Huntley Boys Deal With Hampshire's Size

When the Huntley boys basketball team faces a talented big man this season – as they did in their season-opening game against Hampshire – expect a gameplan similar to the one they induced on Whip-Purs center Tyler Watzlawick Tuesday evening.

By fronting Watzlawick in the post and applying suffocating ball pressure on Hampshire's young backcourt, the Red Raiders managed to blow a tight game, which was tied 18-18 in the second quarter, wide open. Huntley went on an 11-0 run in the second, capitalizing on 28 Hampshire turnovers to stroll to a 53-48 victory Tuesday night.

The win advances Huntley to the semifinals of the Leland G. Strombom Holiday Tournament at Sycamore High School. They will play Hope Academy at 6 p.m. Friday.

"It's not a tradeoff I want to take, it's a tradeoff I have to take," Huntley coach Marty Manning said of guarding Watzlawick on the interior. "If I had a big guy to guard their big guy, I would. But it's kind of the hand we're dealt. Justin [Frederick] and Bryce [Only] and Ryan Davenport did a good job in covering their big guy, it's just a tall task to ask them to do that for the whole game. I thought they did about as good of a job as you can."

Since last year, Huntley has known they would be lacking size in their frontcourt this season and for the foreseeable future. They're used to playing a certain style which forces their slew of perimeter guards to go down low against forwards and centers that may have a height advantage ranging from four to 10 inches, depending on the individual.

With their lack of height, Huntley's defense – as was on display Tuesday night with 28 turnovers forced, including four steals by Troy Miller (14 points) – emphasizes the importance of teamwork more than most.

"We make sure we pressure the passers to make sure there's no easy pass into the post," Manning said. "We tell our guys guarding the post to front them, so they have to throw it over the top and make sure there's weak-side help. I would say that we did that maybe 75 percent of the time in the game. The trouble with that is that it's tough to rebound from there. [Watzlawick] scored a lot of points on offensive rebounds."

The most important thing for Huntley, at this point of the season, might be that Manning and company are pretty confident with what their team and the team is familiar with their roles and each other. The Red Raiders know senior guard Tyler Brunschon (16 points on Monday) is capable of scoring 20 points each night, as he did multiple times as a junior last season. They also know Dylan Neukirch is a quality player who brings a lot of talent to the team and, not to be underestimated, that Miller, Only and a slew of other players are much improved compared to a year ago.

Most importantly, however, Manning's Huntley team knows how to handle many different situations and they are comfortable playing with one another because of the experience amassed last season. That is why it wouldn't be surprising to see the Red Raiders win the Strombom Tournament for the second-straight year this weekend.

"After today's game, we really wanted to establish our identity defensively and I thought we did a pretty good job of that tonight," Manning said. "[We also want] a little bit more patience, offensively, in the next couple games."