The morning of the Evanston boys basketball team’s game at Waukegan, Tommy Haughey said he beat Jerome Bynum in a 3-point shooting contest.
Later that day, Bynum made 3-pointers on three consecutive offensive possessions in the first quarter. He finished with a career-high 19 points in a 65-45 win on Jan. 9.
“Jerome and I had some heated shooting competitions at practice,” Haughey said. “I feel like I pushed him to be better. Most people might not see that, but that doesn’t matter to me.”
Haughey was one of five seniors on the Wildkits, who went 20-9 and won a Central Suburban South championship and a Class 4A regional title. But Haughey, a 5-foot-11 guard and a team captain, played less than five minutes a game.
While senior guard Xhavier Hilliard and senior forward Elijah Henry played major minutes, Haughey’s contributions mostly were behind the scenes, such as helping Bynum, a sophomore who played the same position as him.
“He often asked me about how to run plays, and how to do this and that in practice,” Haughey said.
Evanston coach Mike Ellis said Haughey was the first player to master all the plays for every position on the team, making him indispensable at practice.
“Tommy was one of our most valuable leaders, and the player who was the biggest extension of the coaching staff,” Ellis said. “He and the other seniors put the team above themselves. Our younger guys were appreciative of that.”
Bynum was one of five sophomores who played considerable minutes this season. At one point in the fourth quarter of the team’s 54-47 loss to Lake Forest in the Waukegan Sectional semifinals on March 11, all five sophomores were on the floor together.
“At the beginning of the year, I thought I would be a key contributor on the court,” said Haughey, who played three varsity seasons. “I saw my role dwindle as the year went on. Then, I saw those five sophomores out there with a chance to win the game, and it was impressive.”
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Nojel Eastern, the point guard and star sophomore, said the younger players were thankful of how the seniors embraced the underclassmen during the season.
“They did so much for us, teaching us how to play the right way,” Eastern said. “Seeing them in the locker room after the [Lake Forest] loss was tough. We didn’t want to let them down.”
Senior guards Alante Massie and Henry Woo also were valuable members of this season’s team, according to Ellis, even though each averaged less than three minutes per game.
This wasn’t the first time in his coaching career that Ellis played sophomores over seniors. When he was at Richwoods in Peoria, Ellis said he started four sophomores on the 2007-08 team.
“There are a lot of parallels with those two teams,” he said. “Both teams understood the concept of doing it together.”
Two seasons after the sophomores helped the Knights finish 17-10, they went on to take second in Class 3A. Haughey wouldn’t rule out Evanston making a similar playoff run in two years.
“I know they are going to do great things,” Haughey said. “The sky is the limit for those sophomores. I wouldn’t be surprised if they do something big by the time they are seniors.”
Twitter: @harnesspreps