Another confidence-builder for Buffalo Grove
A couple of big victories have gone a long way toward restoring Buffalo Grove’s confidence.
Now the Bison will see if they can keep building the next three days in the winner’s bracket of the 37th annual Elgin Boys Basketball Tournament.
The long-range shooting of Luke Potnick, the inside play of 6-foot-7 Sam Wacker and the all-around game of Rich Zirngibl led the Bison to a 65-43 win over Francis Parker in Monday morning’s tourney opener at Chesbrough Field House.
“I think the last two games showed what we can do,” Potnick said after scoring a game-high 25 points and tying the BG single-game record for 3-pointers with seven. “The first couple of games we weren’t playing the type of basketball we want to play. This boosted our confidence.”
BG (4-6) will try to replicate what it did against Parker and in Friday’s 82-40 win over Wheeling at 12:45 p.m. today against Batavia (3-5), which rallied from a 16-point halftime deficit to beat Rockford East 73-62 in overtime.
“When you play hard and play confident it makes a lot of things look good,” said BG coach Ryan O’Connor.
Wacker scored 18 points on 7-for-10 shooting, had 8 rebounds of BG’s 33-24 advantage, 5 blocked shots and 3 assists.
Parker (7-3) committed 19 turnovers and shot 37 percent from the field (19-for-51). BG primarily used an active 1-2-2 zone fueled by Zirngibl (9 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 steals).
“As long as we come out with enthusiasm and intensity we can play with a lot of good teams,” Wacker said.
“The past two games we’ve put it all together,” Zirngibl said. “We’ve picked up our defensive pressure a lot and we’re getting in everyone’s face.”
Parker paid when it didn’t get close enough to Potnick behind the arc. He missed his first two long-range attempts but missed only two of his last nine to equal the single-game school record by Nick Prus last year, Pat Reynolds in 2005 and Jason Strojinc twice in the 1994-95 season.
“When I get going it opens up Sam,” Potnick said, “and when Sam gets going it opens up all of us.”
Parker, which was 20-7 last year and won a Class 2A regional title, trailed only 22-16 behind guards Langdon Neal (19 points on 9-for-17 shooting) and Judd Barron (10 points on 4-for-14).
But BG went on a 14-5 tear as Neal sat the final 3:54 of the half with 2 fouls. Potnick hit three consecutive 3s from NBA range en route to 14 second-quarter points and 19 at intermission.
“After (Potnick) hit a couple of 3s, we kind of dropped our heads a little bit,” said fourth-year Parker coach John Bongiorno, who was Immaculate Conception’s head coach from 1991-98. “I thought defensively we weren’t very good today and usually we’re better than that.”
The Bison shot 13-for-20 in the second half to finish at 48 percent (26-for-54). They also got 8 points and 3 rebounds from 6-4 junior Kevin Newman, 4 points and 3 assists from sophomore Andrew Apel and 3 rebounds from 6-5 junior Jose Aguirre.
“We’re getting better but we still have a lot of work to do,” O’Connor said.
“We have four senior starters but after that we’re a young team,” Wacker said. “We’re learning how to play together as a team, use each other’s strengths and be a really good team.”