St. Joseph’s Nick Rakocevic is used to people giving him advice.
That’s what happens when you have college offers from Power Five schools like Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois and UCLA.
Rakocevic, 6-foot-11 junior, said he appreciates the interest from fans, but doesn’t always follow the advice. When Tom Dore speaks, though, he listens.
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Chicago Bulls fans remember Dore as the voice of the Bulls for 17 seasons and most famously, during the bulk of the 1990’s Michael Jordan-led championship era. The 7-2 Dore is now a broadcaster for the IHSA state tournament and has struck up a relationship with Rakocevic.
“He’s kind of been telling me what to do and how to bulk up, how I can prepare myself for the next level, the physicality of the game,” said Rakocevic, who is a slender 205 pounds. “I really have to build up my body and plan on doing that this summer.”
Before he became a broadcaster, Dore played at East Leyden and then Missouri. After college, Dore played professionally overseas. Rakocevic said while he has not watched any old YouTube clips of Dore’s calls, he listens when Dore dispenses wisdom gained from having a courtside seat to a golden era of the NBA.
“He’s seen the game, he’s seen [Michael] Jordan, Scottie Pippen, the Magic [Johnson] and [Larry] Bird era,” Rakocevic said. “The NBA was different back in the day. When a guy like that is willing to share it with me, it’s pretty special.”
Lunch pail Brown
St. Joseph started four senior guards — Glynn Watson, Jordan Ash, Joffery Brown and Jarviss Sutton — on Friday. Watson has committed to Nebraska and Ash is headed to Northwestern. Sutton and Brown remain unsigned.
Watson and Ash are St. Joseph’s leading scorers, averaging a combined 29.8 points per game this season. Brown is averaging 10.4 points per game and 4.4 rebounds. His consistent all-around play is the perfect complement to Watson and Ash. But in the Chargers’ 39-38 Class 3A supersectional win over St. Patrick, Watson was held to nine points. Brown took up the scoring slack, pouring in 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting.
“Joffery [Brown] has been outstanding all year. He’s a blue-collar man. Like I tell him, he has to be a little smarter,” St. Joseph coach Gene Pingatore said. “In the game in the supersectional, if it wasn’t for Joffery, we wouldn’t be here.”
In the Chargers’ 55-38 state semifinal win over Rockford Lutheran on Friday, Brown finished with eight points on 4-of-8 shooting.
Jon Kerr is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter: @prepspioneer