Boys basketball: Explosive second half carries Joliet West past Plainfield North

Joliet West outscores foe 43-9 after the break

Joliet West's Jeremy Fears scored 32 points in the Tigers' opening round win over Bloomington at the Pontiac Holiday Tournament on Wednesday.

PLAINFIELD – Down by five at halftime, there were plenty of things to not like about Joliet West’s first-half performance Tuesday.

But instead of erupting on his team, Joliet West coach Jeremy Kreiger took a different approach.

“I walked right in, and I said, ‘Guys, I’m not gonna yell.’ We’ve been in these moments before, we’ve put ourselves in these situations,” Kreiger said. “We aspire to be champions daily and make it to Champaign. We know exactly what we do to correct this. Shore up the rebounding, respect them as basketball players and play our level of defense that can get us out in transition.”

The Tigers didn’t have to be told twice.

An explosive second-half effort gave Joliet West a 68-39 Southwest Prairie Conference victory over Plainfield North, as Joliet West outscored their hosts 43-9 in the second half.

“We came out a little relaxed. We had two hard games over the weekend, Friday and Saturday, but then we had to come in and pick it up second half,” Joliet West guard Jeremy Fears Jr. said. “But we had some keys on the board that we needed to execute. And we didn’t execute in the first half, but we did a much better job executing in the second half.”

A few hours removed from learning he’d been selected to the play in the McDonald’s All American game, Fears, had a lot to do with that surge.

Jeremy Fears Jr. and his brother Jeremiah were an offensive wrecking ball after the break. The brothers scored all but three of Joliet West’s points in the third quarter, including a 15-point flurry completed by the duo over the quarter’s final four minutes while they also held Plainfield North scoreless.

Once the dust cleared, Joliet West (18-5, 9-1 SPC) had outscored Plainfield North 20-2 in the quarter and seized control of the contest.

But the Tigers weren’t finished, thanks to an offensive flurry from Jeremiah Fears. He dropped in 13 fourth-quarter points, including three 3-pointers, as he feverishly tried to catch up with his brother’s game-high 28-point effort.

“In the second half, I saw the shots go in, and I felt like I could do anything,” Jeremiah Fears said. “So I started shooting more, and it was making the game easier.”

Jeremiah Fears has demonstrated on many occasions the capability to go on scoring riffs like the one he did Tuesday night, but his coach felt something else was the catalyst to the scoring surge.

“Beyond his offense, he changed the complexion of the game with his on-ball defense to start the second half, and I think that’s what should be noticed,” Kreiger said. “It was his on-ball defense and how he was a playmaker for his teammates, and then after that he found his shot.”

The second half was a polar opposite of the first half. After Joliet West built a bit of a cushion early in the second quarter by taking a 21-16 lead, Plainfield North (13-9, 6-5) didn’t wilt.

The Tigers proceeded to rattle off the game’s next nine points and capped the remainder of the first half on a 14-4 run. Jeffrey Fleming and Donovan Collins accounted for 20 of Plainfield North’s 30 first-half points as it carried a 30-25 lead into the halftime break.

Fleming would add four more points in the second half and lead his squad with 16 points.