Darron Greer Jr. keeps piling up the points for Argo.
In a 74-42 victory over visiting Universal on Dec. 19, Greer Jr. played just three quarters. But the 6-foot-4 senior forward posted a game-best 27 points to go along with six rebounds, four assists and three steals.
“Darron has been putting up outstanding numbers,” Argonauts coach Pat Maietta said. “He had 27 (Friday) night and he had a weekend back-to-back with TF North and Chicago Christian with 27 and 28. He had 23 against Oak Forest.
“He’s been averaging 20 (points) and 10 (rebounds). … He’s gotten better every year. The challenge of any young kid is how do they lead and he’s working on that. He’s being challenged with that every day.”
To think, however, that Greer Jr. was alone against the Stars and their 2-3 zone defense would be inaccurate. Adrian Lee-Horton added 12 points for Argo (4-6), Adam El Hadi and Ian Hernandez finished with nine points apiece and Joseph Navarez chipped in eight points.
“We’ve been struggling a little bit the last couple of games with moving the ball around and playing collectively as a team,” Greer said. “We just really needed to get a good win and have a game where we trust everybody so that we can continue to excel.
“(Friday) night, we moved the ball around for sure. At lot of us, we tend to take ‘my turn’ shots and come out in the game thinking that we have to shoot. In this game, we ended up passing. Since I’m a leader, I feel like I have to initiate certain things first in order to get everyone going.”
Leading 24-16 after the first quarter, the Argonauts used an 18-7 run to earn a 42-23 advantage with 53.8 seconds remaining in the second quarter after Greer’s lefthanded layup off a drive to the basket.
“My strengths are my driving, and I worked all summer on shooting the mid-range (jumper),” Greer said. “Taking somebody off the bounce and going right into a mid-range is probably another one of my strengths now.”
In the third quarter, Universal drew to within 48-33 on a 3-pointer from the top of the key by Laith Baste (six points) at the 5:14 mark. From there, Argo widened its lead with a 16-3 run that was capped by a runner by Lee-Horton.
AbuBakr Hasan paced the Stars (5-3) with 13 points, including three 3-pointers. Zedan Said contributed nine points for Universal.
“Record-wise, I think they’re one of the better Universals (teams) in the last couple of years,” Maietta said. “I think they had one of their kids who was hurt and we knew that on film (No.) 1 (Said) and (No.) 13 (Hasan) were going to be their best scorers.
“At halftime, they had 17 of (Universal’s) 26 points and I challenged the guys. They knew who their best players were and to lock in on them (defensively). We wanted to share the ball and go from there.”