Brothers JayQuan, Jovi and Jamir Ratliff thought it would be a cool to play varsity basketball on the same team.
The problem? JayQuan, a guard, was about to begin his senior season at Hillcrest and his two younger brothers were at Homewood-Flossmoor.
But that took care of itself when Jovi, a junior guard, and Jamir, a sophomore guard, transferred. And now, the band is back together.
“We’ve played AAU together before with this team called the Illinois Fierce,” Jovi said. “But this was the first time we could play varsity together.
“We had a chance for all three of us to be on the same team. It’s been good. We’ve all been getting a lot of playing time.”
And leave it to the youngest to chime in.
“It’s fun playing up with my brothers again,” Jamir said.
Jovi is getting the most attention, averaging 17 points to lead the Hawks (9-8) in scoring. He made the all-tournament team in December at the Big Dipper.
But Hillcrest coach Don Houston
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said all three have been big contributors.“‘Quan’ is the leader — a vocal leader,” Houston said. “‘Jo’ is a scorer. He can put the ball in the basket. Jamir is the hustle guy. He’s just all over the place.
“They all have their individual strengths. They may have grown up in the same house, but they have different strengths. They are not doing the same thing.”
Basketball got started for the trio when JayQuan took up the sport.
“My first game was in a rec league with a friend,” he said. “My brothers were watching me and then we started playing together.
“It’s great that we could play varsity together. That’s the highest you can play in high school.”
The Ratliff brothers used to go at each other pretty hard in practice, but now they are not as aggressive.
“We all push each other, but we all make each other better, too,” JayQuan said.
The Hawks graduated a ton of talent from a team that went 29-4 last season and had a young team that opened up with two wins followed by five straight losses.
For a program that hasn’t had a losing season since finishing 11-13 in 1987-88, it was a shock to the system.
Lately, however, things are looking up. The Hawks are on a five-game winning streak after beating Riverside-Brookfield 63-57 in Monday’s MLK Shootout at Homewood-Flossmoor.
“We had trouble at the beginning, but we found each other,” JayQuan said of the start to the season. “We kept working with each other. We built chemistry and got stronger.
“We’re getting better.”
Houston, a veteran coach, has just about seen it all since taking over in 2007-08. Hillcrest won the Class 3A state title two seasons later.
Houston’s teams have never lost more than 10 games, so even he’s in unfamiliar territory.
“We went through a lot of adversity early on,” Houston said. “We had people who were hurt. Sometimes, we had to do some discipline. We didn’t really get a full team until Christmastime.
“Now, we’re starting to play with a full team. Now, we’re playing like we should have been playing at the beginning of the year.”
With the Ratliff brothers helping to lead the way, Houston hopes a strong finish to the season is in the works.
He said there hasn’t been much college interest yet in the trio, but that should change.
“They are really talented kids,” he said. “They can contribute and do good things that help us out. It’s early on for the recruiting. A lot of people aren’t going to be coming out right now.
“If we start to turn the corner, the interest will be there.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.