By Mike Clark
Not much was going right for Curie in the first half against visiting Kenwood on Thursday evening. The Condors’ shots weren’t falling and the Broncos were doing enough on offense to lead by four going into the break.
Then UIC recruit Carlos Harris III decided it was time for a chat with his teammates.
“The first half, we (were) getting bullied around,” Harris said. “But we stepped up, I talked to my team, telling them to push them around back. It’s Public League basketball. The refs ain’t gonna call it either. It’s just playing basketball.”
The Condors cranked up the defense and Harris got some offensive help from his teammates after that. Curie outscored Kenwood by an eye-opening 28-4 in the third quarter to take a 20-point lead and coasted to a 68-49 win to stay perfect in the Public League Red South-Central.
Harris had a game-high 21 points, eight rebounds and two steals for Curie (17-1, 5-0). Will Gonzalez and Christian Brockett both added 11 points, Derrick Dowdell scored eight and Mason Minor had five points and six rebounds. All of those Condors are seniors except Dowdell, who’s a junior.
The experience factor made a difference against Kenwood (12-5, 4-2), which is talented but less experienced than Curie.
“We wanted to put some pressure on their younger guards and I think our guys rattled them a lot when we started putting pressure on their guards up top,” Condors coach Mike Oliver said. “When you’ve got a senior like Carlos Harris, you’re always going to be in the game.”He carried us in the first half (scoring 12 points.). … That’s what Division I players do.”
Then Gonzalez, who missed his first seven shots, got dialed in.
“I always believe the next shot is going in,” Gonzalez said. “Even though I missed all those in the first half, I just kept shooting and they finally went in. So it felt good.”
He figured the Condors’ early offensive woes couldn’t continue.
“For us to shoot that bad and (still) be in the game — we knew once the shots started going in they couldn’t hang with us,” Gonzalez said.
Harris wasn’t worried either, expecting his team to turn things around like it has done so many times this season.
“We know when there’s big games … it’s time to step up,” Harris said. “You say you’re the No. 1 team (in the Chicago area), you step up.”
Oliver credits the Condors’ poise to the rugged schedule they play.
“We’ve been in wars,” he said. “I tell people when you come (back) from the Pontiac Holiday Tournament you’ve seen everything so nothing’s going to surprise you.
“We don’t worry about (opponents’) size, we worry about fundamentals because we can play any style of basketball.”
Indeed, with the big lead in hand, the Condors slowed the tempo in the fourth quarter and coasted home.
Rajan Roberts was the only Kenwood scorer in double figures, finishing with 17 points. Freshman Devin Cleveland had seven.
Broncos coach Mike Irvin said his team needs to get in sync on offense.
“Until they get out of that ‘me, me, me’ (mentality) and understand we win when we have 15-plus assists — I can’t come out to these games and it’s all about ‘I.’ They’ve got to be (about) what’s on the chest and that’s ‘Kenwood basketball,'” Irvin said. “When we move the basketball, it’s beautiful. But then when we dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, that’s what happens.”
