Boilers down rival Andrew for pivotal SWSC win

BRADLEY — After their State Farm Holiday Classic last month didn’t go quite as planned with a 1-2 mark, the Bradley-Bourbonnais boys basketball team spent its last week of the winter break in the gym, working out their kinks on their quest to a postseason push.

Two games into the new year, it looks like that work’s paying off.

After a dominant 69-49 win over Richards Career Academy over the weekend, the Boilermakers hit the hardwood at Donald K. Turner Gymnasium again Tuesday for a SouthWest Suburban Conference showdown against Andrew, one they seized control of early and never looked back in a 57-31 victory.

“We had kind of a rough holiday tournament, but we learned a lot and played some good competition,” senior center Nick Allen, who led the Boilers with 15 points Tuesday, said. “Those teams like Normal will be in our regional probably: Normal, Moline, Rock Island. Those are some pretty good teams so we’ll have to be ready.”

The Boilers improved to 11-4 and 4-1 in the SWSC while the Thunderbolts fell to 6-10, 1-5. In perhaps the most intriguing rivalry in the red division of the conference, seven of the teams' past eight meetings were decided by two possessions or less. But after an 18-2 run between the end of the first and start of the second quarter, the Boilers pulled ahead 31-16 early in the second and never again led by less than double digits.

“We didn’t start great, but we started to pick up the energy, pick it up on defense,” Boilers head coach Ryan Kemp said. “And once we started to pressure them that kind of dictated the game.”

Blending a full-court press, man-to-man defense and a myriad of zone looks, the Boilers were able to keep Andrew, who was shorthanded without start Athan Berchos, off kilter all night. The Thunderbolts opened both the second and third quarters on lengthy scoring droughts, scoring their first basket of the second quarter midway through the frame and their first basket of the second half with 3:18 left in the third quarter.

With the 6-foot-11 Allen and his cousin, 6-foot-5 junior forward Liam Martin, surrounded by a handful of quick guards, Kemp has plenty of fun pieces to work with when constructing his defensive gameplans.

“The way that we’re built, we’re built for defense,” Kemp said. “We have guys that are super fast and can defend any way we want them to, and then we’ve got size. We can put all kinds of pressure on people, and if they get past us we’ve got two human fly swatters down there.”

Offensively, Allen, an Illinois State commit, was able to pour in 15 of his team-high 17 points in the first half. But as the double teams he routinely saw started turning into triple teams, the Boilers saw their ball movement allow them to outscore the Thunderbolts 26-10 in the second half.

Senior guard Gavin Kohl and Martin were the ones who finished most of those second-half drives off, as both finished with 13 points. Kohl, who hit a pair of 3-pointers for half of the Boilers' 12-0 run to open the second half, said that as Allen found open teammates on the perimeter, the Boilers were able to continue making the extra pass that allowed for even better looks at the basket.

“Nick is such a forceful player in the post, it’s really hard for teams,” Kohl said. “They have to double him at least, and when they triple him, it leaves multiple guys open. We had a lot of good one-mores and I was just wide open, so shoot that thing with confidence.”

UP NEXT

The Boilers are back home for another conference tilt with Lincoln-Way West at 7 p.m. Friday.

https://daily-journal.com/sports/boys-basketball-boilers-down-rival-andrew-for-pivotal-swsc-win/article_e47cbcdc-cd7d-11ef-a2bd-3b3d698bdc05.html