Hoopraker

November 22, Chicago Heights, Ill.

Hillcrest (Country Club Hills) 62 Homewood-Flossmoor 39
No visit to Chicago is complete without some high school basketball. I’m biased (if you haven’t noticed), but I think it’s the best basketball town in America. And this is due in no small measure to the wealth and breadth of the Chicagoland high school hoops scene. Great players and coaches abound. And unlike most other big cities, it is a basketball community where city and suburb communicate and collide to great effect. And neither camp has a monopoly on talent. My friend from Detroit says even the best suburban programs there are almost never competitive with city public or Flint schools. In Chicago the parity from city to suburb is a given. One need only attend the Proviso West Holiday Tournament or some IHSA sectionals and supersectionals to see this argument proven year after year.

As a New York city resident, I am frustrated by the inaccessibility of high school basketball. A big part of the problem is that the local sportspages here–New York Times, NY Post, Daily News–are some of the worst in the country. The NYT is more of a national paper so I give it a pass. Not that I think it’s national sports coverage is worth a damn either. The Post and Daily News have no such excuse. They are journalistic jokes from start to finish. So it’s hard to know where the good games are being played. I know there are some strong suburban programs across the Hudson in Jersey, but it’s a chore to find out the who, what, where and whens. Moral of the story, when I visit Chicago I’m in bad need of a fix. And the Chicago Sun-Times does a superb job of telling me where to score.

There were several Turkey Day tournaments that caught my eye. Michael Jordan’s sons are on the same roster at Loyola Academy (Wilmette). The matchups at their tournament weren’t that competitive so I demurred. My alma mater at Oak Park-River Forest has two D1 prospects and they were playing in a pretty solid tournament at Lane Tech. I couldn’t break away from family duties. Gene Pingatore’s St. Joe’s Chargers have at least three D1 starters (Evan Turner, OSU: Demetri McCamey, Illinois, and Garrett Leffelman, Brown). I’ll see them at the Proviso West Holiday tournament at Xmas, so I decided to wait a month.

Then I noticed the Chicago Heights Classic with a marquee Hillcrest vs. Homewood-Flossmoor tilt. Bango! I borrowed my mother-in-law’s Toyota Avalon, put her Johnny Cash Live At Folsom album on eleven and burned rubber to Marian Catholic High. I got there just as the zebras were making sure the rock had good bounce. I sat two rows up on center court and was soon surrounded by the unofficial Hillcrest Hawks cheer squad. Ambience!

Hillcrest is a state contender. Coach Tom Cappel has been there for several decades and has produced countless D1 studs. His most recent product is Jerel McNeal at Marquette. Like many programs in the south suburbs Hillcrest has plenty of basketball talent strolling its halls. What separates the Hawks and equally strong neighboring programs at Thornwood, Thornridge, Bloom and Thornton is coaching. And Cappel is the best of the bunch.

H-F has a loaded roster. I counted at least four D1 caliber players. Kevin Dillard is one of the areas most skilled point guards and he’s only a junior. Fellow juniors, 6′6″ Supo Sanni and 6″3″ Russell Ellington already possess NBA bodies and unlimited athletic upside. When you’re bringing strapping 6′6″ sophomore Mike Buchanan from the end of your bench you are officially stacked.

Cappel’s squad has some tremendous athletes and two D1 players in 6′7″ senior Kellen Thornton (a long, smooth player with nice range on his jumper) and Elliott Jones, a bruising 6′2″ tweener with a beautiful inside/outside game. On paper, though, H-F should’ve won this thing. No one told Cappel or his Hawks. They played wonderful, hustling team basketball from minute one and never let up. H-F had long stretches where they coasted and daydreamed, expecting their talent to carry them. This lackadaisical attitude probably gets them by a lot of nights. But if the opposing team is executing and playing a frenetic, committed five man game H-F will have problems.

It was a coaching clinic by Cappel and a passionate effort from his kids. And that folks is why I will never tire of high school basketball in Chicago. The kind of quality basketball combined with top flight talent that I witnessed tonight is available every night of the week. It’s a savvy fan’s paradise.

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If I had any notion of being impartial, a review of the ACC/Big 10 Challenge schedule sobered me up right quick. Upon first glance, I actually convinced myself that the Big 10 will win all of these games. I suspect this is why I’ve never come remotely close to winning anything resembling a NCAA Tourney bracket pool. I’ll try to justify and rationalize my chronic delirium of a Big Ten sweep. Well, maybe Minnesota will lose.

1. If Michigan doesn’t get lazy, they should beat N.C. State tonight.
2. Maryland at Illinois. I saw the Maryland-Michigan State game and a young, tough Spartan team, playing real defense, should have won absent a shot clock violation by Maryland at the end of the game. Not only is this game in Assembly Hall, but Illinois is well-coached, they have great talent on the wings and they play in your face defense. Jamar Smith is back and Chester Frazier isn’t afraid of DJ Strawberry. McBride and Randall are tough matchups and I’m excited to see freshman Brian Carlwell. I like Illinois.
3. Florida State at Wisconsin. Give me Bo Ryan, his deep team of Upper Midwestern scrapers, Regent Street Brats, New Glarus Spotted Cow and a seat next to the fire in the Memorial Union Rathskeller. I love Madison.
4. Penn State at Georgia Tech. Tech is good but I like Eddie DeChellis, Danny Morrissey, Jamelle Cornley and Gerry Claxton. In my head I know this isn’t a good pick, but in my heart, I want DeChellis to get this one. I really do. He’s got good guards and their tough. They hustle. Nice wins over Bucknell and St. Joe’s bode well.
5. Indiana at Duke. After losing to Butler, Kelvin Sampson needs this one to placate two contingents of Hoosier fans: those who agreed to sell their souls for Eric Gordon, and those who were amazed Sampson got the job in the first place. Despite his affection text messaging, Sampson will have the Hoosiers ready to play tough defense and Duke may not be ready for intense pressure on their backcourt. DJ White will be ready for the bright lights and that spells trouble for Josh McRoberts.
6. Miami at Northwestern. In case you haven’t noticed, Welsh-Ryan is a tough place to beat the Kittens. Coupled with Willy the Wildcat, playing is Evanston is an equalizer. To win this one, Northwestern needs its guards to control the tempo. If that happens and if freshman Coble and Ryan can hit a few shots, Miami won’t beat them. I’m also inclined to think Miami will underestimate Northwestern, which will be a big mistake. Nevertheless, like many Wildcat fans, I wish Coble and Ryan were juniors. Seriously, what’s taken Carmody so long to recruit decent basketball players? If there’s a decent excuse, I’d like to hear it. We’ve said it before, but within the Princeton system, Northwestern would win with guards who could shoot, e.g., the Butler Bulldogs.
7. Michigan State at Boston College. Could be a great game and the best this week. I love Izzo and I love the makeup of this year’s team, replete with talent and deep. Old time Spartan basketball. Raymar Morgan is seriously good.
8. Virginia at Purdue. Virginia won’t be able to stop Carl Landry, who’ll be ready to show the country why he’s the best player in the Conference. This is a huge home game for Matt Painter and he’ll have the Boilermakers ready, Gene Keady style.
9. Iowa at Virginia Tech. Well, maybe I do indeed have delusions of sugarplum fairies. In a battle of two mediocre teams, I’ll take Haluska and Alford.
10. Ohio State at North Carolina. I had second row seats to watch Carolina play Tennessee on Friday night at the Garden, which, in case you didn’t know, is the World’s Greatest Arena according to MSG knuckleheads. With Ohio State being promoted to Number 1 (which is ridiculous by the way) Chapel Hill should be loud and ready, but will it be enough, I think not. From their sloppy showing in New York last week, Carolina plays tacit defense, gives up too many open shots, doesn’t shoot exceptionally well and is sloppy with the ball. That’s a recipe for Ohio State to control the tempo of the game with Jamar Butler and Mike Conley, get good looks and make shots. Matta usually has his team ready to play defense and if he can convince Hunter, Terwilliger and Harris to block out, Ohio State should neutralize Hansborough. Make someone else beat you but pay close attention to Brandon Wright. Tennessee tried defending him with a 6′4″ slow small forward with poor results. Perhaps the best player for Carolina might be Ty Lawson, who’ll replace Bobby Frasor soon enough but, lucky for the Buckeyes not Wednesday night. Although this is their first true test (other than a win against a good Kent State team), Ohio State has better guards and at this point in the season that might be enough.
11. Clemson at Minnesota. Say goodbye to Dan Monson. As nice a guy as he seems to be, the Gophers continue to lose too many games to teams they shouldn’t be losing to, and this is another one.

Well, thirty minutes after starting this absurd rationalization, Amaker’s Wolverines have been outscored by twenty-two points. They’ve gone soft on defense and have become careless with the ball. Live by the quick outside shot, die by the quick outside brick. I hope Thad Matta is watching.

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November 21, 2006
Evanston, Illinois
Northwestern 64 Brown 40

My pregame meal was two triangles of Lou Malnati’s deep dish vegetarian. The cheese was epic, the crust a buttery xanadu. I renewed my palate with mom’s homemade vinaigrette over organic greens then chased it all with a crisp Bell’s Brewery Oberon microbrew.

Pop and I saddled up the Volvo and pointed it north up Green Bay Road. The Evanston night was just the right kind of chilly. Leaves skittered and danced in our headlights, someone was burning fragrant wood in their hearth, the stars winked in the clear black ink above. Way too cheap to pay for parking, we checked the Volvo on a quiet side street, grabbed two Wildcat butt cushions from the wayback and hiked the two blocks to Welsh-Ryan.

As we settled into our seats four rows off center court, however, a dark storm started to rage in my lower digestive tract. Maybe my belly has gone soft from years of third rate New York City pizza. Whatever the case, it soon became clear my dinner was not going to go quietly into the good night. Not wanting to miss a minute of my beloved collegiate hoops, I avoided the john by releasing well-timed (Star Spangled Banner, PA announcements) micro-farts. Longtime Wildcat sufferers in the near vicinity took the brunt of several emissions with midwestern stolidity and forbearance. It takes a helluva lot more to ruffle true sons of the heartland. NU superfan Bill Stafford was too busy heckling the card carrying AARP/Big Ten officiating crew to notice my pizza squeezes. Fortunately, by the time Barack Obama and family took their seats in the row behind us, the crisis had passed. Cutting gruyere on the future president and first lady would’ve caused me sleepless nights. Not that Barack hasn’t released colon whispers in a crowd, no one’s that perfect. But, still, you try to be a hospitable host.

Tonight’s game was a homecoming for the new coach at Brown, Craig Robinson. After six seasons beside Carmody at NU he was returning to Evanston for the first time as an opposing head coach. Not only that, his squad was fresh off an upset of cross-town bully Providence. Would Craig and the Bears be able to follow the momentum of that big win and embarass his former boss on their homecourt? Would the Cats be jet lagged from their weekend trip to Palo Alto? Would Barack Obama’s support of his brother-in-law Robinson doom NU? Or like Harold Ford Jr. perhaps the Barack bump wouldn’t be enough for the Bears. (Shame on Tennessee, by the way.) Is Vince Scott point shaving? Would my agita relapse? Would one of the refs blow an artifical hip? It was time to find out.

Given all the nice subplots it was amazing that the story of the night was the play of Ben Gay All-American Tim Doyle. In his third and final year after transferring from St. John’s, Tim’s hitched, rusty robot act has been a constant presence in Carmody’s rotation. His game, fueled more by smarts and guts than athleticism, is as retro as the butchwax his uses to solidify his ‘do. His passing sometimes achieves the sublimity of Cousy. His dribble drives, though not fleet, take supreme advantage of defenders who are snoozing or off balance. Despite an especially antagonistic relationship to gravity, he gets his shot off with clever ball and head fakes and by using his body to screen defenders. Sure, sometimes one of his no-look passes hits Willie The Wildcat in the first row or he turns an uncontested layup into something out of the 3 Stooges or one of his two-handed set shots finds nothing but Welsh-Ryan air. When his game falters, though, a familiar refrain rises up from middle-aged Wildcat faithful: “Gotta love Doyle. He plays like us.”

And therein lies his appeal. He plays like a fifty year old rec leaguer. When one of his self-described “flippers or dinkers” finds the bottom of the net it is a victory for the vertically challenged oaf in all of us. While he eschews an old skool headband, he makes up for it by wearing two kneebands. Further appealing to the middle-aged demographic, he (and teammate Vince Scott) are on personal missions to save the set shot from the endangered list. And when all else fails, he politics the refs like a Tammany Hall fixer. See Tim schmooze.

The fact is Doyle has extraordinary eye-hand and a high basketball IQ. And when he puts together consistent minutes his unorthodox game has charm and potency. Tonight was such a night. His passes were uncanny lasers. His dinkers were finding nothing but net. He was having fun out there. And we had fun watching.

Doyle’s line:
35 minutes
17 points on 8-12 FG, 1-2 FT
4 rebounds
8 assists
2 blocks
1 steal

The Cats were rough on their prodigal son tonight. To be fair the Bears were missing several starters due to injury and it showed. Robinson will have Brown competing for Ivy League crowns sooner than later. He’s already used his Chicago connections to land a nice shooter from the class of 2007: St. Joseph’s wingman Garrett Leffelman.

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November 14, 2006
Evanston, Illinois
Northwestern 49 DePaul 39

I want Bill Carmody to succeed. The Princeton offense is ideally suited to Northwestern’s unique identity in a conference where the Wildcats will always struggle to put commensurate athletes on the floor. It is a system that allows student-athletes to compete with teams full of players whose daily schedule reads something like this:

1p Awoken from cannabis-laced sleep by Team Manager and escorted to first class.
1:30-2:25p The Elements and Practice of Weight Training R103
2:30-3:30p Lunch
3:30-4:30p Cannabis, Nap
4:30-7p Practice
7-8p Dinner
8-2a Cannabis, XBox, Graduate Assistant Drops Off Term Paper, Sportscenter, Booster Drops Off Envelope, Cannabis, XBox, Conceive child with team groupie, Cannabis
2a-1p Sleep

Watching the Cats befuddle DePaul’s posse of tattoo rife athletes tonight was a pleasure equal to the bear baitings of my Saskatchewan youth. The trapping zone had the Demons forcing low percentage bricks all evening long. It was clear DePaul’s players were not comfortable running patient half-court sets. It is fun to watch the frustration of players used to the immediate gratification of wide open looks, uncontested layups and dunks being denied all of the above by smart team defense. And while the Wildcats didn’t put on an offensive clinic, far from it, they got enough timely shooting to get the job done. Craig Moore followed up his flaccid first game with some huge buckets when they counted. Kevin Coble put together a stretch of dominant, assertive offense in the second half that was something unseen in Evanston since the Rex Walters era. Making it a habit, Jeff Ryan got a strip and took it the length for a huge deuce. Okrzesik has the makings of a floor general. Sterling Williams hit some big shots. And it doesn’t hurt when you hold your opponent to 39 points.

Jerry Wainwright had no answers tonight. Carmody’s team left a considerably more talented bunch shaking their heads in frustration. It wasn’t attractive, but for the purist who appreciates IQ over raw talent, it was a delight. Goddarn it if Carmody had a few more players who could shoot the ball. And hit some free throws. This might be a program where I wasn’t dreading the road trip to Palo Alto. Where a road victory wasn’t like resurrecting Tutankhamen and getting him to karaoke Eddie Money’s Greatest Hits. Because this is a program I really want to get behind. Carmody, please, keep recruiting Cobles and Ryans and Okrzesiks. I’m willing to paint my face purple and go on some roadtrips.

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1st Person Game Dispatch:

November 10, 2006
Evanston, Illinois
Cornell 64 Northwestern 61

As I suggested in my preseason remarks, Northwestern’s current roster is better suited to Ivy League competition. Middling Ivy League competition. Their home opening performance against Cornell is Exhibit A. This was a nip and tuck affair from tip to buzzer.

The Wildcats debuted a starting lineup of Craig Moore, Sterling Williams, Vince Scott, Tim Doyle, and frosh Kevin Coble. Let’s start with the positives. Kevin Coble is the best basketball player Bill Carmody has lured to Evanston. If he sticks around he has a chance to be an all-time Wildcat. It isn’t hard to see why he was a 27 point scorer in high school. He has the kind of scorer’s mentality and confidence that is desperately needed at NU. Will he remain patient with the program or will he be yet another difference making player to grow impatient and jettison to greener pastures? Jeff Ryan is another frosh of impact. His steal and coast to coast layup was a display of athleticism and basket attacking moxie that has been in dire supply under Carmody. The Rice transfer Jason Okrzesik is another gamer who should make some nice contributions. These three are the kind of recruits that should be the rule at NU. Carmody should’ve been bringing in this caliber of ballplayer from the beginning. Why has it taken so long? Hopefully his 2007 commits Mike Capocci and Michael Thompson will continue the trend.

It’s an imperative because Carmody’s upperclass holdovers on display tonight ranged from developmentally frozen to simply not Big Ten caliber. While it is early to apply blanket indictments, the performances of his returnees were inauspicious. It leads me to a nagging question. What exactly do Carmody’s players do in the offseason? Do they stick around Evanston for workouts, team oriented development? Does Carmody expect enough of them? It strikes me as a prerequisite to success in D1 that teams use springs and summers to develop both individual skills and team cohesion, chemistry. Looking at his key returnees tonight failed to provide much evidence of transformative summers. NU is a program that depends on maximization of limited basketball capital. This has to be a program where the players outwork, outsmart, outdedicate the competition. This is simply the price of doing business at NU. It’s not clear Carmody fully understands this burden.

Props to Cornell’s strong road effort. Sophomore Adam Gore is a fantastic college basketball player. He plays with the passion and tireless enthusiasm of someone who loves the game for all the right reasons. Add to that he is a pure shooter with unlimited range and a quick release. The Monrovia, IN schoolboy is probably no more than 5′7″ in his high-tops and was reportedly recruited only by Cornell and Yale. Carmody would be lucky to have eleven guys with Gore’s work ethic, gamesmanship and productivity. He was the best player on the floor tonight and he was an inspiration to watch.

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