The circus has left West Aurora High School.
The phone no longer rings every six seconds in basketball coach Gordon Kerkman’s cramped, subterranean office, with media seeking wisdom or college recruiters seeking a piece of the talent oozing from his roster.
The No. 1 preseason ranking, and its accompanying rocket’s red glare, has headed south to Homewood-Flossmoor, and our congratulations–and condolences–go out to H-F coach Roy Condotti.
Kerkman found out the hard way last year that a boatload of talent, with the accompanying boatload of expectations, is a decidedly mixed blessing. Why else would a coach complete a 25-3 season and feel like fans expect him to say, “Excuse me.”
“I told the kids, `If we’re not undefeated and win the state title, it won’t be seen as a successful season,'” Kerkman said. “We just about had to win them all, even though those are unreal expectations sometimes.
“People don’t understand all the elements it takes to put a championship team together.”
Last year’s elements included Dameon Mason, Justin Cerasoli, Shaun Pruitt, Michael Binns and Jaeh Thomas, each a coveted college prospect and together such a seemingly impregnable combination that the Class AA state championship trophy seemed theirs just for showing up.
Not every combination of elements works out, however, and Kerkman’s hoops laboratory blew up in a shocking 61-52 loss to unheralded Downers Grove South in the sectional semifinals.
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“We had no team chemistry whatsoever,” Thomas said last week in a postmortem that was as accurate as it was succinct. “We came into games unfocused. We won most of our games off our talent.
“We were just waiting for the right team–that was patient and more disciplined–to beat us, and that’s what happened.”
Kerkman has lost seven of his top 10 players from that team, so what happens next will tell us whether subtraction turns out to be addition. That in turn will depend largely on his three senior veterans: the 6-foot-9-inch Pruitt, the 6-4 Cerasoli and the 6-2 Thomas.
Each enters the season as much a question mark as an exclamation point. The Illinois-bound Pruitt has tremendous potential and is highly regarded among recruiting gurus but because of injuries has yet to play more than half a season for Kerkman since arriving from Providence-St. Mel as a sophomore.
Cerasoli, who came from St. Mel last year, has every skill a guard needs but at times seems allergic to making the simple, if effective, play. Last year, for example, the Seton Hall recruit clanked an uncontested dunk off the rim because he first lobbed a pass to himself.
Thomas, who had an impressive debut as a freshman starter on a 27-4 West Aurora team, struggled to find his role last year as players went one-on-one instead of relying on patience and team offense. He expects this year’s team to have more of that elusive chemistry and to justify its still-lofty No. 2 ranking.
“I think there will be a lot more sharing of the ball instead of passing it and not getting it back,” said Thomas, who has not picked a college yet. “Last year everyone wanted to score at the same time. This year I think me, Justin and Shaun are more mature.”
Chemistry, however, is best developed in the off-season through camps, tournaments and the like. West Aurora rarely had its stars on hand last summer because Cerasoli and Pruitt were playing with a club team and Thomas was in school.
On top of that, Thomas will miss West Aurora’s first four games for unspecified disciplinary reasons.
It’s all enough to make Kerkman long for the good old days, not because he’s 66 but because coaching used to be a whole lot easier. His 2000 team, for instance, had two-thirds the talent last year’s squad possessed but is the school’s only state basketball champion because its whole truly was greater than the sum of its parts.
“That team had great chemistry,” Kerkman said. “It played together all summer and hung around together too.”
Kerkman has always been a back-to-basics coach, but he believes he may have given last year’s players a tad too much leeway to express their talent. If it was a mistake, it’s not one he’ll repeat.
“He has been much tougher than last year,” Pruitt said. “We had all the talent a high school team needs to go Downstate and came up short, so I guess he feels the more pressure he puts on us the better we’ll perform.”
West Aurora’s performance also will depend on the talent that surrounds its three stars. Other contributors will include seniors Bryant Austin and Haven Hobbs, and sophomores Travis Marion and Johnny Walker. Austin, at 6-3, is the tallest of the four.
“We don’t have a lot of size after Shaun and Justin, but we have some real good basketball players people have not heard about,” Kerkman said.
The question is whether they can help Kerkman get his team back to playing West Aurora basketball, meaning once again being dominant on defense and on the boards and maintaining poise in tight spots.
“We’re coming together pretty good,” Kerkman said. “We don’t have as much talent as we did last year, and I’m not sure that makes as much difference as a lot of people think.
“I think we have the potential to be as good a team.”
Maybe even a better one.
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