Things a tad sloppy to open Chicago Elite Classic

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CHICAGO – Six teams combined to commit 104 turnovers and hit less than 20 percent from behind the arc (16 of 82) Friday night during the opening action of the third Chicago Elite Classic at the University of Illinois-Chicago Pavilion.

OK, so with those nuggets of ugliness out of the way, on to my rundowns of the three games played . . .

The “Chicago-area” teams batted .500 in games vs. non-Illinois squads Friday, with Westchester Saint Joseph rolling past Redondo Beach (CA) Redondo Union in Game II, 70-54, and Memphis Southwind trimming Chicago Whitney Young in overtime in Friday’s finale, 69-66.

Friday’s opener was a matchup of teams from Oak Park, with Fenwick prevailing despite a rocky third quarter, 48-40.

Night II of the event begins Saturday with another all-Illinois matchup of Plainfield East vs. Hillcrest at 5 o’clock, followed by Chicago Bogan and Highland (UT) Lone Peak at 6:30; Chicago St. Rita and New York City Christ The King at 8; and Chicago Simeon vs. Lancaster of Texas at 9:30.

Fenwick (now 5-0), largely behind the play of junior guard Mike Smith and sophomore forward Jamal Nixon, busted out to 13-point advantage (31-18) at intermission.

But River Forest sliced that deficit to a football field goal (three points, for those of you scratching your heads) going into the fourth quarter.

The prime reason it was able to make a game of things into the final period was the scoring ability of 6-foot-1, 165-pound senior Dallis Flowers, reportedly a terrific cornerback on the grid iron.

Flowers missed seven of his nine 3-point attempts. But he was repeatedly able to slash into the lane for layups or pull-up jump shots en route to a game-high 21 points.

Fenwick hit only one of its 14 attempts from behind the arc but was by far the soundest team with the basketball in its hands Friday night with just seven turnovers.

The speedy Smith missed 12 of 18 shots from the floor but had a team-high 18 points with seven rebounds, a couple of assists and three steals.

The 6-4 Nixon turned in a nice, if understated, stat line: 10 points, eight rebounds, three assists and three blocked shots.

Saint Joseph (5-0) broke out to an 8-0 start against the squad from Southern California, built the advantage to 18 points in the second quarter before taking at 14-point edge (38-24) at intermission.

The Sea Hawks trimmed the deficit to nine points early in the third quarter and, after a steal, miss an in-closed attempt that would have cut into Saint Joseph’s lead by two more points.

Then, ever-so-quickly, the Chargers pushed the lead to 18 points.

And that, in reality, was that.

Big Ten Conference-bound guards Glynn Watson (Nebraska) and Jordan Ash (Northwestern) scored 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds each for Saint Joseph, with Ash adding three assists and Watson two assists and four steals.

But the most impressive individual performance – for the game and Friday, period – was turned in by their 6-11 teammate, Nick Rakocevic.

After watching his scored 15 points (seven of 10 from the floor but just one of six on free throws), grab 15 rebounds and smack five Redondo shots silly, it’s understandable why many consider him the No. 1 prospect from the Class of 2016 in Illinois.

Six-two junior Leland Green scored a game-high 20 points for Redondo but 10 of those came in a fourth quarter which started well after the outcome of the contest had already been determined and committed five of his team’s 16 turnovers.

Six-nine sophomore Billy Preston grabbed 11 rebounds for the Sea Hawks but was limited to five points after missing 10 of 11 shots from the floor (many of those inside the lane, one of which followed a terrific drive past Rakocevic during which he missed on a finger roll when he could have crammed a dunk home) and also was credited with five turnovers.

Six-five Donte Dorsey-Fitzpatrick, who signed a national letter of intent with the University of Mississippi last month, scored 24 points with eight rebounds and four steals over-riding a six-turnover performance en route to his team’s win over Whitney Young.

Whitney Young – playing its first game in a long while without Jahlil Okafor (Duke) and Miles Reynolds (Saint Louis) in its uniforms – trailed Southwind by 10 points early in the fourth quarter but rallied and finally tied the score at 58 when Vanderbilt-bound Joseph Toye hit one of two free throws with 45 seconds to go in regulation.

With no shot clock in Illinois, Southwind was able to work for a final shot attempt but didn’t get much out of it as freshman Markylan Freeman’s 3 from the deep right wing was well off the “mark” – yeah, pun intended – at the buzzer.

With his trailing by two points, Whitney Young senior guard Anthony Mosely was fouled on a drive with 4.5 seconds to go.

He missed the first and, after a timeout, swished the second (instead of, perhaps, missing the second intentionally in an attempt of picking off an offensive rebound and scoring to send the game into a second OT).

Fouled with a tenth of a second showing on the clock, Freeman ever-so-calmed dropped in both free throws.

After the ensuing inbounds pass, Mosely launched a 40-footer and drilled it – but had released the shot a mega-second after the buzzer had started thereby negating what could have been the shot that sent things into a second four-minute extra stanza.

Freeman chipped in with 14 points, four rebounds, an assist and three steals.