[Preview of my story to appear in Inside Publications]
The DePaul College Prep Rams defeated the Niles North Vikings 71-49 to win the 2022 Battle of the Bridge Thanksgiving high school basketball tournament at DePaul Prep’s Tom Winiecki Gym on Friday evening.
The Rams first three games of the season in the Battle of the Bridge were victories over Englewood STEM (68-29), Francis Parker (65-32) and Notre Dame (35-25).
Niles North similarly came into the game 3-0 taking the Lane branch of the tournament with wins over Legal Prep (73-29), Jones (65-51) and Lane (77-62).
In marked contrast to Wednesday’s 35-25 low scoring affair against Notre Dame, the Rams ran the ball and shoot the ball well despite not having junior standout forwards Payton Kamin and Jaylan McElroy. Senior guard Maurice Thomas led the Rams with 23 points and earned himself the most valuable player award for the tournament. DePaul Prep’s impressive sophomore guard Rob Walls earned a start with the absence of DePaul’s junior standout Payton Kamin.
Trailing 17-16 at the end of the first quarter, the Rams dialed up the running game in the second quarter. After junior center Jonas Johnson had to leave the game, DePaul head coach Tom Klienschmidt went to a five-guard lineup. Not his usual formula for success but it worked. The Rams opened a 34-21 halftime lead and never looked back.
The DePaul Prep basketball program has been quite successful in recent years under the leadership of former Gordon Tech and DePaul University star Tom Kleinschmidt. The Rams had state tournament third place state finishes in 2019 and 2022. 2021 had no state tournament but the Rams finished ranked number one having won the post-season Chipolte tournament.
DePaul Prep looks to continue its success with a group of young players. Starting only one senior, Maurice Thomas, the Rams have two highly rate junior forwards, Payton Kamin and Jaylon McElroy. McElroy is recovering from an injury and is not expected to play until January. Junior P.J. Chambers and sophomores Makai Kvamme and Jonas Johnson will also start round out the starting five.
“Maurice Thomas is our lone senior in the starting lineup. He’s our lone senior that’s gonna get a lot of minutes. We expect him to be a leader. Although me may not have the experience on the floor, he has a lot of practice experience,” Kleinschmidt said of leading scorer Maurice Thomas.
This is a new DePaul team. “I’ve got Rob [Walls] with 15, [Thomas] with 23, Jonas [Johnson] with 9, Maki [Kvamme] with 11 and PJ [Chambers] with 12. That’s one senior, one junior and three sophomores. Jonas Johnson did all the dirty work. He’s a wing and he’s playing a big until Jaylon comes back. He’s going and awesome job,” Kleinschmidt continued.
It’s been sometime since DePaul scored 70 points, actually not since December 17, 2021, with the 80-37 win over Providence-St. Mel. “We’ve just got a different team now. We’ve got guys that can shoot it. We’ve got some athletes that can get to the rim. We shoot it better than we’ve ever shot it. And we guard too,” said Kleinschmidt.
Neighboring 47th Ward high schools Lane Tech and DePaul Prep have jointly hosted the Battle of the Bridge Thanksgiving tournament since 2014. Notre Dame finished in third place this year with its 63-46 victory over Jones. The DePaul Prep Rams won the tournament last year with 66-51 victory over Notre Dame High School.
The Rams move into conference play in the Chicago Catholic League next week. The Catholic League is stacked this year with No. 2 ranked St. Rita, then there is No. 8 Brother Rice, No. 9 Mount Carmel, No. 10 St. Ignatius and there is always Loyola. The only stronger conference is possibly the Chicago Public School’s Red-South-Central with No. 1 Simeon, No. 3 Kenwood, No. 6 Curie, No. 24 Hyde Park and No. 25 Perspective-Leadership.
