St. Charles N. downs Bartlett
From the typical 7:15 p.m. weeknight games to a Saturday matinee at UIC all the way to the 9 p.m. West Coast type tip at next week’s Pontiac Tournament, St. Charles North’s boys basketball team has or will see all kinds of start times this season.
The North Stars got a taste of an early 10:30 a.m. tip Monday at the Jacobs Holiday Classic. And after watching 32 minutes of sharp basketball, coach Tom Poulin probably wouldn’t mind a few more morning games.
St. Charles North hit 50 percent of its field goal attempts, sharing the basketball and getting several players involved. Four finished in double figures in a 67-52 win over Bartlett that evened its tourney record at 1-1 heading into the final pool play game at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday against Zion-Benton.
The North Stars (4-7) started their day watching film at school at 7 a.m. They got to Jacobs 90 minutes before the tip doing everything they could to avoid a sluggish performance.
“We wanted to make sure we were moving, he (Poulin) wanted to make sure we were excited and ready to go because a 10:30 a.m. game isn’t easy,” Loyola-bound junior Quinten Payne said. “He wanted to make sure we all went to bed early last night. I don’t mind getting up, we were there early and really got after it.”
Bartlett (5-5), which fell to 0-2 in the tournament, opened the scoring on a jumper by Matt Chaltin (17 points). Kyle Swanson swished the first of his three 3-pointers to put the North Stars ahead 3-2, a lead they never relinquished.
Swanson’s 3 also started a 10-0 run. Payne assisted on 3 baskets in the first quarter, the final a drive and kick out to Swanson for a corner 3 that beat the first-quarter buzzer for a 17-12 lead.
“I had a couple rough games the two games before and knew I had to come out stronger and give my team a better effort,” Swanson said.
Swanson, who scored all 13 of his points in the first half, did just that in the second quarter on both ends of the court with back-to-back steals. He took the first one the other way and hit a short jumper in the lane, and the second time he drove all the way for a layup while getting fouled.
Like Payne, Swanson pointed to the early film study Monday with helping.
“We looked at some tape of their offense and knew they wanted to reverse it so I just tried to overplay the reversal,” Swanson said.
After turning the ball over 21 times in an overtime loss to Hope Saturday, the North Stars trimmed that to 12 against the Hawks.
Instead it was Bartlett that struggled with ballhandling with 11 first-half turnovers that led to a 33-23 halftime deficit, the final 3 of those points coming from a 20-foot jumper by sophomore Alec Goetz.
“Eleven first-half turnovers is inexcusable,” Bartlett coach Jim Wolfsmith said. “We have played teams that pressure better than that and we’ve handled the ball better. I give credit, they rotated well and were jamming and pushing all game long, we just never used our picks to get ourselves open.”
The North Stars led by at least 9 points throughout the second half. They did that despite getting only about 12 minutes from senior center Kyle Nelson, who was quite effective in that short time on the court with 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting.
Nelson’s third foul came just 22 seconds into the second half. But with a chance to get closer, the Hawks missed both of those free throws and then two more on their next possession. They finished 11 of 20 at the line to the North Stars’ 15 of 19, led by Payne’s perfect 8 for 8.
“We talk about the little things that make a difference,” Wolfsmith said. “We got good stops, we come down, get a couple fouls called and go 0 for 4 at the line. When we lose that’s kind of what happens, pick our poison, whatever it happens to be.”
Lorenzo Mitchell scored 14 points and Marcus Aluquin added 10 for the Hawks, who play Hope and Illinois recruit Jalen James at 3 p.m. Tuesday.
“I thought first half we defended well and forced them to take outside shots and they hit some 3s,” Wolfsmith said. “The second half we started playing some selfish defense. We started gambling. Quinten can drive in and jump and elevate and find an open man. We weren’t rotating very well.”
Payne flirted with a triple double with 17 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists. Tony Neari scored 10 points and hustled his way to 9 rebounds while Goetz just missed being the fifth player in double figures with 9 points.
“We keep taking steps offensively towards being unselfish and playing together which makes everybody better,” Poulin said. “It makes it difficult to guard our main options when they have to worry about everybody. We’re just playing team basketball.”