Its pair of Division I big men, Frank Kaminsky and Sean O’Mara, may no longer be patrolling the paint for Benet but don’t expect its game plan to change much.
Still working its inside-out offensively philosophy, Benet struck a chord from the outside in hitting on nine three-pointers amidst a second-half spurt en route to picking up a 63-52, season-opening victory at Naperville North Monday on the first night of the Hoops for Healing Thanksgiving Tournament.
Colin Bonnett, the Redwings’ lone starter back from last season’s 25-win team that lost to Jahlil Okafor and Whitney Young in the Class 4A state title game last spring, led the Redwings with a game-high 21 points while James Dockery and Danny Sobolewski finished in double figures.
“It all came together in the second half. We did a great job breaking their press. We hit shots when we needed to hit shots,” Bonnett said.
Trailing by as many as 11 points in the first half, Benet (1-0) got six of its nine triples in the first half as it went into halftime trailing the Huskies by a single point.
Using a 8-0 run spanning the end of the first half and the start of the second half to take a four-point lead before seeing Naperville North counter with a short 7-0 of its own to retake a three-point lead, the Redwings answered by going on a 18-6 run to take a 49-40 lead with 7:00 left in regulation.
The Redwings led by as many as 15 points in the second half as Dockery’s 16 points and Sobolewski’s 11 took some of the pressure of Bonnett while Cameron Graves’ game-high seven rebounds helped them control the glass.
“I thought Dockery played really well in the game. I thought once he got his feet wet, he played with a lot of confidence down the stretch,” Benet coach Gene Heidkamp said. “He shot the ball well. He got to the basket a few times and I thought he played very well defensively. Graves is a good basketball player. He does a lot of the intangibles. He can handle the ball for a bigger guy. He’s a good passer. He had a couple nice passes to guys cutting under the basket.”
Sophomore Mitch Lewis had a game-high 15 for Naperville North (0-1), which burst out to a quick 15-4 lead on the heels of getting 13 combined first-quarter points from Baylor Griffin and Zach Tuxhorn.
But the Redwings’ defense stiffened up considerably as the Huskies failed to score 15 points in any of the final three quarters while also being outrebounded, 26-15.
“I think they just out-toughed us and outrebounded us. I thought offensively we did fine. We shot 57 percent. They had nine threes; we had two threes. That’s because we don’t close out hard enough. We don’t rotate fast enough yet and we got to figure that out,” Naperville North coach Jeff Powers said. “Mitch was pretty good offensively. The other sophomore, Cam Hardy, came in and did some good things.
“Baylor Griffin worked his tail off and was very, very positive and I thought probably maybe the best guy on the game was Brian Dalton. He just had an outstanding game. But we got to learn how to play defense, block out and rebound.”
Brian Dalton and Griffin had 14 and 10 points, respectively, for the Huskies.
