Evanston Earns Style Points In Second Straight Win

The game of basketball often comes down to 1-on-1 play at almost every level.

If my guy can beat your guy on a regular basis, my team is going to be on the winning end most of the time.

But too much 1-on-1 can also lead to blowouts like Evanston’s second round matchup with Willowbrook Wednesday night at the Fenton Thanksgiving Tournament.

Evanston earned style points with unselfish play compared to a Warriors’ team that was convinced they couldn’t be stopped individually, and the Wildkits punished Willowbrook 77-27 for their second straight victory in pool play.

Smothered by the Wildkit defenders every time they tried to get into the lane --- and that happened a lot --- the losers committed 22 turnovers and only shot 22 percent from the field. Evanston’s scoring load was shared by almost every player who got on the court, led by Theo Rocca’s 15 points, and the winners were credited with 19 assists on 30 field goals.

Willowbrook? Their assist total (3) could be counted on one hand.

Evanston spread the wealth as sophomore Vito Rocca provided 9 points and four other Wildkits --- Ryan Ivory, George Richardson, Ben Ojala and Tristan Wilcox --- each tallied 8. The Kits shot 48 percent (30-of-63) and eight different players tossed in 3-point baskets.

It was an ever more complete victory than the opening tournament romp against an inferior Chicago Latin team because it came against an opponent that seemed certain that their athletes matched up against Evanston’s.

Wrong.

“At halftime (leading 44-14) we told the kids that we are the one team that is looking to make that first pass, against a team that’s trying to go 1-on-5,” said Evanston head coach Mike Ellis. “They did a good job of continuing to do what works for us. We did a great job finding the next man who was open.

“I like how effective we’ve been in our mode of operation so far. They’ve executed what we’ve installed (on offense and on defense) in the first two weeks and they’re playing within the framework we want to play in.”

Although Evanston’s man-to-man defense under Ellis is based on the philosophy that there’s no switching players during the action, the veteran coach was impressed by the way they helped each other at both ends of the floor.

When Willowbrook guards Jaylen Griffin, O.J. Powell or Mark Murrell thought they’d slipped past an ETHS defender on any given trip down the floor, there was usually another lying in wait.

“We weren’t in a defense where we were trying to create turnovers. It just happened organically, because they’re good at being opportunistic (on defense),” Ellis explained. “This year we do have some length (size) on this team and we have guys like Kaidan (Chatham) and Ian (Peters) who can pressure the basketball out front, but without our defense breaking down. Our recognition was really good tonight. We challenged a lot of their shots.”

Evanston, which will meet Fremd on Friday for the pool play title and the right to advance to the tourney finals on Saturday, charged to a 13-0 lead on buckets by Theo Rocca, Vito Rocca, Richardson and Peters. A 3-point swish by freshman Ojala built the lead to 20-3 at the first quarter stop.

From there, and aided by Willowbrook’s stubbornness on offense, ETHS pulled away to quarter leads of 44-14 and 65-22 to put the slaughter rule “running clock” into effect for the second night in a row.

The Warriors were paced by Powell’s 11 points.