Buffalo Grove 61, Rolling Meadows 48

Some basketball teams talk a good game about turning defense into offense and coming out strong to start a second half.

Buffalo Grove showed the way it's done to turn a game that could have gone either way at halftime into a runaway Friday night at Rolling Meadows.

The defending Mid-Suburban East boys champions parlayed 7 miscues into 18 unanswered points the first 3:33 after intermission and cruised to a 61-48 victory.

"We try to come out of halftime pretty fired up," said BG sophomore guard Kevin Mulligan, who drew the tough assignment of guarding MSL scoring leader Kyle Gaedele.

"It was perfect -- just what we needed," said BG senior Brian DeSimone after providing a second-quarter spark with 11 of his game-high 17 points. "We talked about coming out strong in the second half."

And the Bison (9-1, 4-0) wasted no time going to work on it to stampede away from a 26-23 halftime lead.

The only points in the run not off a turnover came on the first possession when Mulligan found senior Mike Ricciardi (11 points, 10 rebounds) inside for a 3-point play.

Then came the flurry of turnovers that led to a blizzard of points.

"If we play good defense we play good offense," Mulligan said, "not the other way around."

Federico Iudica had steals lead to two 3-pointers as he scored 8 of his 12 points in the third. Mulligan fed DeSimone for a layup and DeSimone got 1 of his 5 assists to Paul Timko for a 3-point play.

A long jumper and baseline drive by Mulligan finished the 18-point run and Meadows (5-4, 2-2) was all but done with a 44-23 deficit.

"Everything was rolling," DeSimone said of the Bison missing only 1 of their first 8 second-half shots.

"Our defensive energy that third quarter was outstanding," said BG coach Ryan O'Connor. "Defense was really where it was at that third quarter for us."

One the Meadows starters spent the last six minutes of viewing from the bench.

"We came out and didn't execute, didn't have any energy and didn't have any intensity," said Meadows coach Kevin Katovich. "Against a good team like BG, if you aren't ready to go all the time, it will be problematic."

James Hurley added 8 points for BG, which shot 51.1 percent (23-for-45) from the field to 33 percent (17-for-51) for Meadows.

Gaedele came in averaging 19.4 points a game but got 8 of his team-high 10 in the fourth quarter. O'Connor put DeSimone on Ty Kirk, who had 9 on 3-for-12 shooting.

"He's a strong, gutsy kid who I know doesn't mind sticking his nose in there to keep Gaedele off the block," O'Connor said of Mulligan.

"It was fun," Mulligan said. "He's a good player."

Defense is making winning a lot of fun for BG.