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player ready...For all the talk of a weak senior class and a down year in Illinois high school basketball overall, plenty of good things are happening.
From the quarterfinals on, each of the last seven games of the Proviso West Holiday Tournament were exciting, and the final day at Pontiac was even better.
Morgan Park and Belleville Althoff look like they could be truly great teams, and their potential showdown in the Class 3A final is reason enough to be excited.
So too is the specter of a Curie-Simeon rematch with a 4A sectional title on the line and fewer whistles for every little thing that drew one in Curie’s 80-78 victory on Devin Gage‘s running 3-pointer at the buzzer at Pontiac.
Those four teams may ultimately prove to occupy a level nobody else reaches, but the huge middle class in Chicago-area high school basketball this season is not a bad thing.
From the Public League’s Red-South, Central and West to the North Suburban Lake to the Southwest Suburban Blue, to both divisions of the West Suburban, exciting conference races have just begun to take shape in every direction.
There are several big games this week as conference play resumes en masse, headlined by No. 5 Kenwood at No. 2 Curie on Tuesday afternoon.
Gage, who injured his ankle in the final minute of Curie’s victory against Peoria Manual in the Pontiac final, is not expected to play in the first of Curie’s two Red-Central showdowns with Kenwood.
We’ll track the best conference races in this virtual space throughout the regular season, beginning below with the North Suburban Lake.
North Suburban Lake
Spoiled by some epic battles between the Stevenson teams of Jalen Brunson and Lake Forest during Evan Boudreaux‘s tenure, the NSL lacks a true headliner but remains compelling because of five pretty good teams that all appear capable of winning it.
After saying goodbye to a productive senior class, Lake Zurich (10-3) has moved onward, and to this point, upward.
In addition to an impressive second-place showing at the Pekin tournament that included a victory against Mount Carmel, Lake Zurich already has victories against Stevenson (8-4, 2-1), Libertyville (9-4, 2-1) and Lake Forest (7-5, 1-2).
A couple of unheralded Nicks, 6-1 senior Nick Penny and 6-4 senior Nick Meyer, are quietly having big seasons for the Bears.
Zion-Benton (9-4, 1-1) belongs on the list of contenders as well. The Zee-Bees finished second at Jacobs’ Hinkle Classic, a 68-67 loss to Rockford Boylan away from the title.
Libertyville gave the conference three holiday tournament runners-up, finishing second to Notre Dame at Wheeling’s Hardwood Classic. The Wildcats have a lot to look forward to with a productive sophomore in Drew Peterson.
Stevenson and Lake Forest might have come back to the pack, but they’re both still dangerous.
Led by 6-7 Lorenzo Edwards, among the top unsigned seniors in Illinois, the Scouts have already proven they can beat good teams with victories against Zion-Benton and Deerfield (11-2).
The three-time defending champion, Stevenson may still be the most talented team in the conference despite the graduation of Brunson, Connor Cashaw (Rice) and two other starters.
Those losses made the Patriots a new team. Led by 6-6 junior Justin Smith, their personnel is still good, but the transition has not been seamless.
A fourth-place finish at Hinsdale Central included close losses to Homewood-Flossmoor and Maine South.
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By the end of the year, those could be the kind of games Stevenson will win. This race is going to make everybody involved better, and the winner is going to have to earn it.
Everybody meets twice, and the champion could have three or even four losses. That’s how even it looks right now.
There will be important games every week. This week it’s Lake Zurich at Zion-Benton and Lake Forest at Stevenson on Tuesday and Libertyville at Zion-Benton on Friday.
Mike Helfgot is a freelance reporter for the baiduhai.