Turnovers doom Maine West in loss to Niles North
The goal for Niles North is 20.
That's 20 forced turnovers per game.
The Maine West statistician had his team for 26 turnovers.
Usually, hitting the goal leads to a win for Niles North. On Wednesday, exceeding that expectation led to a big win.
Niles North used a hounding pressure defense all over the floor to pave the way for a 62-44 win over Maine West on the first day of the Wheeling Wildcat Hardwood Classic.
Niles North, which is the defending Hardwood Classic champion, improves to 7-3 with the victory.
"That's kind of how we have to play," Niles North coach Glenn Olson said of his full-court pressure defense. "We're young and we don't have a ton of size. For us to be successful, we have to pressure the ball consistently and try to wear teams out.
"You have to practice it a lot and it's difficult to coach and it's difficult for the players. But we've had a nice little run here in this tournament and that's where we've hung our hat, on playing defense like that."
Niles North, with intense pressure on the ball from veteran guard Aquan Smart, forced 14 first-half Maine West turnovers and took a 37-24 lead into the locker room at the halftime break.
Senior guard Robert Pryor came off the bench to score a game-high 19 points for Niles North and 14 of those came in the first half thanks to the pressure.
"The pressure was really tough. They were denying way out and we weren't strong enough with the ball most of the time," Maine West point guard Justin Scholler said. "We haven't seen that kind of pressure this season. In practice, we were trying to get ready for it, but it's hard to prepare for something like this where it's full court the whole way and they were a lot stronger than most of us. And they're fast and athletic, so it was tough."
Scholler topped Maine West with 14 points and was the only player on his team in double figures. He was 3-of-5 from 3-point range.
"We weren't ready for that pressure," Maine West coach Tom Prokopij confirmed. "We don't see anything like that on a daily basis in practice, but they (Niles North) have been doing it for years and it's what they do. They are really good at what they do and he (Olson) does a really good job of getting his kids to buy in to that level of intensity. Hats off to them, they got to us tonight."
Olson says that keeping up the tradition of pressure defense has been a challenge this year because Smart, who finished with 16 points, is the only player returning from last year with significant experience.
"We're still learning," said Olson, who also got double-figures out of Jalen Butler (10 points). "We tell Aquan that he has a lot of responsibility in terms of getting us game ready, not only the basketball side of things, but the other stuff, the leadership. We count on him for a lot."