ETHS boys basketball: Kits edge gritty Glenbard West as Theo Rocca leads team back to Final Four

Theo Rocca insists that he blocks out the crowd noise late in a game when he steps to the free throw line.

Even the chants of “MVP! MVP! MVP!” from the fans don’t get through to the Evanston senior.

That’s just the kind of laser focus that helped Rocca deliver the biggest free throws of his basketball career Monday night at the NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates.

It’s also the kind of focus that can deliver a state championship.

The Wildkits edged an equally gritty Glenbard West team 47-43 in a hard-fought Class 4A Hoffman Estates super-sectional battle and advanced to the Final Four for the first time since 2019 as Rocca swished four straight free throws in the last 19.7 seconds of the game.

Evanston’s pursuit of just its second Illinois High School Association state championship in program history will climax this weekend at the University of Illinois in Champaign. The Wildkits reached the 30-victory plateau Monday night for only the fifth time in school history and will meet Benet Academy, a 58-50 winner over Quincy, in the state semifinals on Friday at 6 p.m. in the State Farm Center. Also joining them in the Final Four are Rich Township, which knocked off top-ranked Chicago Kenwood 70-65 in overtime, and Warren, a 60-48 victor over Rolling Meadows. Tickets, on sale online, are $13 per game, with multigame packages available.

Evanston, now 30-5 on the season, defeated Benet 59-55 back on Feb. 1 when the two squads played at the War On The Shore shootout event.

Under the new scheduling format set by the IHSA for the state tournament’s final weekend, all four classes will play their championship games on Saturday. If the Kits are bounced in the semifinals, they’ll play in the third place contest at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.

Rocca made certain the Wildkits would taste Champaign even though they trailed 35-33 entering the fourth quarter Monday.

“I don’t know if it was our toughest win, but this is definitely our most rewarding win because it’s on this platform,” said the ETHS senior co-captain, who scored a game-high 17 points. “It was a tough win against a tough team.

“All the games we’ve played leading up to this one have prepared us for this type of game. It feels so great to go to State because all our hard work has paid off.  I like where we’re at — but we’re not where we want to be yet.

“When I was shooting the free throws, I was just thinking about all those mornings that I came in early to shoot [at Beardsley Gymnasium]. I just had to trust that the work had prepared me for these moments.”

“These guys are taking me on the ride to Champaign, and they’re the ones who really deserve it,” said Evanston head coach Mike Ellis.

Ellis will be taking a team to the Final Four for the fifth time in his coaching career, including two appearances at Peoria Richwoods. “Our defense was good tonight — and so was theirs. Our foul shooting was critical, especially at the end and that’s the difference in the game.

“In the first four minutes of that fourth quarter we got (defensive) stops on like 7 out of 9 possessions and that really set the tone for the way we finished the game.”

Ellis added that he thinks the current squad doesn’t get enough credit for the unrelenting man-to-man defense that has limited opponents to an average of just 42.4 points a game this year.

But Glenbard West head coach Jason Opoka was quick to give credit where it was due after his team went to the sidelines with a final mark of 28-6. The Hilltoppers shot 41 percent (16-of-39 from the field) Monday but only went 3-for-11 in the final quarter with the season on the line.

West also turned the ball over 16 times, usually with the Wildkit defenders swarming all over them whenever the ball got into the paint.

“I’ve been coaching for what, 20 years, and I haven’t seen a defense as intense and as connected as Evanston was tonight. They’re tough,” Opoka said. “It was a heckuva game, a battle, a backyard brawl.

“Their physicality on the ball, and on our wings, really disrupted our offense. We knew they’d get right up in our grilles [faces] on defense and we tried to attack them back. Evanston ramped up their energy in the fourth quarter and we didn’t do enough offensively to win the basketball game.”

Rocca and West’s Josh Abushnab (14 points) were the only players to reach double figures in the defensive duel. Next best for ETHS were freshman Ben Ojala with eight points and Kaidan Chatham, who netted all seven of his points in the second half.

A drive by George Richardson boosted the Wildkits to their biggest lead at 29-22 early in the third period, but the Hilltoppers recovered to lead 35-33 on a pair of free throws from Abushnab with four seconds remaining in the quarter.

Evanston’s response gave the winners what turned out to be just enough breathing room. In a two-minute stretch they put together a 6-0 run on a 3-point corner bucket from Ojala, a rebound basket by Theo Rocca, and Chatham’s drive down the middle to make it 40-35 with more than five minutes still left in regulation.

But West didn’t go down without a fight despite all of those ETHS defensive stops. A drive by Abushnab cut the deficit to 40-37 at the 4:47 mark, and two minutes later West’s burly center Mike O’Connell was whistled for an offensive foul on an inbound layup attempt and the losers didn’t score again in the next two minutes.

Evanston finished off the victory by nailing 7-of-8 free throws in the last 38 seconds, including Rocca’s late heroics.

The fourth quarter comeback wasn’t the first time ETHS faced adversity Monday night. They turned the ball over four times in the first four minutes of the game, falling behind 13-5, but did climb back into the contest to trail only 15-12 by the time the period ended.

“One of our goals coming into the game was to take care of the basketball, and then we had four turnovers in the first four minutes,” Ellis said. “But it shows you the fortitude this team has, and the willingness to compete, that they only had five turnovers in the next 28 minutes. Glenbard West is a very good team and we didn’t panic. I think it says a lot about our will to win.”

ETHS boys basketball: Kits edge gritty Glenbard West as Theo Rocca leads team back to Final Four is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.