He’s 6-foot-4 and giving up at least a few inches, but Isaiah Feuerbach swears the gap disappears the moment he decides he’s the one in control.

“I just think to myself that I’m the best player on the court, which might not always be the case,” the Sycamore senior wing said. “But having the mentality allows me to guard anybody.”

For the most part this year, it’s worked.

Feuerbach is the most reliable defender on a Sycamore team that’s making a name for itself with a high-powered offense.

Feuerbach is a big part of that offense as well, averaging 19 points and seven rebounds per game. But coach Ethan Franklin said an overlooked part of his game is the defensive contributions he’s been making this year, mostly drawing other teams’ centers.

“It’s been a learning curve with the different type of defense I’ve been playing,” Feuerbach said. “After guarding guards all my career, I feel like I have good footwork, good feet to guard the bigs. I just try to get my hands up and be solid.”

Franklin said Feuerbach’s preparation is an amazing weapon, saying he’s like a sponge that only has to be told something or shown something once in order to learn it.

That’s made him effective in guarding anyone in any position.

“If he has to guard a guard, if he has to guard a wing or if he has to guard a big, he knows how to handle it and he’s been shutting it down,” Franklin said. “Ever since he was a freshman he’s had a great sense for rebounding and positioning.”

Both Feuerbach and Franklin said his best performance came against Owen Sanders and Ottawa. Franklin said the 6-foot-8 Illinois Wesleyan commit did not score when Feuerbach was guarding him.

The Spartans (17-3) trailed in the fourth quarter but stormed back for a 62-53 win on Jan. 16, win No. 2 on its current four-game winning streak.

“His game against Ottawa was as close to perfect as you can have at our level,” Franklin said. “[Sanders] did not score on Isaiah. ... He was able to shut everything down for that particular matchup.”

There was a 71-58 win against Mendota on Dec. 17 in which Feuerbach was the primary defender on 6-foot-6 sophomore Cole Tillman. He entered averaging almost 26 points per game and scored 11.

In a surprisingly low-scoring 65-56 loss to Kaneland on Jan. 9 between two of the highest-scoring Class 3A teams in the state, Feuerbach was the main defender on 6-foot-9 Kaneland junior forward Jeffrey Hassan, helping to hold him to 13 points and eight rebounds.

“We wanted to work on where he had a wide base and use his strength to push Jeff out of position and then use his length to deter him from easy baskets at the rim,” Franklin said. “Where he’s at physically, he did a good job with that. But a lot of that is preparation beforehand and making sure we’re getting some of those bigger dudes away from the rim, and he’s able to do that with his speed and his quickness along with his wingspan.”

Next up for the Spartans is DeKalb (8-12) in the teams’ annual rivalry game Friday at the NIU Convocation Center. The Barbs don’t have a lot of height, with main scorers Derrion Straughter, Myles Newman and Aaron Ziga all under 6-foot-3.

Franklin said he’d prefer to keep his defensive plans for Friday under wraps.

Since the teams started playing for a trophy in 2004, the Spartans have only won in 2005, 2007, 2013 and 2021. Even on a four-game losing streak in the series, Feuerbach said it feels like people are expecting the Spartans to win.

“We’re having a great year. It does kind of feel like we’re the favorite,” Feuerbach said. “We have to act that way. We can’t be scared of the challenge, but we can’t act like we’re going to win either.”