Bradly Basila leads Chesterton to 69-48 victory over East Chicago Central with 22 points and a strong second half that included three dunks in the fourth quarter as Trojans improve to 4-0

Patrick Mochen
Onwardtrojans.com

Bradly Basila dunked three times in the fourth quarter not out of any desire to be a hot dog, but in so doing did earn free hot dogs for spectators of Chesterton’s 69-48 victory over visiting East Chicago Central.
Anytime the Trojans score 67 points, George’s Gyros runs a promotion that gives attendees of the game a free hot dog the next day from 6-to-7 pm.
Throughout the game, the Chesterton offense didn’t look like it would produce enough points to get there, but sped up late in the second half. With under a minute left in the game, Bradley Basila threw down his second dunk of the night to put Chesterton up 67-46. Immediately after, Basila got the ball back and scored his third dunk, all coming late in the fourth quarter.
Chesterton and ECC went back and forth during the first half. Chesterton’s Logan Pokorney, Malachi Ransom, and Basila all were able to get three pointers to fall during the game.
“Everybody out there can shoot the basketball,” Urban said, “but they shoot it better when they take the right shots.”
The Trojans struggled to play cohesively in the first half and were losing the rebound battle. A strong second quarter by Jaylon Watts helped the Trojans to start to pull away, and they led going into halftime 32-23.
“I thought the first half we did not play very hard,” Urban said. “We definitely did not rebound well all game. I thought we made things really easy for them. Give them credit, they played harder, but that shouldn’t happen. I think in the second half we all had more grit about us.”
The second half was much less back and forth, with both teams taking control at some point. After Chesterton took a 49-33 lead, the Cardinals went on an eight-point run, but were then shut down by the Trojans. Chesterton then outscored the Cardinals 18-7 to close out the game, with 10 points coming from Basila.
Urban voiced his frustration to his team during a timeout in the first half, stating his disappointment in the team’s soft play. He specifically was angry with the lack of rebounding, some on Basila’s part. Afterward, Basila grabbed a few tough rebounds and had a big block in the fourth quarter. He scored 16 second-half points, looking comfortable shooting from the corner and in the paint. Before the game, Basila had three in-game dunks, and matched that number in the East Chicago game alone.
“We made it hard,” Basila said, “but we will keep learning. Today was crazy, we gave some crazy offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds.”
The team as a whole looked great from beyond the arc, but had some trouble with ball movement and containing the Cardinals’ ball movement. The team next plays Hammond Morton on Friday at home.
“We didn’t look connected,” Urban said of the 21-point victory over ECC. “We didn’t play well defensively. We didn’t shoot free throws well, but we still found a way to win by a decent margin, which is a good sign, but we are not going to beat good teams playing that way.”