Maine East lacks intensity, falls in playoff opener

Crawford's reunion with former team Mather isn't a happy one

It was a reunion Maine East boys basketball coach Huey Crawford probably wished he had missed.

The former Mather coach met up with his old team Monday night and his Blue Demons, seeded 20th in the Niles West Sectional, couldn’t measure up to the 13th-seeded Rangers as they bowed out of thestate playoffs 83-54 in the Class 4A Loyola Regional quarterfinals in Wilmette.

Mather (24-3), where Crawford was the head coach for four years before coming to Maine East (5-22) two seasons ago, took it to the Blue Demons from the opening tip and never trailed in the contest. The Chicago Public League entry now advances to play No. 4 seed Von Steuben Tuesday night.

Maine East’s Nusrath Khan turned in a sparkling performance in his final game for the Blue Demons with a game-high 25 points.

Khan hit three free throws after being fouled behind the arc to bring Maine East to within 9-7 midway through the first quarter, but it was as close as the Blue Demons would come, and the Rangers poured it on from that point.

Crawford said, unfortunately, his team apparently didn’t come ready to play.

“It’s a shame in a state playoff game that you don’t have any intensity.  They were aggressive and we weren’t,” Crawford said. “From the get-go Mather was attacking the basket and our guys were moving out of the way of taking charges, not rotating on defense and not moving their feet. We just didn’t play a very good game.”

Maine East trailed 20-12 after the first quarter and things only got worse for them as Mather seemingly scored at will inside. Mather started the second quarter with an 11-0 run as Maine East did not score until there were just 3 minutes, 30 seconds left before the break.

The Blue Demons were outscored 23-9 in the period as Mather’s Brandon Roby (12 points) and Kyle Gordon (14 points) led the charge with 10 and nine points, respectively, in the first half as their advantage grew to 43-21 at halftime.

The Blue Demons couldn’t buy a basket to start the second half either and couldn’t stop the Rangers’ Banji  Osinaile from building the Mather lead to 30 points at 54-24 as he scored 10 of his team’s next 11 points in the third. The advantage jumped to 66-31 at the end of three quarters.

Maine East hit only four buckets in the period, including three-pointers from Khan and Darnel Jones off the bench, while Mather canned 12 shots. The only aspect of the game won by the Blue Demons came at the free throw line, where Maine East hit 13 of 17 and Mather only 9 of 16.

Turnovers also were a problem for Maine East throughout as it committed 10 in the first half (19 for the game) that led to 12 points for Mather ( 11 turnovers).

“Only one kid, Darnel Jones, actually stepped up tonight and the rest of the kids didn’t come ready to play,” Crawford said. “Even though he scored 25 points, I see this as a bad night for Nus (Khan). Sometimes the other kids feed off him and when he has a bad night it seems the other kids have a bad night, too.
“At halftime, I told the team to just play basketball,” he added. “We weren’t doing anything right in the first half and they were doing everything right. The bottom line is the more aggressive team won tonight.”

Khan ended his high school basketball career as one of the CSL’s all-time leading scorers. Despite scoring nearly half of his teams points, he said his team just did not respond offensively or defensively against Mather.

“We didn’t execute well and we didn’t attack,” Khan said. “We came out acting scared and it showed.”

Khan and Crawford both admitted that it has been a frustrating season.

“We showed inexperience all year with only three returning varsity players,” Crawford said. “We were counting on some transfers to step in and play some roles for us and they didn’t. We played 50 games in the summer with two kids that transferred out of here and that obviously hurt us because the others didn’t get used to the rotation until maybe a quarter of the way through the season.

“It was a mixed bag,” he added. “Despite everything , Nus had a good season with no other scorers around him. He tried to do too much, I think. He felt like he had to do all the scoring.”

Khan added that having two starters taken off the team late in the season also diminished any hopes of a successful postseason.

“We had a lot of ups and downs, more downs than ups all year and we went through a lot of adversity, Khan said.  “Players were kicked off the team, people left the team early, so it definitely turned out to be a unique season.”

Senior guard Zeeshan Rauf contributed nine points for Maine East. while Jones, Wily Gandy and Aaron Shannon each chipped in five.

Mather was led by Osinaile (15 points) and Gordon (14) followed by Brandon Roby with 12 points and Eddie Seda with 10.