Broncos Basketball Battle Tested for Playoffs

The Broncos ended the regular season on Tuesday, Feb. 21, with a home game. Prior to that, Barrington played four straight road games, and despite going 2-3 in that tough five game stretch, head coach Bryan Tucker isn’t worried about the outcomes.

“We’ve played Fremd, Huntley and now Prospect, three really talented teams, and these games have gotten us ready for the state tournament,” he said following Barrington’s tough 65-51 loss in a rematch of last year’s MSL Championship loss to Prospect.  “You aren’t going to see much better competition than what we just saw, and I think that has us battle tested.”

Barrington will now take their (18-10) record to the Zion-Benton regional to start the state tournament as the sixth seed.  The Broncos will begin the state tournament Tuesday, Feb. 28 (tip-off at 8:10), with a first round match against Lake Zurich.

“We hate heading into the tournament with a loss but at the same time this has been a real learning experience,” Tucker said.  “We beat Fremd, went toe-to-toe with Huntley and even in this game (against Prospect) I think the score was deceptive and doesn’t reflect how competitive this game really was.”

Behind junior Brad Zaumseil’s 9 first half points, Barrington battled back from an earlier first quarter deficit to take a 30-26 halftime lead over last year’s MSL champs.  Zaumseil ended the game with 11 points, but chipped in on every category in the box score with 6 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals.

“He probably assisted on most of our baskets,” said Tucker of his crafty unselfish guard.  “He just knows how to generate offense.”  

However Barrington would lose their grip on the lead during the seesaw third quarter that saw Prospect pull ahead near the end of the quarter with a 48-45 advantage.

Barrington’s leading scorer, senior John Schneider, scored 5 points in the quarter (ended with 19 and 8 rebounds) and senior center Lee Conforti’s 5 points (7 points for the game) kept the Broncos within striking distance throughout the third frame; however, Prospect was able to pull away and secure the win during the fourth quarter propelled by three Knights in double figures.

“Prospect beat us last year in the championship game and then beat us again in the summer league; so we were coming out with an urgency to win and some vengeance.” said Schneider the 6’7 center committed to Western Illinois University.  “Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the job done.”

“They played well the whole game,” Schneider went on to say.  “We just started making stupid mistakes, turnovers and shots just were not going in.”

Prospect (17-8), capitalizing on the Bronco miscues and missed shots, extended their lead behind the guard play of senior Mike LaTulip’s consistency.  LaTulip led all scores with 28 points and added 4 assists.

“Barrington pressures hard and we knew they were going to do it from the get-go,” LaTulip said following the game.  “So we knew if we could get the ball out quickly and run our transition offense-that’s when we are our best.”

“This was huge coming into Barrington especially knowing that this was sort of a revenge game from last year when we won the MSL,” he went on to say.

Prospect’s Brad Reibel had 12 points and 3 assists while Jack Landwehr finished the MSL crossover game with 10 points, 7 rebounds.