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player ready...Kaneland traded basket for basket with unbeaten Burlington Central through three quarters of Wednesday’s quarterfinal game at the Plano Christmas Classic.
In the fourth quarter, it wasn’t as easy for the Knights to trade baskets when Burlington Central guard Ta Vontae Harris took away the ball.
Harris scored a game-high 17 points and made five steals as the top-seeded Rockets turned back Kaneland 54-47.
“Our team is based on causing the other team to turn over the ball,” Harris said. “That’s how we’ve won most of our games. So ball pressure, that’s our key to success.”
Harris, a senior point guard, had seven fourth-quarter points, two steals and deflected another ball for a turnover. Zach Schutta finished with 15 points to help Burlington (9-0) earn a semifinal showdown at 7 p.m. Thursday against fourth-seeded Newark.
“I was reading the person who had the ball, their eyes, so I could be able to jump the pass and I was able to steal the ball,” Harris said. “I’d look at the eyes and time it right before they’re about to throw it, so I could get my jump start and I could steal it.”
The game had nine lead changes until Harris stole the ball 20 seconds into the fourth quarter and drove for a layup to put the Rockets up for good, 40-39.
The Rockets forced a turnover and Schutta got inside for a layup off Joey Ratzek’s pass. Then Harris made a scooping shot on the drive after a Kaneland miss to extend the Rockets’ lead to 46-41.
“I thought we took their best shot today,” Burlington coach Brett Porto said. “They played a good game.
“We try to hang our hat on our defense and defensive effort. We were pretty much on point defensively in the second half.”
Kaneland (4-7) had 15 points from guard Jake Hed, but went 3-for-10 in the fourth quarter from the field. The Knights turned the ball over 21 times, but stayed in it until Schutta and Ratzek both got inside for layups to pad the lead to 50-44 with 1:18 left.
“We were settling for our outside shots at the beginning of the game,” Schutta said. “They were just turning our bad shots into offense. So I think we really wanted to get the layups in the fourth quarter.”
While the defense was there at closing time, Harris said it wasn’t always the case. Kaneland made seven 3-pointers, including three by Hed.
“Defensively, we had a lot lacking in closeouts,” Harris said. “That’s why they had a lot of threes. But our help side was there and we stepped up at the right time.”
The Rockets are very familiar with Newark, the team that beat them in last year’s third-place game here.
“They’re always good,” Porto said. “They’ve got five really good basketball players and played with each other so long they just know where each other is going to be on the court.”
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