Boys basketball: Improving Neuqua Valley knocks off Naperville Central
Making connections.
It often takes time for teams to come together just right at the start of a season, especially when a team adds an elite freshman into the mix.
Neuqua Valley and star newcomer Cole Kelly have played decent basketball from the get-go this season, but now the Wildcats are showing signs of becoming a team opponents will want to try and avoid down the stretch.
On Friday night Neuqua Valley knocked off Naperville Central 72-50 to move to 12-9 on the year and 2-4 in the DuPage Valley Conference. Kelly, a 6-foot-6 forward, scored 15 of his 17 points in the first half and then let his rebounding and passing lead the way over the final two quarters, although he did slam home a dunk to finish the night with 17 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists.
Senior guard Whitman Charboneau is often the recipient of impressive passes from Kelly and he tallied a game-high 20 points in the win.
“Just playing with him is awesome. I feel like we’re always on the same page. His basketball IQ is so high,” Charboneau said. “We’ll have fun playing with him obviously, but his IQ is just next level.”
Kelly scored 7 early points as the Wildcats led 15-8 after one quarter and the lead grew to 34-20 at the half as the rookie combined with Charboneau for 23 points through two quarters.
“I’m always looking for Whit,” Kelly said. “Fastbreaks, in transition, those corner layups…those are free buckets that we have got to get. In the first half of the season those [plays] were turnovers and now we’re getting those buckets which helps a lot.”
Ten different Wildcats scored on Friday and after the Redhawks (7-14, 1-5) closed to within 50-38 at the start of the fourth quarter, the home team blitzed Naperville Central with a 15-0 run to pull away.
“We got the stop, we got the rebound and we got out on some fastbreak points,” Wildcats coach Todd Sutton said of his team’s strong push in the fourth quarter. “We defended, we finally got some rebounds and we ran out and got some easy points.”
Neuqua’s Garrick Chong reached a career-high with all 8 of his points coming in the fourth quarter.
For the Redhawks, Alex Liabo led the way with 12 points, and TJ Hillman and Marshawn Williams each added 9.
“The effort’s always going to be there. No quit on our slide, just execution and knocking down shots were the big thing,” Redhawks coach Mike Wilson said. “They’re a good team and obviously they’re anchored by 23 [Kelly]. He’s a generational type talent and 32 [Charboneau] is a good ball player so we were kind of keying on them. But their role players played really well tonight.”
Charboneau is confident the Wildcats will continue to improve.
“We’re starting to hit our stride right here,” he said. “We had some tough DVC losses. We lost by one to Waubonsie and we lost a buzzer beater to Naperville North. These second half of the DVC games we’re really looking forward to. We want to get back at those teams that we think we should have beaten.”