February
19, 2007
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| Georgio Milligan pulling down one of his game-high 10 rebounds during Bosco's 62-40 dismantling of Westwood in the semifinals of the Bergen County Jamboree on Sunday night. | |
HACKENSACK -- A capacity crowd of over 3,500 came to the Rothman Center on Sunday night wondering if Westwood would continue its Cinderella run in the Jamboree or would it fall victim to Don Bosco.
Specifically, the majority of the crowd was trying to figure out how the Ironmen would stop Bergen County’s best player, Corey Raji. Everyone talked about how to defend the Boston College-bound big man, but Bosco head coach Kevin Diverio went a route that few people may have expected.
Westwood’s offense is a simple case of supply and demand, with Raji demanding the ball and his teammates supplying it. The Ironmen didn’t go after the end user, they directed their efforts at the suppliers.
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| Westwood's Corey Raji was held to 15 points by Bosco's defensive design. |
Using a stifling defense that limited the touches Raji would get to the point of frustration, Don Bosco earned its 16th trip to the championship game with a 62-40 defeat of the Cardinals.
The fourth-seeded Ironmen will resume their rivalry with second seed Bergen Catholic, a 60-56 winner over Pascack Hills, on Wednesday night in a 7:30 p.m. tipoff at the Rothman Center. They have met eight times previously in Jamboree action, with each winning four games. Don Bosco has won both championship game matchups (in 1997 and 2002), and each of them went into overtime.
They weren’t even close to overtime against Westwood (17-6) thanks to some excellent work in the defensive zone. The game amounted to two basic things – shut off the pass inside and, if the ball did get there, collapse on Raji and contest every move or shot.
“We felt that pressuring them (Cardinal guards) would limit Raji’s touches,” Diverio related. “If we could get turnovers before he touched the ball it would be to our benefit. That was a big key.”
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| Mike O'Keefe made this three-pointer as a part of Boso's early barrage. |
Westwood committed 14 first half turnovers and 20 in the game, and as early as late in the first quarter, Raji was getting frustrated by the lack of touches he was getting.
“Defensively, we played a good game for 32 minutes,” Diverio said.
Two plays stood out as classic examples of the Bosco defensive pressure. On one in the second quarter, Raji took a pass inside and, as he went up to shoot, he had the ball stolen away by Alex DeSanzo.
“I was actually up until about four o’clock this morning trying to figure out how I was going to stop him,” DeSanzo let on. “I tried to keep him right, and when he goes up for a pullup, knock it down, and keep him off the boards.”
The second came with 40 seconds to go in the half. Raji got a rebound on the defensive end, and looked to bring the ball up himself. As he moved forward, Georgio Milligan stole it from him, forcing a foul on Raji that he converted into two points at the line. Raji’s body language after the foul showed his frustration, and Milligan’s two free throws made it a 37-19 game at halftime.
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| Max Padula finished with 10 points for Westwood. |
“He wasn’t getting his shots off, and if he did, there were two or more people on him,” Milligan commented.
“At that point, we figured out we could contain him,” DeSanzo said.
“We wanted to get at least two guys on him, especially in the post,” Diverio explained, “and rotate from the weak side to stop them from dropping down from the block. We were physical with him, and keeping him to 15 points was pretty good. I would have been happy keeping him to 25 points.”
Don Bosco (19-5) also helped itself greatly by hitting its first seven shots from the floor and 10 of 13 in the first quarter, racing out to a 24-10 lead. Milligan had 10 of his 21 points in the period, and both Kyle Smyth and Mike O’Keefe drilled three-point field goals in those first seven shots.
From there, it was all about the defense creating things for the offense. As Westwood continued to have difficulty, Bosco thrived. DeSanzo had 13 points, 5 rebounds and two blocked shots along with two steals, almost matching Raji’s 15 points, 6 rebounds, 1 blocked shot and 3 steals himself.
“He’s been giving us a lot of quality minutes the last five or six games. Hopefully, he keeps doing it,” said Diverio.
“I wasn’t even going to play basketball this year,” said DeSanzo, a standout on Bosco’s state championship football team. “I never thought I’d be here.”
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| Kyle Smyth and Bosco will mee Bergen Catholic in Wednesday night's Jambo final. |
Milligan augmented his game-high point total with 10 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals, while Smyth sacrificed his scoring (5 points, all in the first quarter) to play strong help defense on Raji.
“In big games, he seems to get on the glass, which is something we need,” Diverio said of Milligan. “We’re not a real strong rebounding team, so when he gets involved, that’s pretty good.”
The Cardinals got 10 points out of Max Padula, but shot only 13 of 46 from the floor, including 2 of 15 on three-point field goal tries. They hit 12 of 17 free throws.
Raji finishes his Jamboree career as the second all-time leading scorer with 225 points in 10 games (Bogota’s Pat Sullivan is the record holder with 252 points in 10 games), and his four-game total of 121 points this year is the second highest single season total behind the 130 points Mahwah’s Kent Culuko scored back in 1989.
The Ironmen hit on 25 of 44 field goal tries (2 of 5 behind the arc) and 10 of 18 free throws. Vinnie Pernice had five assists and Smyth dished out four assists for Don Bosco, which will be aiming for its Jamboree seventh championship and second in three years.
“We had a lot of doubters coming into the season,” Milligan said, “but I think we’re proving a lot of people wrong.”
FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THIS GAME OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.
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