Williams Warns: No Time for Bloom Boys Basketball to Let Its Guard Down

Win and move on. Lose and go home.

It’s that time of year in high school basketball. And, while Bloom Township scored a 41-37 victory over Thornton Fractional North in a semifinal game Tuesday at the Class 4A Joliet Central Regional, coach Jasper Williams wasn’t particularly pleased.

He felt like his Blazing Trojans let their defensive guard down.

“We definitely didn’t play our style of defense,” Williams said. “We had too many kids beating us off the dribble. No help in the gap. And the big guys—when they rotated to the ball, they rotated and tried to block shots instead of taking the charge. So, this definitely wasn’t Bloom Township defense.”

The Blazing Trojans (24-3) have relied on their defense to pull them through all season, starting at the Chicago Heights Classic and continuing through the McDipper Tournament and Southland Athletic Conference play. And they’ll look to put up another D-fence in the regional final on Friday night against Sandburg.

“Yeah, exactly, it’s about moving on in the postseason,” Williams said. “But after 27 games or whatever we have and 24 wins, we expect a little bit better. We didn’t execute on offense. We got kind of rattled there when they came with the running-jump and double-teamed Donald Moore.

“He threw the ball out of bounds once. We’ve seen that type of defense all year. And that type of defense shouldn’t rattle us like that.”

Thornton Fractional North didn’t play like a No. 16 seed facing the No. 1 seed. The Meteors scrapped and clawed to the finish despite foul trouble that cost them two starters—Ashanti Randolph and Nicholas Wood.

Greg McClain scored nine of his 14 points in the second half for T.F. North and used his quickness to break down Bloom’s defense on drives to the basket. While he didn’t always score, he did draw fouls. And he made 5-of-6 free throws.

His work did not go unnoticed.

“Well, hopefully we’re going to come out with a more energy (Friday night) and hopefully we can defend a little bit better,” Williams said. “We’ve got to execute better. But I think we’ll be ready to play Friday. You’ve got to get the first game out of the way—just like in any tournament.”

Bloom Township senior point guard Donald Moore said he’ll talk with his teammates and do his part to get the Blazing Trojans ready for whatever Sandburg throws at them. The Eagles rallied to overtake Bloom 47-43 in overtime when the two met in the MLK Day of Hoops event earlier at Joliet Central.

Moore doesn't want to be a part of an Eagle encore performance. He made 11-of-13 free throws and scored a game-high 15 points against T.F. North.

“It’s just more effort,” he said. “We weren’t really setting up the wall. We were letting guys drive right past us and get to the basket. We’ve got to move our feet more, just give more effort on the defensive end.

“That’s my job as a leader, I’ve got to have the guys ready. So, the next two days of practice will be real tough on defense, help-side, stuff like that. I’ll tell them, ‘It’s win or go home. It’s our season. It’s our future.' ”