Unfamiliar faces give Prospect familiar result

Most of the names may be unfamiliar to those outside the Prospect boys basketball program.

But even though Mike LaTulip is the only returning starter, everyone in the lineup is familiar with each other. It showed Friday night as three-time defending Mid-Suburban East champion Prospect beat visiting Rolling Meadows 55-32 in the division opener at Jean Walker Field House.

"We all played together on the sophomore team and we all played together years before," said Prospect 6-foot-3 senior Dan O'Brien, who had 6 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and played tough defense on Meadows point guard Brian Nelms. "It isn't anything new. It isn't much of a change for us."

But the roles are different for the Knights (2-2, 1-0) with everyone looking to shut down LaTulip. Meadows (3-2, 0-1) held him to 9 of his 19-point average on 2-for-9 shooting.

Six-6 senior Matt Loebbaka stepped up with 18 points on 9-for-11 shooting. He also had 9 rebounds in the Knights' 38-14 advantage and combined with Will Botefuhr to hold 6-6 Paul Volkman to 10 of his 19-point average.

"Every day anyone can go off and we're all pretty well-rounded," Loebbaka said. "In the summer the only person people really worried about was Mike and everyone else had to step up."

O'Brien held Nelms to 5 points on 1-for-9 shooting. Brad Reibel camme off the bench for 11 points and 6 rebounds and stifled Meadows' Tyler Gaedele after he hit two early 3-pointers.

"I kept telling them we spent more time on defense this week than we probably ever had," said Prospect coach John Camardella after giving up an average of 71.5 points its first three games. "Teh kids really bought into that part of the game."

Meadows shot just 25.6 percent from the field (11-for-43), went 5-for-23 from 3-point range and committed 20 turnovers. A 3 by Eric Lowe (8 points) cut its deficit to 33-26 with 4:26 left in the third but Prospect scored the next 8 points to take control.

"We completely lost sight of the way we won three in a row," said Meadows coach Kevin Katovich. "They did a great job but we went 1-on-1 most of the game. We didn't execute our stuff and we didn't try to."