Nico Skartsiaris leads Smithtown East boys basketball to playoff win over Longwood

The Smithtown East boys basketball team never worries about where its offense is going to come from.

“We’re a special group,” senior guard Bobby Eck said. “We have a bunch of guys that can beat you on any given day. So [junior guard] Craig [O’Neill] is our main component of our team, our scorer. But if he’s not going, others got to step up, and that’s what we did today.”

Senior forward Nico Skartsiaris scored 17 points, Eck and senior forward Brandon Devitt each had 11 and O’Neill had 10 in the No. 4 Bulls’ 58-47 home win over No. 5 Longwood in the Suffolk Class AAA quarterfinals on Thursday.

“I feel like they’re brothers,” coach Al Chandler said. “They love hanging out. We’ve been practicing for three weeks, and we were done yesterday pretty short, and I stayed after with two guys to shoot for an hour, and they just didn’t want to leave the gym. They love what’s going on. They love being a part of it …

“No one cares who  it’s the name on the front of the chest, not the back.”

Smithtown East (18-3) — winners of 14 of its last 15 games — will face top-seeded Half Hollow Hills East (18-3), which defeated the Bulls twice this regular season, in the semifinals at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Longwood High School.

Longwood (16-6), paced by Danye Glenn’s 16 points, opened the second half on a 13-2 run to take a 33-32 lead with 3:51 left in the third quarter. Devitt answered with a three 22 seconds later as the Bulls regained the lead and never trailed again.

Smithtown East ended the third quarter on a 12-0 run to take a 44-33 lead.

“I think it’s all Smithtown East,” Longwood coach John Ford said. “We saw on film, the games we went to, they are as disciplined as they come, and it’s very difficult to maintain runs against a team like Smithtown. They’re going to be disciplined and not panic all game long.”

Longwood cut it to 48-43 on Imole Akinwale’s layup with 3:56 left. Skartsiaris’ layup with 2:59 left and O’Neill’s three with 2:28 left made it 53-43.

“Basketball is a game of runs, and at the end of the day, we all just believe in each other,” Skartsiaris said. “This is probably the most unselfish team I’ve ever been a part of. It starts with my coaches, just believing in us every day, making us believe in each other and ourselves. [Assistant] coach [Bob] Woods always says basketball is a game of runs, ups and downs, and we got to weather the storm, and we ended up weathering it.”