Proviso East Beats DGS to Take Control of Gold Race

boys basketball team beat Proviso East twice last season en route to winning the West Suburban Conference Gold Division championship.

On Thursday, Proviso East exacted its revenge. The unbeaten Pirates demonstrated why they are ranked No. 2 in the Chicago area, leading from wire-to-wire in their 78-70 victory in Downers Grove.

Proviso East (15-0, 5-0) raced out to a 12-2 lead, flustering the Mustangs with a full-court press and turning the game into a track meet in the early going. The visitors eventually led by as many as 20 points in the third quarter before Downers South (13-3, 4-1) made the score respectable in the closing minutes.

So what was the difference from last year, when the Mustangs swept the season series from the Pirates for the first time?

“It’s our pressure,” said first-year Proviso East Coach Donnie Boyce, who helped the Pirates win state titles in 1991 and 1992 and later played in the NBA. “It’s hard when you’re only playing seven or eight guys to really withstand it for four quarters. I think our pressure has always been a key for us this year and then our balance.

“We had real good balance tonight. Paris Lee, it was his night tonight but I thought Keith Carter did an excellent job on [Jerron] Wilbut. Keith Carter sacrificed a lot tonight for the good of the team.”

The Illinois State-bound Carter, Proviso’s leading scorer, tallied only 11 points but he combined with fellow guards Paris Lee and Paris Burns to completely take Downers South stars Wilbut and Jamall Millison out of the game.

Wilbut, who didn’t start for disciplinary reasons, sank his first two shots – both of which were three-pointers – but was only 1 of 7 after that. He finished with 13 points and five rebounds before fouling out in the fourth quarter.

Millison was limited to five points on 2-for-8 shooting before he, too, fouled out. Wilbut and Millison combined for just two assists and three steals.

Proviso East’s guards, on the other hand, were sensational. Lee, the team’s defensive stopper, had a game-high seven steals, five of which came in the first half, and poured in a career-high 25 points. Fifteen of those points came in the first half as the Pirates built a 45-30 advantage.

“Coach Donnie wants me to be a lockdown defender so that’s what I’m going to do,” Lee said. “Most of my points came off my steals. Last year we were a little lackadaisical. This year Coach Donnie made us jump on them because we didn’t want the same results as last year.”

While Lee and his teammates accomplished their main goal of stopping Wilbut and Millison, they also lit up the Mustangs on the other end, combining for seven three-pointers, including five from Lee.

Burns added 16 points and three steals and reserve guard Michael Nicholas had nine points off the bench. Forward Sterling Brown, a Division I prospect, had 12 points and six rebounds for the Pirates, who made 17 of 33 shots in the first half and 28 of 58 overall.

That, more than the hectic pace, is what did in the Mustangs.

“We don’t mind running,” Downers South Coach Jay Baum said. “We actually do well with that. We scored a lot of points in our transition, too.

“Our transition defense could have been better. When you give up 20-plus points a quarter you’re not going to beat too many teams, much less a quality team. They made a lot of threes and open shots and that’s brought a new element to their team this year where they’re a tremendous shooting team. So give them credit.”

One Mustang who deserves a lot of credit is center Greg Garro. The 6-6 senior continued his recent run of strong play by scoring a career-high 21 points and pulling down a game-high 11 rebounds. He had eight points and three boards in the third quarter as the Mustangs pulled within 63-51.

But the hole proved to be too deep to climb out of. The Mustangs cut the gap to nine points twice in the fourth quarter, the first coming when Wilbut sank a trey to make it 65-56 with 5:17 left, but they could get no closer until Jordan Cannon’s three with :08 remaining finished the scoring.

“I think last year they didn’t have as many shooters, so they would drive,” Garro said. “This year they’re driving and kicking and they’re not missing, and we just weren’t getting back on defense.

“They’re a fantastic team but I think if we played our game plan and we stuck to it I think we could have beaten them because it was on our home court. We had a lot of momentum. We kept making runs but we couldn’t make it over that little hump and get back into the game.”

Cannon finished with 14 points while Kevin Honn chipped in 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Mustangs, who face another big test when they take on Warren (12-2) at 8:30 p.m. Saturday at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates.

“The good thing about this is we can come back and turn around and have another statement [game],” Garro said. “We don’t have to dwell on this and wait a week to play. We can go out and reverse this. We know we need to get better and we have to.”