The Bison’s physical play kept the game close and they were only down six going into the fourth quarter. Then junior Devin O’Hara (10 points, 6 rebounds) started off a 13-2 run during a two minute span in the fourth quarter as the Knights pulled away. LaTulip, who was able to find his shot in the second half, scored 14 of his 27 points in the fourth helping the Knights get their sixth win in seven games.
“LaTulip is such a good player,” Buffalo Grove head varsity coach Ryan O’Connor said. “ I think we did a decent job of just kind of staying in his pocket. I think what kind of hurt us all was ultimately the rebounds.”
Winning six of the last seven games they have played, there must have been a key strategy the team has used to stay on top.
“The play is called The End,” said Camardella. “We use it to decoy Mike. We use him as the crosser, and what that does then is make defense focus on him, and then what you’ll see is other guys rotate lower, and then that’s when our guys are getting the layups. It’s just a way to create space.”
In order for Buffalo Grove’s defense to try to get on top of things, they had to come up with what to do, and fast.
“ [LaTulip] is difficult to guard for sure,” O’Connor said. “We put our quickest guy on him, but we were in foul trouble. That’s what was really getting us down.”
However, the Bisons used the box-and-one as their own secret weapon, and LaTulip didn’t handle it very well.
Buffalo Grove used it well, but played it a little too hard, recieving 15 fouls on that play alone.
There were around 40 fouls total that night, with the referees calling almost everything they saw.
“It was tight, and forced us to play with some lineups that we weren’t really used to playing with but, so be it,” said Camardella about the callings of the refs. “We won by 15 anyway.”
“[Early on] they took us out of our flow and credit them for keeping the game close,” Camardella said. “But once we got into that flow I feel like the game took care of itself.”
