John Wooden was right, and then some. Defense not only wins championships, it wins conference games in the middle of February.
Richards proved that Feb. 13. Trailing 35-34 after 24 minutes, the Bulldogs used a tenacious defense, combining a press with transition offense, to score a 56-48 victory over the visiting Argonauts in a South Suburban Red contest.
Key to the effort was eliminating the considerable threat presented by Darron Greer Jr. The senior had 13 points in the first three quarters, but managed only one basket in the final eight minutes, a dunk with 3.4 seconds remaining, and didn’t often touch the ball in the preceding 7:56.6.
“They were playing us too high (defensively),” said Richards’ Messiah Horton, whose 29-point showing was a season high, with 18 coming in the second half. “I saw gaps in the middle so I was getting to my spot in the middle every time.
“Argo’s good, but we stopped Greer and we stopped him as a team. We’ve got to turn it on like that because we’re a defensive team. We’ve got to play together as a team every time we step on the court.”
The effort led to Richards’ 16th victory of the year, against a dozen setbacks, and buoyed coach Jamal Thompson’s outlook about a team that has won four of its last six as the playoffs loom.
“We want to force our opponent to make mistakes,” Thompson said. “The fourth quarter, we just wore down on ‘em. They started making lazy passes and we started converting those deflections into points.”
The first 5:18 of the final quarter was the difference. Richards’ 17-4 outburst was led by 10 points from Horton and seven from Travon Gourdine, while the Argonauts (8-21, 4-9 through last week) had five turnovers and six misses from the field. Greer was effectively cut off from his teammates, with only one field-goal attempt in crunch time, though to his credit he made a pair of steals to thwart Richards attacks.
How could a game with 10 lead changes and seven ties suddenly flip the Bulldogs’ way? Argo coach Pat Maietta, whose team had lost eight games by five or fewer points coming into Richards’ gym, has been in this movie before.
“We had a bad stretch of a minute-and-a-half, then Gourdine hit a 3 in the corner, we turned it over two straight times – it’s kind of been the story of our season, we’re playing fine and then we’ll have a bad stretch,” Maietta said. “Two, three minutes and that decides the game.
“It’s pressure. Are we tough enough? Are we mature enough to handle it? And Greer, we need to do a better job of finding him and he needs to do a better job of stepping up and finding his spots. Get to the glass, get an easy bucket. Work inside out.”
Argo was led by Adrian Lee-Horton’s 19-point showing. Greer finished with 15.
The Argonauts bounced back the next day to beat Fenton 53-41. Lee-Horton led the way with 15 points and Joseph Narvaez scored 11.