South Elgin’s Collin Uveges has a history of being constantly challenged in basketball, even at home.
So perhaps it’s no surprise the 6-foot-2 guard has emerged this season as a senior leader as the Storm attempt to adjust to difficult circumstances.
Uveges received regular challenges at a young age from his sister Savanah, a 2014 South Elgin graduate and multisport standout.
“She’s probably why I continued to play basketball,” Collin Uveges said of Savanah. “I tried to compete with her all the time at home, and she always made me better.”
Savanah Uveges continues to inspire as a soccer player at Nebraska.
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“She’s had four ACL surgeries and (she’s) still trying to play,” Collin said.
Collin Uveges, who’s tied for the team lead in points with 127 and second in scoring average at 11.5 points, was named all-tournament while helping lead South Elgin (7-4) to a second-place finish at last week’s Chuck Dayton Holiday Tournament.
“He’s a floor leader and he does the things he’s asked to do, and tries to do all the things correctly,” Storm coach Brett Johnson said of Uveges. “And that’s what makes him a valuable asset to this team.
“He doesn’t do what he wants to do sometimes, he tries to make the team play and it shows. They’re all having fun right now, and he’s a big part of it.”
The fun came after a difficult first few weeks of practice.
Johnson became South Elgin’s third coach in three years during late September, and brought along a completely different style and system than coach Jim Cook used before his August resignation.
The Storm already had suffered a setback in summer when college prospect Anthony Lynch transferred to Larkin.
“It was hard, especially to try to get everybody on board with the same thing right away,” Uveges said. “We’re such a good group, a lot of hard workers, and we’re together. We all stayed positive and got it done.”
If anyone could relate to players about going through three coaches in a short period, it’s Johnson. Elgin went through coaches Jim Harrington, Mike Miller and Dave Gilliland when Johnson was in the Maroons’ program from 1999-2002.
South Elgin players find Johnson’s style different and enjoyable.
“We were more slow-down style before, but we’ve got guys who like to run and so we run,” Uveges said. “We’re loving this pace, but we are able to keep it under control.”
Senior forward Logan Atkins, who leads in scoring average at 14.1 points, likes how Johnson’s style keeps it interesting for everyone. Four players have led in scoring, eight have scored in double digits, and it’s common when 12 get floor time.
“As soon as he came in, he reversed everything about how it was,” Atkins said. “The thing I love about him is he knows how to make adjustments with the rotations, with defenses, with offenses, all of that.
“I feel like he’s a huge reason we’ve had this kind of a start.”
South Elgin resumes play at 7 p.m. Friday with an Upstate Eight Valley home game against East Aurora. The sixth-seeded Storm lost 69-55 to top-seeded Geneva at DeKalb.
“That game showed me something about us — that we can score on a tough defensive team,” Johnson said.
Another game, a 50-38 home loss on Dec. 16 to Bartlett, inspired the tournament run.
“We were all hurt about that because that’s our rivalry game and we had a lot of people there,” Uveges said. “We all felt the negative impact of it and worked extra hard after.
“We never wanted to feel that again.”
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