Mundelein’s motto: Keep passes simple
There’s an easy way to make a Mustang’s eyes roll.
Simply say, “Simple passes.”
It’s Mundelein girls basketball coach Brian Evans’ favorite reminder/order.
“They’re sick of hearing it,” he said Saturday afternoon. “All of my players are. But I’m an old-school, keep-it-simple kind of coach. I say it between 50-100 times at each practice, and I say it a lot during games.
“Somebody,” he added, “is going to put those words on a team T-shirt. It’ll also have a red circle around the words, with a diagonal line through the words.”
Guess what helped Mundelein rout host Lake Forest 50-20 on Saturday?
Passes basic, easy, textbook passes. Not one of the dishes could have been labeled fancy.
“That was the difference today,” LF coach Nick Balaban said after the North Suburban Lake Division game. “Mundelein passed better than we did. We made things difficult for us, trying to force passes. Mundelein kept it simple, moved the ball around well.”
The Mustangs (5-3, 2-0) owned a 17- 4 lead after one quarter. Mustangs senior guard Megan Hanas (4 points, 3 steals) delivered one of the best assists of the frame, bouncing a right-on entry pass to junior forward/center Rachael Millner (7 points). Sound defense also lifted the visitors in the first eight minutes, with senior forward Olivia Dunigan collecting 4 of her game-high 5 steals.
“She is amazingly athletic,” Evans said of the 5-foot-10 Dunigan, who recently committed to hitting the hardwood and the books at reigning NCAA Division III champion Washington (Mo.) University. “Strong too. Her passing has improved. Her court vision has improved.”
Dunigan finished with 7 points and a team-best 9 rebounds to go with all those steals. Mustangs sophomore guard Becca Woit scored all of her team-high 8 points in the first half; Mundelein led 33-12 at the break.
Dunigan plans to major in bio-medical engineering in college. She discussed a considerably easier topic Passing 101 after Saturday’s game.
“When you make the simple passes, it slows things down,” she said. “It also gets an opponent’s defense moving. That then opens things up and helps us run our offense.”
Spoken like a true Evans disciple.
LF’s Scouts (0-7, 0-1) netted only 8 points in the second half, and they didn’t shoot a free throw after the break.
“One of our goals today was to keep them off the free-throw, but we didn’t do a good job of that in the first half,” Evans said. “We emphasized a couple of things to our players at the half: Make (the Scouts) run their offense and shoot the ball.”
Junior guard Amanda Davis (6 boards) and senior guard Maegan Schultz each tallied 5 points for Mundelein. Each of Mundelein’s ten players scored at least 2 points Saturday.
Senior guard Mackenzie Kenning (8 points) paced LF’s offense. She scored 5 of her team’s points in the second half; junior guard Allie Danneker netted the other 3, on a third-quarter 3-pointer.
“We need to pass better and catch passes better than we showed today,” Balaban said. “It’s important to attack catches against a team line Mundelein. We cannot continue to simply let passes come to us; we have to be aggressive after passes, really want to catch passes.”
Quick timeout: Evans called a timeout at 7:59 of the first quarter Saturday afternoon. Yes, one second after the tip-off. Balaban had alerted Evans one of his players would foul a Mustang immediately after the start of the game to allow Scouts senior starting forward Adrienne Mocogni to exit the game. Mocogni suffered a torn ACL to the same knee for the second time in six months in January.
Balaban started her because he wanted her to be a part of the introductions at the Scouts’ home opener.
“Brian told me not to worry about committing a foul,” said Balaban. “He told me he would call a timeout to let Adrienne come out. Classy. That was classy of him.”