Bowen, Carmel school Grayslake Central
Tim Bowen coaches Carmel's boys basketball team.
He also teaches physics at Grayslake Central.
Carmel's opponent at the Mundelein Tournament on Monday afternoon?
None other than Grayslake Central. Bowen happens to teach three of the Rams' hoopsters.
“Lots of smiles and nods in class today,” Bowen said after the game, the teams' tourney finale. “I didn't say much to the players in class. I did kind of tease them, telling them they'd get some extra homework if things didn't go the way I wanted them to go.”
Things went Carmel's way. The Corsairs downed Central 58-49, blanking the Rams for nearly four minutes in the fourth quarter. A putback bucket by Central senior guard Kyle Shepard (11 points) cut Carmel's lead to 44-42 at 4:37. Carmel (3-2) then tallied the next 14 points, with all-tournament pick Dan Feld (game-high 20 points, 9 rebounds) and senior guard Doug Meyer (15 points) each scoring 5.
“We made an adjustment on defense,” said Bowen, who coached varsity ball at Grayslake Central for eight years before serving as an assistant at Waukegan the past two seasons. “But it wasn't anything huge or really thoughtful. We told our bigs to stay low, to stop trapping high.”
Carmel senior forward Dan Mooney gave his club a lift right before the buzzer at the end of the second quarter, nailing a 3-pointer to swell the Corsairs' lead to 31-21. It could have deflated Central.
It did not.
“Any coach in the country will tell you that the first five minutes of the third quarter are the most important minutes in any game,” Bowen said. “(Grayslake Central) took it to us at the start of the second half, and we didn't respond well.”
Central (1-4) outscored Carmel 16-8 in the third quarter. Shepard's third trey of the game, after too-many-to-count passes on a slick-looking possession, pared Carmel's advantage to 37-33. A field goal from Central's CJ Stempeck (17 points, 8 rebounds) and a pair of Sean Kirby free throws followed a bucket by Carmel junior guard Conner Jordan. Carmel owned a shaky 39-37 lead after three quarters.
But it was Central junior guard Jordan Taylor – one of Bowen's students – who served as the primary catalyst in the Rams' surge. He collected a couple of steals in the third quarter, disrupted Carmel's attempts to regain control offensively in other ways and did exactly what one of his biggest fans had told him to do right before the start of the second half.
“My dad (Tyson) said I needed to pick it up,” said the 5-foot-7 Taylor, also an all-tourney pick. “He was sitting in the second row. He was right. I picked it up; we all did. Defensive intensity got us back in the game.”
Carmel's Feld, a 6-5 senior forward, returned to the court Monday after sitting out the second half and both overtimes of Saturday's 78-77 loss to Bartlett. A migraine parked him on the bench.
“Bad. It was bad,” said Feld, who scored Carmel's first 6 points Monday (Stempeck struck for Central's first 6 points). “I was seeing double. It was nice to get back in there and battle. We did not give up our fight after that tough third quarter. Coach Bowen he's such a great motivator, and he said some things to fire us up in the fourth quarter.
“The system we use,” he added, “is heavy on trust. We all trusted our teammates.”
Meyer impressed his mates after his steal in the middle of Carmel's game-turning 14-0 run in the final quarter. He mad-dashed three-quarters of the court and connected, while getting fouled, on a left-handed layup; he made the ensuing free throw.
Rams junior Casey Boyle, another one of Bowen's physics students, finished with 14 points and 9 boards. Frontcourt players netted 33 of Central's 49 points.
“When we get the ball inside, good things happen,” Grayslake Central coach Brian Moe said, referring to the 6-8 Casey and 6-6 Stempeck. “You saw that today. What I also liked was the way we took care of the ball (during the comeback). A couple of passive possessions hurt us in the fourth quarter, and Carmel's pressure forced too many turnovers and wore us out mentally.”
The Rams won't play again until Dec. 10.
That'll give Bowen's students/hoopsters plenty of time to bone up on centrifugal force and electromagnetic induction and quantum mechanics.
“(Bowen) is a great guy, a great teacher,” Taylor said. “It was interesting, in class today. I walked in, and I smiled at him. He smiled back. On my way out, it also was pretty friendly. He held out a hand, and we bumped knuckles.”