It was quite a fall around Naperville North, as Jeff Powers well knows.
Four of Powers’ boys basketball players, including returning guard Chris Sullivan, were on the Huskies’ state championship soccer team. The school won a title in girls cross country the same day.
Another basketball player, Mitch Lewis, and the Huskies posted their most wins in football since 2010.
“A lot of neat stories,” Powers said. “The school is in a good place.”
It’s basketball’s turn.
North is poised to build on its own breakthrough season. Monday was the first day of boys basketball practice around the state.
It’s a short turnaround for a few of the Huskies.
Lewis and Derek Amend, the latter healing from a broken finger, were just 10 days removed from their last football game. Powers told Sullivan and the soccer players to take off until Wednesday.
If Powers is concerned about a slow start, he isn’t showing it.
“Football guys should be fine with a week off and the soccer guys have done all they need to do to make the team,” Powers said. “The other guys who didn’t play in the fall have been working very hard and are in tremendous shape.”
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Familiarity should ease the transition.
Lewis is one of four returning starters for North (23-5), which is coming off the program’s first DuPage Valley Conference championship since 2012.
Also back from North’s top seven players are starting guards Winston Elston and Tyler Carlson, starting post Chris Johnson and Sullivan.
Last season, the Huskies lost to York in a regional final.
Lewis, a 6-foot-6 senior, has a basketball offer from Northern Colorado, and four football offers. Johnson, a 6-6 post, is a rising junior prospect.
“We still have to find the identity of this particular group, find out who we are and who will fill what roles,” Powers said. “But we have a lot of depth.”
The Huskies, a surprise to some last year, won’t sneak up on anybody. That attention is evident in North’s schedule.
The Huskies will play Evanston and Division I prospect Nojel Eastern on Jan. 21 at the Glenbard East Shootout. They open up with Hinsdale Central and then West Aurora at the Hoops for Healing Tournament.
North has averaged more than 18 wins in Powers’ seven seasons, but that success hasn’t translated yet to the playoffs. The Huskies’ last regional title was in 2006, and its last sectional championship came in 1998.
Both seem realistic targets for one of the area’s best teams.
“Sometimes our program gets lost in the shuffle a little bit,” Powers said. “We’ve been doing OK, but we haven’t made that run in the postseason that gets a lot of attention. Our talent might be higher this year.”
Joshua Welge is a freelance writer for the Naperville Sun.