Wildkit Balance Buries Maine East

Maine East’s basketball team is off to the program’s best start in a couple of decades, at least, this season.

But Evanston smacked the Blue Demons in the face with a reality check in a rare Monday night Central Suburban League crossover game.

The Wildkits put together a 25-point offensive outburst in the first quarter --- their best of the season --- and continued to play the kind of defense that just doesn’t give up much at the other end.

The result? Another running clock, slaughter rule victory as the Kits drilled Maine East 65-38 and improved to 9-3 on the season.

It marked the 10th time this season that the Wildkits have held an opponent under 50 points, and Monday the winners featured a perfect blend of offense to go with that stingy D as Theo Rocca (17 points), Morgan Brown (15 points, 7 rebounds) and Antoine Thomas (10 points, 9 rebounds) all scored in double figures.

Evanston’s scorebook highlighted 15 assists on the 20 field goals scored by the winners, one of their most efficient efforts of the still-young season. Point guard Brandon Watson and Brown were each credited with 3 assists.

The dominance of the Blue Demons at both ends of the floor served as a perfect tuneup for Thursday’s showdown with rival New Trier at Beardsley Gym. East even played the 1-3-1 zone defense favored by the Trevians for part of the game, so the short week of practice in preparation for that matchup started on the right note for ETHS.

East, now 7-4, was paced by Tristan Walton’s 10 points. The Demons shot just 39 percent (15-of-38) on their home court and turned the ball over 15 times. The losers mustered just 2 offensive rebounds, perhaps the most significant statistic for Evanston head coach Mike Ellis.

“That means we’ve given up 5 (total) offensive rebounds in our last 64 minutes (two full games),” Ellis mused. “That’s part of playing good defense because it’s not over until you get the ball back. Both Morgan and Antoine rebounded well tonight and they got some support from our guards, too.

“What we’re doing on defense (even Ellis’ Final Four teams at Evanston weren’t this stingy) speaks to the buy-in we’re getting from all of them. They understand that’s how we’re going to win games and that shows their commitment to the defensive end. They also understand that our best nights are when we’re getting offense from our defense.

“We had really balanced play tonight. Guys were looking for one another and you should really give them a lot of credit for sticking with the game plan.”

Evanston outscored the host team 25-10 in the first quarter --- after falling behind 5-0 at the outset --- and built quarter leads of 37-21 and 55-27. A transition basket by Ian Peters made it 57-27 early in the fourth quarter and kept the clock running to the end.

Rocca, who sank 6-of-13 field goal attempts, converted 5-of-11 tries from 3-point range including a 9-point splurge in the first quarter.

“We had stressed that it was really important that we come out strong, and we didn’t do that,” said Ellis. “But they immediately stepped their game up after that. We had people making the extra pass that led to good shots, and they gave the guy with the hot hand (in this case Rocca) the opportunity for back-to-back makes.

“Theo Rocca is a special talent and he has to understand what his role is for us. It was good to see him more aggressive tonight, because he has to be a weapon for us.”