Boys Basketball: Proviso East cruises by Willowbrook

Proviso East has been looking forward to next Thursday’s trip to Downers Grove South for a while, but that doesn’t mean the Pirates were looking past Friday night’s opponent.

Far from it. Despite playing without their best player, senior guard Keith Carter, the host Pirates rolled to a 78-37 victory over Willowbrook in West Suburban Gold action in Maywood.

Carter was benched for breaking a team rule, but No. 2 Proviso East (14-0, 4-0) didn’t miss a beat as reserves Brandon Jenkins and Michael Nicholas combined for 29 points. Jenkins led the Pirates with 15 points, 13 of which came in the second half, while Nicholas tallied 10 of his 14 points in the first half.

“We’re in (the part of) the schedule now where we’re getting tested mentally more than we are physically on the court, so I just tried to stress to them that the way we practice is the way we’re going to play,” Proviso East coach Donnie Boyce said. “And I liked the way that guys attacked practice this week.

“It’s always hard when you’ve got a looming game ahead of you to not think about that big game, but I really like the way the guys concentrated and came out here. We got off to a shaky start in the first quarter but we settled down and really got back to the way that we like to play.”

Willowbrook (2-13, 0-5) actually led 5-2 in the early going, but Trashaun Carroll’s three-point play tied it up and a pair of driving layups by Paris Burns triggered a 12-0 run by the Pirates, who never trailed again.

Nicholas, who made 6 of 11 shots, sank a pair of three-pointers in the first half as Proviso opened up a 37-17 cushion at the break.

“Mike Nicholas had a great night,” Boyce said. “He’s our shooter. When we’re struggling a little bit, he’s such a great outside shooter that he opens things up for us and creates some driving lanes for us.”

While acknowledging the looming showdown with defending conference champion Downers South (12-2, 4-0), Nicholas said that while the opponent may change, his game plan does not.

“I just approach it like any other game,” said Nicholas, whose career-high is 26 points. “Every game I know I’m put in to score, so I approach every game (to) score and play defense.”

The Pirates did both things well, committing only four turnovers through three quarters and eight overall while seven players combined to make 17 steals, including four by Jenkins and three each by Burns and Sterling Brown, who also had 12 points and six rebounds.

Brown made all three of his shots in the third quarter, when Proviso East canned 9 of 14 field goals to extend its lead to 55-27, using the transition game with deadly effect.

“With Keith not playing it was a lot of other distractions going on,” Nicholas said. “We did pretty good. I think we could have did better, but we did a pretty good job.”

Burns and fellow guard Paris Lee, who dished out four assists to go with two steals, both scored eight points, while Jabari Alex and Shaqell Mullin each added six points.

Boyce was also happy with the play of Deshamone McCarty, who started in place of Carter. McCarty didn’t score but held Willowbrook’s leading scorer, Tiger Greene, to five points on 1-for-9 shooting. Joshua Joiner led the Warriors with 19 points.

“The one thing that I’m really pleased about is everybody on the team tries to play all aspects of the game,” Boyce said. “A lot of times with high school kids they just concentrate on one thing, but for our team I think that’s the key to our success; that everybody wants to get a steal. It’s kind of like they feed off each other and off the way we create turnovers.”

So are the Pirates ready for Downers South?

“We’re prepared for it,” Nicholas said. “If we’re not we better get ready.”

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