Paul paces Warren to victory

The pace of the game was slow — much slower than Warren expected.

But Glenbrook North figured that was what they needed to do to upset the state-ranked Blue Devils on their home floor.

Only problem was, Warren senior Darius Paul was having no part of the slow pace.

Paul scored 5 of his co-game-high 11 points in the final 1:54 as the Devils escaped with a victory in the final home game of the 19-year head-coaching career of Chuck Ramsey, 41-32 over the visiting Spartans.

Warren (19-2) has won 9 straight.

“I wasn’t expecting (Glenbrook North) to slow it down, I was expecting us to have one of our normal games,” said the Western Michigan-bound Paul who added 6 rebounds to go with his 11 points. “We just got stagnant on offense.”

The game was more to the liking of the Devils early as Warren raced out to a 15-8 lead after a quarter. But a slower pace, sluggish offense and solid defense from the Spartans limited the Devils to only 10 points over the next two quarters.

“A lot of teams play us that way,” said Ramsey of the slower pace. “Whether they play that way against other teams or not, they play that way against us.”

The deliberate halfcourt style by Glenbrook North (17-6) helped the visitors build a 32-29 lead with 4:38 left in the final quarter before Warren finally found some offensive momentum, thanks to Paul.

After 2 free throws from Toledo-bound senior Nathan Boothe, who also had 11 points, gave Warren its first lead since they led 19-18 at half, Paul struck with the biggest shot of the night.

Driving hard into the lane, senior Jameris Smith found Paul on the baseline. His fall-away baseline jumper with 1:54 left gave the Devils a 35-32 cushion that felt more like a 10-point burst.

“That one shot he hit when he hit the fading jumper was huge for them,” Glenbrook coach Dave Weber said. “They were up 1 and hit that, and you could see it gave them a boost.”

Warren held the Spartans scoreless over the final 4:38 of the fourth quarter and didn’t allow a single Spartans player to reach double figures in scoring.

Junior Andrew McAuliffe, who had been out most of the season with a fractured patella, had his most significant playing time of since the injury scoring 8 points to lead the Spartans.