The ice bag attached to his aching hip after Friday’s Class 4A Evanston Regional championship basketball game still wasn’t as big as the smile worn by Timi Ogunsanya.
The Wildkits’ only senior starter figured a little pain is worth it as long as you survive and advance.
Host Evanston advanced in convincing fashion by drilling Niles North 80-55 for the regional title behind Ogunsanya’s 25 points, seven assists and the kind of physicality you need to survive in the state’s toughest sectional grouping.
After beating Niles North for the third time this season, the Wildkits improved to 26-6. Now they’ll step out of the frying pan and into the fire, joining last year’s Class 3A state champion — DePaul Prep — and neighborhood rivals Loyola Academy and New Trier at the Loyola Academy Sectional next week.
Top-seeded DePaul meets New Trier in Tuesday’s semifinal, and No. 2 seed ETHS is matched against Loyola in Wednesday’s semi. Both games will start at 7 p.m.
Ogunsanya, who was only a bit player in Evanston’s run to the Final Four a year ago, stepped up his overall play along with a more physical style for a team that badly needed that element after graduating four senior starters.
On Friday, he got to the foul line a dozen times, sinking nine of those attempts, and left a lasting impression for Wildkit fans — along with a few skin cells after being knocked down on more than one occasion — in his final home court appearance. The slender senior also contributed 4-of-5 shooting from 3-point range, two steals and a blocked shot for the winners.
He led a balanced attack that also featured Ben Ojala (18 points, six assists, two steals), Vito Rocca (16 points, seven rebounds, two steals) and Dion Lane Jr. (10 points). That proved to be too much firepower for the Vikings to handle, as they bowed out with a 23-10 record that included regular season losses to ETHS by margins of 80-64 and 72-70.
Evanston didn’t make the mistake of assuming a third matchup would have the right outcome. They limited the Vikings to 37% shooting from the field and only Central Suburban League North Division “Player of the Year” Collin Tobin was able to get untracked with his team-high 21 points.
“This was most definitely my best game,” said Ogunsanya after the traditional cutting-down-of-the-net postgame celebration. “It feels great! I knew I had to play my hardest tonight because this was my last game here as a senior. I knew I had to give it my all so I didn’t have any regrets.
“The coaches said all week that it didn’t matter what happened in the other games against them. Your mindset has to be like you lost to them the first two times, so we had a big motivation to go out and play against them like we were 0-2.”
Evanston’s “downhill” approach on offense struck a perfect balance for the winners. With Ogunsanya and others driving to the basket every opportunity they had, the Kits got to the foul line more often and later in the contest had more open 3-point opportunities, too. Evanston shot 10-of-22 from 3-point range against a Viking squad not exactly known for its defense, and finished at exactly 60% shooting (27-of-45) overall.
“When I watched the film of our other games against them, I said to myself that I could have gone downhill against them a lot more,” Ogunsanya said. “I learned that basically just from watching the film.
“Over the summer I worked a lot on becoming more physical, on learning to play through contact. It paid off tonight.”
“What a special performance that was by Timi,” praised ETHS head coach Mike Ellis. “He was definitely our leader tonight. He made hustle plays, he rebounded well and he blocked a couple of shots. I’m so glad he went out a winner as a senior in his last game on his home court.
“We’ve talked to all of them about toughness — except for Vito, I’ll never have to have that conversation with him — and toughness is not just physical, it’s also mental. We told them they all had to play tougher and stronger this year. There’s no debate about how tough that team was last year, and they should have learned from them that that’s the formula for our success.
“I think the most important thing about tonight was how level-headed they played, from start to finish,” Ellis continued. “They didn’t have highs and lows. The strength of our team is their belief in one another. Tonight, everybody took a turn (in the spotlight). I love how they play when they think I might have a good shot, but my brother next to me might have a great shot — so they give him the ball. You can see the love they play with together.”
Rocca and Ogunsanya wiped out any worries about slow starts that have become an issue in the month of February for the Wildkits, combining for 15 points in the first quarter as the hosts built a 22-14 edge.
And when North’s Tobin picked up a technical foul for taunting Schroeder, the Viking guard went to the bench with his third foul and didn’t return until after halftime.
By that time, Evanston had rolled to a 42-28 lead and all that remained was to see how many of the winners would reach double figures.
Evanston connected on 16-of-22 free throws on the night, compared to North’s 20-of-25. But in a sense, the winners beat the Vikings at their own game after a disparity in attempts when the two teams met in the CSL Crossover Showcase just a week ago.
“We didn’t want to lose at the free throw line tonight, like the last time,” Ellis explained. “Their strategy last time was to just drive right into us on defense and score with the clock stopped. But tonight the officials understood that it’s a strategy, and it’s not a foul every time. They allowed the game to flow, and we knew we needed to be as aggressive as well so we’d have the same opportunities.”
