Playing without Jaylon Watts, CHS USES backdoor CUTS TO win at MC

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The buzzer sounded with the ball in the air and basketball hung on the rim for a second.
But for the spectators on both sides of the Michigan City gymnasium Thursday night, that brief eternity must have felt long enough to build the Great Wall of China, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the pyramids, all the pyramids.
It kissed off the rim and fell to the floor, triggering a mass sigh from the visiting crowd. Chesterton escaped with a 52-49 victory despite not getting a first-half point from its two leading scores, when two City players went off for a combined 20 points.
If Anthony Murphy’s shot, taken after City in-bounded the ball from the side of the court with 1.4 seconds left, had gone in the Wovles (9-9 overall and 2-3 in the DAC) would have carried momentum into overtime.
The Trojans (10-8, 2-3) played without leading rebounder and second-leading scorer Jaylon Watts, who was home resting from a concussion, and Pokorney went scoreless in the first half.
Chesterton trailed 28-23 at the half, by which time Murphy, a smooth 6-foot-5 do-it-all player, had nine of his 15 points, and 6-7 3-point shooter Keegan Cowgill had 11 of his 14.
Then Chesterton played such pretty basketball in the second that half tuxedos and bow ties would have been more fitting apparel than shorts and a jersey.
The Trojans repeatedly executed basketball’s prettiest play, the equivalent of a double play in baseball, a royal flush in poker, a high draw off the tee: the backdoor cut, poetry in motion.
Multiple players caught their defenders looking at the ball and not at them and cut hard to the hoop. Caden Schneider, Tobias Ray and Rob Czarniecki all delivered beautiful bounce passes to wide-open teammates for easy layups, a play that as much as any in basketball leaves defenders kicking themselves.
After pulling out the victory, fittingly, Chesterton left the gym out the back door and walked to the team bus, a stroll that would have seemed a lot colder had they not pulled out a badly needed victory for a short bus ride home, which of course would have seemed a lot longer and been a lot quieter if not for the big win.
“There’s no better feeling than passing that and getting your guy open,” said Schneider, stationed at the high post when he fed cutting teammates.
Added Czarniecki: “We get those plays a lot in practice. When Caden and I are on different teams, we go back and forth with back-door passes and jab at each other with it to see whose is better. Nothing like that. Those are great plays for us. Caden definitely sees the floor very well.”
And Czarniecki has done everything well for the Trojans, everything but one thing he had done well before this season: shoot 3-pointers, until Thursday.
He made one in the first half after a ball deflected off another player’s back and went right to him for an open 3. He hit another in the fourth quarter, giving him twice as many in one night than he had made all season.
“Just needed to hit one I guess,” Czarniecki said.
His second 3 bounced a few times, appeared ready to glance off the rim, and then changed its mind and fell through.
“I felt like Kawhi Leonard when he hit the game-winner (2019 to clinch series for the Raptors vs. the Sixers) and it was just bouncing,” Czarniecki said. “It went in and I was just like, ‘Oh, all right.’ It was a slower moment than when Murphy was shooting his last 3-pointer. That was a slow moment. That one-and-half seconds felt like 15 seconds. I thought he was going to make it.”
Czarniecki, the best baseball prospect in the state of Indiana, according to Prep Baseball Report, uses some of those athletic traits to play fast, defend well, muscle rebounds away, hustle non-stop to energize teammates and stay calm under pressure to keep panic from spreading. On this night, with Watts not there because of the concussion he sufffered when he slammed his head hard off the floor in the Hanover Central win, Czarniecki helped to fill the scoring and rebounding void.
“Hes’ like Dennis Rodman in a way. He’s all over the place,” Ray said of his teammate. “There were a couple of times last game when we told him, ‘Hey man, you should shoot it.’ So he did tonight and he buried two of them. That’s really good for his confidence. Also, he had a lot of rebounds and had to guard Murphy.”
Chesterton coach Marc Urban never stopped encouraging Czarniecki to take the open shot.
“He’s a good shooter. He just hasn’t shot it yet, but we’re still living so that’s good,” Urban said. “It was a gritty win, especially with Jaylon not here. You take your second-leading scorer out and you find a way to get a win on the road, where it’s tough. We have six days to get better and then we have a big one with Portage on Friday, but it’s more about we have to keep getting better this month.”
Ray had one of his better play-making games, delivering a number of slick interior passes, including one to Pokorney sneaking backdoor. Ray also led the team with 15 points and made 5 of 6 free throws to bury a mini-slump from the line.
Schneider rebounded well and scored six points to complement his passing. Malachi Ransom, starting in place of Watts, had just three points, but he used his quickness to supply help defense on multiple occasions, including once with a minute remaining to thwart a scoring opportunity and then grabbed the rebound.
“We had to step up,” Schneider said of playing without Watts. “We had to man up. We had to take what the game threw us. When it was your time to make a play, you had to make it.”
The bench also delivered for the Trojans. Bradly Basila, the 6-7 freshman from the Democratic Republic of Congo, scored five first-quarter points and made 3 of 4 free throws, not bad for a player who never shot a leather basketball until two-and-a-half weeks ago, instead playing with rubber ones and typically shooting on bent rims. Junior guard Peyton Tarnowski hit a 3-pointer in the second quarter to trim the hosts’ seven-point lead.
“I thought we were unselfish. It was a gritty win, especially with Jaylon not here,” Urban said. “You take your second-leading scorer out and you find a way to get a win on the road, where it’s tough. We have six days to get better and then we have a big one with Portage on Friday, but it’s more about we have to keep getting better this month.”
Chesterton is idle until the Feb. 14 home game with Portage (13-4, 5-0), which took sole possession of first place in the DAC by crushing Crown Point, 64-40, in a home game Thursday night.