Wauconda guard Kyle Ryan last week. The Bulldogs won the game, but Ryan told a reporter afterwards that Houghton’s defense was the best he had seen all season.
And Ryan sees plenty of defenses that are gunning for him. He is averaging more than 20 points per game.
“Right after he read that, he was so excited,” Round Lake coach Jim Roberts said of Houghton. “He actually texted me the next day. Our next game was against Northtown and he wanted to know who their best player is because he wanted to guard him.
“Matt really relishes that role of being our best defender.”
Roberts says it’s not always easy to find a player who will embrace that role, especially if it means sacrificing some offense to do it.
“Sometimes, that’s hard for a kid, but Matt is fine with it,” Roberts said. “He knows his role and he just wants to help the team. He is such a great defender and a lot of what he does goes unnoticed on the stat sheet…but we notice it.”
More, more, more: It’s a good dilemma for a coach to have.
Your players just won’t stop playing basketball…even when practice is over.
“I have a hard time getting our players out of the gym,” Wauconda coach Scott Luetschwager laughed. “We’re done with practice and our guys are trying to get 2-on-2 games and 3-on-3 games going.
“They really love to play and they’re like brothers. They love to hang out together and have fun.”
Not coincidentally, the Bulldogs are out to their best start in years at 4-4.
“It was just three years ago that we had three wins all year,” Luetschwager said. “We’re communicating well, we’re rebounding well and we’ve got some guys who are really shooting well.”
One of those super-shooters is Kyle Ryan, who is averaging about 20 points.
“He’s been one of our bright spots,” Luetschwager said of Ryan. “Our guys are finding him and doing a nice job of getting him the ball.”
Shoot it…please: Interestingly, Wauconda sharp-shooter Kyle Ryan hasn’t always wanted to shoot.
He came to the program with a pass-first mentality that, while refreshing, was in need of some tweaking. Especially this year.
The Bulldogs need Ryan to be a big-time scorer this season. So far, he has delivered with 20 points per game…with some coaxing.
“Kyle is the kind of player who loves to keep his teammates happy by passing the ball, distributing the ball,” Wauconda coach Scott Luetschwager said. “When we asked him before the season about scoring, he really hadn’t been thinking about it and we were shocked by that. We told him that he’s such a good shooter and scorer that we needed him to be thinking about scoring all the time so that he could take on that role for us.”
All geared up: Grayslake Central senior Sean Geary can shift gears quickly.
He is a guard. But on defense he can move seamlessly between guards, forwards and centers.
“We can put him on pretty much anyone,” Grayslake Central coach Brian Moe said. “When we played Vernon Hills, he was on one of their really good (shooting) guards, Stephen Curry. And then when (Grayslake Central 6-foot-9 center) Casey Boyle got into foul trouble, we put Sean on their big guy, Jarrett Wood.”
Geary’s versatility has helped Grayslake Central run out to a 6-3 start, which includes wins in six of its last seven games.
“Sean Geary has been the unsung hero of this team,” Moe said. “If you look at the stats, he might not have a lot of points or rebounds, but he’s steady and he plays hard and he does the things you need to do to win games.”
Quote of the week: “That was a pretty impressive performance by Ben. I know our guys were watching that game. I heard them talking about it. I’m hoping some of it rubs off on them.”
— Lakes coach Chris Snyder on how some of his players caught the Wisconsin-UNLV game last weekend on TV in which former Mundelein star Ben Brust drained a Big Ten record 7-of-7 three-pointers. Brust had been struggling with his shot prior to that game. The Eagles have been struggling with their shots, too. They’ve been hovering around 35 percent from the field over the last few games.