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No matter how you say it: Flames’ season over
EVANOCHKO, TILLEMA LEAD UWGB
(3/4/06)
In between, Tillema and Evanochko carved through the Flames’ defense as the No. 3 Fighting Phoenix eliminated UIC with a 76-66 victory at U.S. Cellular Arena.
Evanochko (pictured) scored just 11 points, but handed out 14 assists, most of them going to Tillema, a 6-foot-8-inch freshman, who buried six three-point baskets and scored a game-high 22 points.
“That man always kills us,” Collins said. “He found the guys that were hot, like Tillema. It became contagious and all of them started shooting well. Evanochko is the reason this team does well.”
Green Bay coach Tod Kowalczyk knew that the Flames’ zone defense was disruptive, so he added some wrinkles to the offense to free up shooters.
Evanochko scored 30 points against UIC earlier in the season during a 90-84 overtime victory in Green Bay, but the Flames were focused on slowly him down offensively. However, the junior point guard deferred to his teammates.
“In practice, we worked a lot on that zone,” Evanochko said. “Our practice and repetition helped me find openings in the zone and when the time came in the game, I was prepared.”
“The key to (solving) that zone was Ryan Evanochko,” Kowalczyk said. “He did an unbelievable job of being aggressive. For him to have 14 assists, that shows he’s a complete player. So many situations to score, but his role tonight was to distribute.”
Redshirt freshman Terry Evans added 14 points and true freshman Mike Schachtner contributed 12 points as the Phoenix (15-15) advanced to Saturday’s semifinal game with No. 2 seed Butler.
Green Bay shot 50 percent from three-point range, converting 11 of 22 from deep.
“We wanted to put Evanochko in a man-to-man situation at the top with Jovan [Stefanov], but they had somebody that put picks on him," Collins said. "When he turned the corner, we were forced to help with our wing people and he’d just kick out to three-point land.”
UIC started the game well, jumping out to a 13-6 lead in the first six minutes.
Then the game began to turn when Bowen telegraphed a pass at the top of the key, which was intercepted by Evans, who streaked the basket all alone for a dunk to pull Green Bay within 13-10. That pumped up Evans and the rest of the Phoenix soon followed.
Evans nailed a three-pointer with 11:45 left in the first half that began the Green Bay deluge of threes. Tillema got going soon after with consecutive three-pointers to complete a 9-0 run and put the Phoenix ahead 19-15.
The Flames countered with their 8-0 run to seize back the lead. Stefanov converted a three-point play, Jeffers hit a short jumper and Collum drilled a three to put UIC back on top at 23-19 with 7:23 before halftime.
Schachtner hit a 17-footer to start another 9-0 Phoenix spurt, which concluded with an Evans’ three-pointer.
Collum answered with another three-pointer, but Green Bay got hot again with Ryan Werch and Schachtner nailed back-to-back treys to get the Flames out of their game.
“We tried to play their game, back and forth, shooting jumpers with them,” Bowen said. “We weren’t going to outshoot them. We didn’t use our strength – we didn’t pound the ball in the post enough.”
After Kevin Bond hit a 16-foot jumper to pull UIC within 34-29 with 1:27 left in the first half, Josh Lawrence scored on a tip-in and Evanochko hit a short fadeaway jumper to put Green Bay up 38-29 at the break.
Though the Flames never gave up the fight in the second half, they just didn’t have an answer for the hot shooting of the Phoenix.
UIC cut the deficit to six points on four occasions, but the Phoenix always answered with a mini-run or a clutch shot to keep the Flames at bay.
“Every time we came close, they would hit some tough shots,” Stefanov said. “Tillema was hitting some tough shots. He definitely surprised us. They seemed like they practiced a lot on our zone.”
The Flames were poised to have one final run when Jeffers scored on a layup with 2:53 remaining in the game to cut the score to 69-61.
But taking a page from their old days with coach Dick Bennett, the Phoenix ran down the clock. Green Bay worked the ball to Tillema, who launched a three-pointer at the shot-clock and swished it, despite Zoric lunging at him with a hand in his face. The back-breaking shot put the lead back to double figures with 2:15 to play and signaled the beginning of the end of UIC’s season.
Collins had some positives on the just-concluded season with hopes for a brighter future.
“Besides (Bowen and Collum), we were pretty young this season,” Collins said. “We had a freshman point guard (Josh Mayo) most of the year. Othyus hadn’t played at this level. Danijel Zoric hadn’t played at this level. We know we’re losing two great players, but we move on. We’ve got some guys coming in and some young guys here who, hopefully, will work hard during the offseason – and definitely develop jump shots.”
“I appreciate all the time I had here at UIC,” Bowen said. “I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot. I made a lot of friendships.”
“This is disappointing, but I have to keep my head up and move on,” Collum added. “We played hard, but came up short.”
FLAMES FLICKERS: Mayo picked up two fouls in the first four minutes of the game and missed the rest of the first half. That took away a valuable perimeter weapon for the majority of the first 20 minutes. …
There were two minor skirmishes in the second half. Zoric and Lawrence were locked up at the elbows and wrestled each other to the ground after going after a loose ball with 15:53 left. The officials called a double foul and Lawrence was cut above his left eye. Zoric was upset, because he thought Lawrence could have let go and almost charged him before teammates pulled him away. Lawrence left the game and was taken to a hospital for observation.
Also, Bowen and Schachtner were tied up going aggressively after a rebound and went to the ground. Schachtner was called for a foul with 14:51 to go. …
Kowalczyk won his first Horizon League tournament game as Green Bay coach: “That’s something I wasn’t worried about,” he said. “We're a young basketball team, and what we’ve been trying to do is veer this team to get better as the season progresses, and we have done that. We've gotten better in a lot of ways, particularly on the defensive end. On the offensive end, our execution continues to get better as well.”
In fact, Green Bay was the fourth youngest team in the nation. ...
Evanochko's 14 assists were just one shy of the Horizon tournament record. Butler's Thomas Jackson had 15-assist, zero-turnover game in the Bulldogs' 62-43 victory over Detroit in the 2000 MCC Tournament title game at the UIC Pavilion.
IN OTHER ACTION: No. 4 seed Loyola used a 21-0 second-half run as the Ramblers exploded past Detroit 64-55 in Friday’s other quarterfinal game.
“It felt good to be out there running the floor,” said Woods (pictured). “It’s been awhile since I had a game like that, probably junior college. We had 16 stops in a row and that led to a lot of fastbreak points.”
Milwaukee native J.R. Blount added 15 points for the Ramblers, who advance to Saturday’s semifinals to play host Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Brandon Cotton scored 20 points, but on just 8-of-24 shooting from the field, for the Titans (16-16).
TUESDAY, FEB. 28 FIRST ROUND
#6 UIC 77, #7 Wright State 64
#5 Detroit 92, #8 Cleveland State 58
#4 Loyola 76, #9 Youngstown State 61
FRIDAY, MARCH 3 SECOND ROUND (U.S. CELLULAR ARENA)
#3 Wisconsin-Green Bay 76, #6 UIC 66
#4 Loyola 64, #5 Detroit 55
SATURDAY, MARCH 4 SEMIFINALS (U.S. CELLULAR ARENA)
#3 Wisconsin-Green Bay vs. #2 Butler, 3:30
#4 Loyola vs. #1 Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 6
TUESDAY, MARCH 7 CHAMPIONSHIP
At highest remaining seed, 8
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MILWAUKEE—Before Friday night’s Horizon League tournament quarterfinal game between UIC and Wisconsin-Green Bay, the Milwaukee public address announcer mispronounced Ryan Tillema’s name. After the game, UIC coach Jimmy Collins butchered Ryan Evanochko’s name.
“We would set a screen on the top guys in the zone, which gave Ryan [Evanochko] the opportunity to take on two people and, as soon as they collapse, find the open guy,” said Tillema (pictured). “He is very good at getting into the gaps and creating for other people. He was making shots for other people.”
Junior forward Stefanov (pictured) led the Flames (16-15) with a season-high-tying 19 points on 7-of-11 from the field with seven rebounds and four assists. Justin Bowen had 12 points in his final game as a Flame. Sophomore Othyus Jeffers recorded 10 points and four assists and Danijel Zoric added nine points and team-best eight rebounds, while senior Rocky Collum pitched in nine points on three three-pointers.
“That’s just destiny,” said Collins (pictured). “When he hits that, you say, ‘Damn, you can’t win this one.’ But Tillema did hit some tough shots. We never got down on ourselves, we kept fighting, but so did they.”
FAREWELL, SENIORS: The loss marked the end of the careers of Bowen, Collum and walk-on Etienne Nelson.
Trailing 23-22 at the half, the Ramblers (19-10) quickly set the tone in second half as Brandon Woods hit the go-ahead layup with 18:48 to go. Woods scored 14 of his season-high 16 points after halftime.
HORIZON LEAGUE TOURNAMENT