Chicagoland defeated Yavneh 65-56 Friday morning in the quarterfinal round of the Memphis Cooper Invitational Tournament. The loss evens the Bulldogs season at 1-1.
Yavneh went toe to toe with the #1 tournament seed Friday but imploded down the stretch with 22 turnovers and 14 devastating offensive rebounds allowed that directly led to the majority of the Chicagoland offense. The Bulldogs actually controlled most of the first half and were truly victims of an ability to get out of their own way. The game started with an offensive stalemate after Senior Captain Sam Kleinman found classmate David Rudomin off the opening tip. Chicagoland looked tight and nervous in missing their first 7 shots from the field but Yavneh could not truly take advantage missing easy opportunities of their own. By the time CJHS had gotten their legs under them it was still easy to recover with a quick 7-2 run to grab a three point lead. Kleinman continued to impress early, making the vaunted Chicagoland press look like a tofu version of Swiss Cheese. The Bulldogs had no trouble at all with that signature press over the course of the game. Instead, it was self-inflicted wounds that would loom so much larger on this morning. Yavneh regained the lead at 8-7 and led at the conclusion of the first period 10-9. The Bulldogs out-shot CJHS 50-22% but let them off the hook with 10 painful turnovers. The second period was a back-and-forth war with 6 lead changes and neither team holding more than a three point lead. An enormous three-point play by Kleinman at the rim kept the margin at a single point for halftime at 27-26. CJHS guard Josh Newlander scored 17 first half points while Kleinman played a magnificent first 16 minutes with 13 points of his own. The 13 Bulldog turnovers prevented a healthy lead and turned out to be an opportunity missed.
So many times this Yavneh team has made a huge third quarter push and to start this game was no different. A seemingly absent Senior Captain Adam Karnett for the first 6 periods of the season finally arrived on the scene in a big way. He found Kleinman for an immediate lead change and the Bulldogs built the lead to 3 points. Yavneh was off and running moments later as Adam Schor tip-followed a missed free throw to capture all the momentum. The 16-4 Chicagoland run that followed put Yavneh up against it, however. Following a solid Itai Guttman post move that did indeed include a made basket, the Bulldog defensive rebounding fundamentals fell completely apart. As the deficit grew to 8 and then 9 points to end the third period, the mistakes started to magnify. The situation looked desperate at 51-38 with 7:41 remaining in the game when Karnett decided that the game was not quite over. Consecutive three point rifle shots quickly got the Bulldogs right back in the game at 51-44 in less than a minute. However, the sequence that followed was one that could not be overcome. Chicagoland missed a three pointer that Yavneh actually grabbed the rebound on for a change. Sadly, though, that rebound was out-letted directly to a player that resides in the state of Illinois who passed to one of his teammates via yet another missed three pointer for a dagger second chance bucket. After an empty Bulldog possession, that same CJHS formula worked one more time for a 55-44 edge. Yavneh would scratch and claw back to within 5 points on a couple occasions thanks to a leaping Kleinman steal off a long pass. Guttman and Schor both had key plays in cutting the lead to 5 points. Guttman turned a blocked shot into a tap-assist to Kleinman and Schor got a chance to finish a three point play off a rebound with 1:38 remaining. But alas the critical mistakes continued including a variety of point-blank layups, long passes to no one in particular, and an inability to secure the basketball that was so incredibly important in the late stages. Adam Karnett and Sam Kleinman led the way for the Bulldogs with 19 and 17 points respectively. David Rudomin added 10 points of his own while the Guttman/Schor post combo collected 25 more rebounds.
Yavneh (1-1) and their layup line will now set their sights on a 5th place finish with two wins necessary still this weekend. Saturday night will bring a match up with Maryland’s Charles Smith Jewish Day School. It will be interesting to see the resolve of a team with such high expectations and so much still ahead of them this season. This group will be fully expected to bounce back like the veteran group they are and salvage a solid finish in Memphis.
The Kennel Report, now in its tenth season, has been written by…
Zack Pollack M&M
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