Whitney Young rebounds with win over No. 16 Apple Valley

APPLE VALLEY, Minn. – The highly-anticipated matchup between future Duke teammates Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones didn't disappoint.

But it was Okafor's supporting cast that proved to be the difference.

Okafor scored 22 points and pulled down 15 rebounds as Whitney Young (Chicago) beat Jones and No. 16 Apple Valley (Minn.) 80-70 on ESPN2 Thursday night at Apple Valley High School.

"It was definitely fun, but my only thought was to win," said Okafor, a 6-foot-10 center rated the No. 1 senior prospect in America by the 247Sports Composite. "I didn't want to come out here and lose a game and then have to travel back to Chicago not victorious."

Best friends Okafor and Jones committed to Duke just one month ago and Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski flew in to watch the game. Having played each other on the AAU circuit, Okafor and Jones finally got to face one another at the high school level.

Jones, a 6-0 point guard a consensus top five prospect himself, scored just four first-half points. However, he turned it on in the second half, tallying a game-high 29. Gary Trent Jr. (son of the former NBA forward and college star of the same name) added 12 points for the Eagles.

"I think it was really one of those games where both teams were really focusing on trying to slow one player down," Whitney Young coach Tyrone Slaughter said. "Who were the other players that were going to step up and do something? If you think about it, we have a young man (Paul White) going to Georgetown and today he had a Georgetown-esque game. Miles Reynolds played well and we had a tremendous contribution from Erwin Henry."

Whitney Young had balanced scoring as Saint Louis signee Reynolds scored 18 points, White added 17 and Henry had 14. The Dolphins shot 60 percent from the field for the game while the Eagles hit just 36.6 percent of their shots.

Apple Valley, coming off big in-state wins over DeLaSalle (Minneapolis) and Hopkins (Minnetonka), had trouble against Whitney Young with its length and height on the inside. The Dolphins scored nearly half their points, 38, in the paint.

"Whitney Young is so good and they were able to zone us and they're so long against the zone," Apple Valley head coach Zach Goring said. "Okafor takes away everything inside, so we were forced to go from the outside and we didn't shoot it well."

Every time Okafor touched the ball on the inside, he was quickly double- and triple-teamed. That's where his teammates came up big.

"I knew it was going to be rare for me to ever see a one-on-one playing high school basketball," Okafor said. "My coach told me not to get frustrated and force anything. I just looked for my teammates early."

Whitney Young (2-1) played its starting five the entire game and was stifling with its 2-3 zone. Apple Valley (5-1) kept the game close in the first half as Whitney Young held a five-point lead with 3 minutes remaining. The Dolphins used an 11-4 run that carried over from the first to the second half to go up 46-33.

That's when Jones turned it up a notch, driving the lane more and nailing back-to-back 3-pointers, including a four-point play, to make it 67-56.

"I knew I had to be more aggressive trying to score the ball," Jones said. "When they came out in a zone, I was trying to get the ball moving a lot, get the zone shifting. They put me in the middle to try to attack it and I was just trying to score."

However, Apple Valley could only cut its deficit to seven points as Whitney Young hit its free throws down the stretch.

After losing to St. John Bosco (Bellflower, Calif.) last weekend, Slaughter believes the victory over Apple Valley is a statement game for his team.

"It just says that we're still here and we're going to be around for a while," Slaughter said.