Conant heats up again at Tosh tourney
Conant made it a clean sweep for Mid-Suburban League teams with a 61-47 win over highly regarded Glenbard North Tuesday night at the 49th annual Jack Tosh tournament at York high school.
Palatine and Rolling Meadows won their games earlier and advanced to the second round.
The Cougars, who have won 7 tournament championships, will play the host Dukes at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the second round of the 32-team tournament.
Tuesday night belong to the Cougars who had been slumping going 2-4 over their last six games. The win evens their record at 6-6.
"Some of the games we lost we played well in stretches,“ said Conant coach Matt Walsh. "We have had some adversity and some things haven't been going our way. I'm proud of our kids tonight. We have been practicing hard and we played hard."
Camden Lathos and Yusuf Cisse gave the Cougars the shot in the arm they needed.
Lathos scored 25 points, pulled down 5 rebounds and had 3 steals. Cisse scored 15 points with 8 rebounds including several key ones in the third and fourth quarters. He also had six assists and three steals.
"We came into the tournament 5-6 and it's not where we wanted to be," said Cisse. "This was a good test for us. You could sulk about our record but you have to get it back together and get things to go our way. We got some big contributions from our bench and we all played very good defense."
Shreyas Talluri scored all six of his points in the second half. Nate Hahn scored four and Caleb Williams two.
It almost was all for naught as Conant, who led 28-16 at halftime, saw the 9-2 Panthers claw back to 30-28 with 3:38 left in the third quarter.
A layup by Talluri and three-point baskets from Lathos and Cisse gave Conant some breathing room at 38-29 1:35 later.
"Everyone chipped in and the bench gave us big minutes," said Lathos. "When they closed the gap we just had to stick to what we do best. We stuck together."
Conant led 46-35 going to the fourth.
Following a JJ Hernandez (15 points) basket, the Cougars used an 11-2 run to lead 57-40 with 3:21 left.
"We came out pretty flat," said Glenbard North coach Kevin Tonn. "We responded pretty well in the second half to close the gap to two. But we just didn't have it. Credit to Conant, they played well. We were out-hustled and out-toughed. They beat us pretty bad on the boards (28-21) and got us out of our rhythm."
Jalen Crues scored 14 points and 8 rebounds for the Panthers. Maharri Thatch added eight points.
Glenbard North will play Hinsdale South at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.