The jury is still out on four-class basketball … way out, but it’s beyond dispute that our state’s latest foray into multiplication has been very, very good to the Chicago Public League.
So good, in fact, that we can safely predict that a Public League team will be the 2008 Class 3A state champion. That’s because for the first time two Public League teams will meet in a state championship game.
When Marshall or Simeon holds the title trophy aloft Saturday afternoon at The Peoria Civic Center, it will join North Lawndale, which won the 2A title here last week, as a Public League champion.
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Two weeks ago, Marshall in 3A and Young in 4A won girls state titles at Illinois State University.
That’s four of eight titles for Chicago hoops. If you listen closely, you may hear cries from Downstate calling for six classes.
You won’t hear Simeon coach Robert Smith complaining. He won the last two Class AA titles, and his team’s come-from-behind 51-46 semifinal victory over Champaign Central on Friday ran his state finals coaching record to 7-0.
“I think it’s great,” he said of the all-Public League title game, which will match his team and Marshall on the final weekend for the third straight season. Simeon beat the Commandos in the semifinals the last two years. “It’s history-making for us. It’s the first 3A tournament, and two Public League teams are playing in it.
“It’s a beautiful thing. It shows how much basketball means to the city. People tend to criticize basketball in the city a lot.”
Those critics almost had a field day Friday. Simeon struggled offensively through 3 1/2 quarters and trailed 44-38 with just more than three minutes to play before its defensive pressure produced a blizzard of turnovers and scoring opportunities senior guard Lazeric Jones was happy to exploit.
It took Marshall more than three quarters to shake Washington in the first semifinal before it prevailed 63-57.
“We stunk it up,” Marshall coach Courtney Hargrays said.
Marshall, with almost everyone back from last year’s third-place team, figured to make it this far. Simeon, which lost its entire 2007 starting lineup, most notably Derrick Rose and Tim Flowers, was a long shot, even if it did pick up 6-foot-9-inch senior Stanley Simpson from Leo in the off-season.
Still, Simeon starts four seniors, three of whom got experience here last year, and while its talent is light years short of what it had with Rose & Co., it still has good athletes who know how to play and who fed off others’ doubts.
“People in the city were telling us we weren’t that good,” Jones said. “We wanted to come out and prove them wrong because we knew we could do this.”
Marshall had to prove it could survive the semifinals. Now it has to prove it can defeat Simeon, which won 64-45 Jan. 4 in the teams’ only meeting this season.
The Commandos, though, were still adjusting to Hargrays, who replaced Lamont Bryant in October shortly after Bryant was fired as their coach. They also played as individuals instead of as a team against Simeon.
“They were trying to pay Simeon back, get revenge,” Hargrays said of his players. “They were trying to do too much.”
Hargrays responded by benching some players in that game and now calls it the season’s turning point. It has given his players yet another shot at Simeon.
“Playing them would be a dream come true because we’ve lost the last two years here,” senior guard-forward Ryan Hare said between semifinals. “It would be good to win the state title against them.”
Simeon has won a state title the last two seasons, but Marshall has some history on its side as well. No Chicago team had won a state basketball crown until Marshall did it in 1958 in, of all things, a one-class system.
A half-century later, Marshall gets a shot at another title, and its first since 1960.
“There’s a lot of history at Marshall,” Hare said, “and we can be a big part of it.”
He added that the pressure to do it only got stronger after Marshall’s girls won their program’s eighth state title this month.
“They win, we have to win, period.”
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Read Barry Temkin’s blog, “Upon Further Review,” at chicagosports.com/temkin