Caden Schneider and Gunner Ello help Chesterton to win at Lake Central, 47-35, on a night Bradly Basila battles foul trouble

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Part of an underdog’s prescription for an upset in Indiana high school basketball, which does not use a shot clock, includes:
Deliberately working the ball around, waiting for a defender or two to space out and pounce on the opening.
Hoping that a key player from the favorite gets into early foul trouble, testing the opposition’s depth.
Host Lake Central employed that strategy Friday night against Chesterton, putting the onus on Caden Schneider and Gunner Ello to ensure that sophomore Bradly Basila’s foul trouble didn’t pave the way for the upset.
Schneider, the slender 6-foot-7 senior who offensively operates best on the high post where he can take advantage of his passing skills and defensively piles up deflections, steals and blocks. He and Ello, a 6-5 junior built more like an offensive lineman than a basketball player, delivered and helped the Trojans to defeat LC, 47-35.
On a night no Trojans scored in double figures, Jaylon Watts led the team with nine points, Ello had eight points and Schneider joined Basila and Logan Pokorney in scoring seven points.
Schneider and Ello did far more than score.
Schneider had timely assists and rebounds, defended well and buried a 3-pointer. His putback before the third-quarter buzzer gave Chesterton a 32-21 lead heading into the fourth.
“Caden made a lot of winning plays,” Chesterton coach Marc Urban said. “He was probably our most vocal player defensively and when you’re vocal you’re more engaged in what you’re doing. He played like a senior who was not happy about Monday night (22-point loss at Crown Point) and that’s good to see.”
The steadily improving Ello continued his midseason surge with a strong night on the boards and on defense.
“I think Gunner played really well,” Schneider said. “He did his job. He was able to body everyone up down low, walled up, didn’t foul, which was big.
He’s come a long way. He’s grown into his body. It’s taken him some time, but I really feel now he understands how to use his size to his advantage down low, make room, play smart when he needs to, keep his guy in front of him. He has really good feet for his size.”
Schneider knows as well as anybody what it feels like to be on the receiving end of Ello understanding how to use his size.
“He’s a heavy hitter,” Schneider said.
Most of Ello’s minutes as a sophomore came in JV games and he has made a smooth transition to going against varsity players and Urban never hesitates to give him big minutes off the bench.
“Gunner just keeps getting better,” Urban said. “There are times at practice where no one can guard him and you’re like, ‘Just keep doing that when the lights come on.’ I think he’s starting to find some confidence with that. He’s a tough guard just because of how big he is.”
Chesterton was the bigger, faster team Friday in St. John, so it made sense for LC to shorten the game. Chesterton kept the strategy from paying off by staying focused defensively throughout the long possessions.
“You have to make sure you stick together every time and don’t let them break you and get the stop and then once you get it on offense you have to make sure you execute,” Schneider said of how to keep shortened games from biting the favorite.
Schneider said the players channeled the loss at Crown Point properly: “We used that to get us through some of the tough challenges he made us get through in practice and we used that to come back and get better than we were. We needed it.”
He called the team’s performance vs. Crown Point, “not the best. not the best, but get done with that one and move on to the next one.”
Chesterton was the bigger, faster team, so it made sense for LC to shorten the game. Chesterton kept the strategy from paying off by staying focused defensively throughout the long possessions. The score was low throughout.
Malachi Ransom’s 3-pointer bounced off the rim a couple of times and fell through as the first-quarter buzzer went off, giving Chesterton a 12-8 lead. By halftime, the lead grew to 21-11, a testament to both team’s defensive play, but more than that.
“They had 45-second possessions in the first half, so in a normal half, if you’re getting 28 possessions we might have only gotten 16 or 18 possessions, so that kind of makes it look a little different,” Urban said. “It was one of those deals where you have to be tough in a possession-by-possession game and I was really proud of the way we played defensively. We took them out of a lot of their stuff.”
Chesterton threatened to run away with the game, building a 16-point lead early in the second half, but couldn’t shake the hosts, who grew as close as eight points in the fourth quarter.
Chesterton improved to 13-3 overall and 3-1 in the DAC, one game behind co-leaders Crown Point and Portage, and two games in front of every other team in the conference.
“We came back Tuesday, self-evaluated quickly and had three really good practices and we came on the road and had a good win, so I’m proud of them,” Urban said of the days following the Crown Point loss.
Up next for Chesterton: A home game Thursday, Feb. 5 vs. Michigan City.