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Defense, board work power Girard over Niles
Graziano’s 15 points, plus defense and rebounding, lead Indians
GIRARD
In this season of giving, Girard’s boys basketball team was more in the spirit of denying.
It sounds so terrible, but it had to be done if the Indians were to be successful against Niles’ Cameron Kane-Johnson and his 30.5 scoring average entering Tuesday night’s All-American Conference game between teams in different tiers.
Girard (3-5) held the senior guard to just five points and the Indians shut down the rest of the Red Dragons (4-3) for a 59-42 victory. Niles (AAC White), which had the lead early then trailed by 15 points or more most of the remainder of the game, shot 15 of 51 from the field.
Niles coach Ron Price attributed his Red Dragons’ lack of offensive production to getting “destroyed in the paint.”
Price didn’t hesitate to say that Girard (AAC Blue) dominated under the basket on both ends of the floor.
“They did a great job on the interior and they just destroyed us inside with the glass,” Price said of the Indians crashing and boards and their interior play in general. “We just need to get a little tougher inside.”
Much of it was due to Darrien Tiggett and Mike Guyer, who had 16 and nine rebounds, respectively, for the winners.
“We didn’t get many put-backs,” Price said. “We need as many cheapies when we’re shooting and not making a lot, but I’m proud of the way we fought back. We had a chance to get to single digits and give one push at the end, but they made plays down the stretch that didn’t leave much doubt [about the game’s outcome].”
Anthony Graziano led Girard with 15 points, while Guyer and Julian Berry had 11 apiece for the winners, whose coach was happy with his team’s lopsided 46-15 advantage on the boards.
“Truthfully, we haven’t been great on the glass this season,” said Craig Hannon. “Believe it or not, with our size, it [rebounding] hasn’t been great, but tonight we had a mindset to go get the ball. We wanted the basketball and we wanted to limit it [Niles’ field goals] to one shot and our guys did a really good job of having that mindset and doing it.”
Price said Cameron Kane-Johnson hurt an ankle just before halftime of last Friday’s game against Boardman when Kane-Johnson finished with 18 points. But the Niles coach didn’t think it had too much of a bearing in Tuesday’s game. After the loss to Boardman, Kane-Johnson was 19 shy of 1,000 entering the Girard game.
“We did a really good job of just making him get rid of the ball and give it up because he’s so dangerous when he has the ball,” Hannon said. “Once he did give it up, the job of the guy on him was to not let him get it back. So I just thought we were solid in our execution.”
Hannon didn’t think Kane-Johnson was at a disadvantage.
“If he’s hobbled or not, he’s a phenomenal player and a threat to score from anywhere,” Hannon said. “I had no idea he was hobbled; he didn’t look hobbled to me.”
Hannon considers his Indians a work in progress.
“We’re up and down, so we need continuity. I need our guys to understand that this needs to be night-in and night-out. Once we start that, we can be pretty good.”
Garrett Pitts’ 10 points paced Niles, which was 10 of 39 from beyond the arc and 5 of 12 otherwise.