In the aftermath of Monday’s 11-point loss to Benet, Naperville North coach Jeff Powers expressed his concern with the lack of cohesion on the defensive end of the floor, which allowed Benet to get comfortable behind the three-point line.
Less than 24 hours later in the midst of facing an opponent just as potent from the perimeter, the same problems cropped up again for Naperville North.
Spurred on by an 18-2 third-quarter run and behind converting on 11 three-pointers, Neuqua Valley eased to a 66-54 victory over Naperville North on Tuesday night in pool play of the Hoops for Healing Thanksgiving Tournament.
Seniors Connor Raridon and Demond George each had a game-high 18 points for Neuqua Valley (2-0), which hit on 11 of its 22 three-point attempts against the Huskies, who allowed Benet to hit on nine of its 18 attempts from three-point range on Monday.
“We started attacking the basket more and when we did that, we could kick out to open shooters and Demond got going from deep. I hit some from deep,” said the North Central College-bound Raridon, who had 15 points in the Wildcats’ 69-43 victory over Oswego East on Monday. “It just started with creating shots for other guys and driving and kicking.”
In a first half that saw the two teams combine for 10 ties and lead changes amidst battling to a 25-25 tie at halftime, the Huskies used a Brian Dalton three-point play to take a 28-25 lead early in the third.
From there, the Wildcats would score 18 of the next 20 points in the game to seize control of the game by taking a 43-30 lead following a Jacob Eminger basket with less than four minutes left in the third.
George hit a pair of his six three-pointers during the pivotal 18-2 run while Zach Lendino and Joe Sieger each chipped in with five points to aid the surge.
George nailed six of his eight three-point attempts while Raridon was 3-of-5 from beyond the arc.
“I love playing with Connor. It’s good to have another guy that understands the basketball game well, has high basketball IQ,” George said. “We just look towards each other for leadership. We just want to play together and get this team going.”
Eminger, who led the Wildcats in scoring in the 26-point victory over Oswego East with 16 points, joined Raridon and George in double figures with 10 points.
Naperville North (0-2) outrebounded the Wildcats, 27-22, responding nicely to the plus-11 advantage Benet enjoyed on the glass on Monday.
But the inability to get Dalton or Mitch Lewis, their only two guys in double figures at 15 and 10 points, respectively, hurt the Huskies as they failed to get consistent stops in the second half after seeing the first 16 minutes of the game played in a tight window.
“You guys could see (that) we’re working on figuring out how to defend and we had three sophomores that played a lot of minutes (Tuesday night) and they’re athletic enough, but it was not just them,” Powers said. “It’s been (how) the whole team isn’t moving and rotating and getting what I call a little mental toughness. Defense is all about toughness and mental toughness. We’re just not there yet and it’s going to take us a while.
“Tip my hit. We’ve just played two really coached teams, well-coached teams, well organized with phenomenal shooters and we didn’t get out to get to those shooters. That’s my problem. That’s what I got to work on better. We got to work on that a lot better.”
