Porters find their zone
2-3 defense, Bradley burst beat B'brook
BOLINGBROOK -- The Lockport High School basketball team was in a zone Friday night -- in more ways than one.
The result was a 59-46 throttling of Bolingbrook in a high-level SouthWest Suburban Blue opener, probably a boost in the Porters' seed for the Pontiac Holiday Tournament at Christmas and a leg up in the war between two of the conference's prime title candidates.
(Michael R. Schmidt/Staff photographer)
The first zone was your basic 2-3, which Lockport used most of the night to keep explosive Bolingbrook off balance. So effective was it that the Raiders scored 28 points total through three quarters.
That other zone is one the Porters (4-0, 1-0) always have in their hip pocket. When 6-foot-3 senior guard Brian Bradley gets the feel, there not much the opposition can do to push him from his comfort zone.
After Bolingbrook (4-1, 0-1) went on a 6-0 run to slice Lockport's game-long lead to 27-25 with 5 minutes 43 seconds left in the third quarter, Bradley caught fire. He scored 8 points in the next 4 minutes, during a 12-3 run, as the Porters forged ahead 39-28 entering the fourth quarter.
Bradley kept at it in the fourth quarter, controlling tempo and adding to what become a game-high 22 points, 16 in the final 13:19.
"Sometimes I try to force too much, and when I do that I mess up and the team messes up, too," Bradley said, assessing some of what occurred before he entered his zone. "I try to keep my head in the game, and when I do, good things happen."
"When things happen, he (Bradley) looks at me and I look at him," Lockport coach Lawrence Thompson Jr. said. "I learned a long time ago that yelling at him doesn't work. We just make eye contact."
Whatever it takes to find that zone.
"Thank God we had Brian Bradley to stretch the lead out," Thompson said of Bolingbrook closing to within 27-25. "When we set screens, when we're moving the way we were, he has the ability to beat his man with natural driving lanes."
Bolingbrook coach Rob Brost knows all about that.
"Bradley controls tempo," he said. "He didn't force his shot, and he can get to the rim. He has an uncanny way to get to the rim. He's just hard to guard."
But before Bradley discovered his zone -- and even after he found it -- the story on this night was that good old-fashioned zone defense.
Bolingbrook shot 33 percent for the game on 17-of-51 and was 1-of-10 from 3-point range through three quarters. The Raiders' Elijah Hunt heated up in the fourth quarter, when he scored 11 of his team-high 13 points, but to no avail.
Point guard Kennedy Jones, a prime mover in Bolingbrook's three-game sweep at last week's WJOL/Provena Tournament at University of St. Francis, managed 4 points on 1-of-10 shooting and misfired on all seven of his 3-point tries.
"The whole week we stressed switching defenses to keep them off balance," Lockport senior guard Mike Frigo said. "We executed well. It was a real team effort on defense."
"We did work all week on keeping them off balance," Thompson said. "We thought once they got into arhythm on offense, they would be tough to beat."
The credit for the preparation for Bolingbrook's quickness, Thompson said, goes to his reserves who do not often see the floor.
"We asked our kids to simulate the energy that Bolingbrook has for three days at practice, and they did," Thompson said. "That allowed us to prepare."
Justin Jarosz, Lockport's 6-6 senior forward and the other half of the Big 2 with Bradley, got things going on the right foot when he hit a 3-pointer and dunked after a Porters' steal for a 5-0 lead 21 seconds into the game. He would finish with 13 points and a game-high 9 rebounds, and Bolingbrook was looking up the rest of the way.
"This feels great," Jarosz said. "I think we surprised Bolingbrook early, and that had an effect on the rest of the game."
From an offensive perspective, the Porters relied heavily on their Big 2 for three quarters. But Derrell Williams scored 5 of his 10 points and Mike Frigo all of his 5 in the fourth quarter to help clinch one big early victory.
"We ran our offense better tonight than we have in the past," Frigo said. "And, yeah, you gotta love to be able to score a little. The adrenaline gets going, the crowd gets into it. It's fun."
A type of fun Bradley experiences during his frequent visits to the zone. "I haven't seen anyone stop him this year," Frigo said.
On this night, that zone eluded Bolingbrook.
"Funny as it sounds, I thought we did a fair job on defense," Brost said. "But on offense, we lacked the ability to reverse the ball and get our high-and-low game going. I'm disappointed our big kids did not respond, and our guards forced things.
"No doubt, Lockport plays a style that challenges us. We didn't think we would see as much zone as we did, but it was smart tactic on their part."
Hey, if you're in the zone ...
