Lane Falls to St. Ignatius 66-60 at Chicago Elite Classic

[A preview of this week’s article in Inside—Booster.]

By Jack Lydon

The Lane Tech Champions (2-3) have had a rough start. They came up short 66-60 on Friday against #11 St. Ignatius at the Chicago Elite Classic at UIC’s Credit One Arena. In their first five games, the Champions have faced five ranked teams, #4 DePaul Prep, #11 St. a Ignatius, #18 Niles North, who they beat, and #21 Curie.

“I have a lot of faith in this team. This is the best team I think with have had at Lane. It would be great being 5-0 here on December 6th, but we want to be ready in March,” Lane Tech Champions head coach Nick LoGalbo said of his tough schedule.

“This team has a chance to do some special things. We lost three heartbreakers. Curie was a last second shot. We have got to put some games together now,” LoGalbo continued.

Much is said about win/loss records. Should a team pile up wins or is it better to put tough teams on one’s schedule? Fans like a gaudy win loss record but coaches know it’s better to have faced tough competition when hiding into the IHSA playoffs in March.

LoGalbo is confident about his team in large part because of the team’s “length”—a reference to the size of his players and their ability of his defenders to force outside shots.

“They have a ton of length. That’s one of their many strengths,” said St. Ignatius head coach Matt Monroe regarding Lane.

“We wanted to hunt good shots. We couldn’t just one pass and shoot a three because they were going to have a guy right there. We needed to get our shooters open and get their lengthy guys away from our shooters by driving and kicking,” Monroe continued.

“We talked a little bit about trying to navigate their length, to finish off two feeds, shot fake around the rim, if you don’t get them to bite then kick it out to the shooters. That played a big role in our open shots in the second half.”

And that’s largely what happened. Just a few points separated the teams throughout the first half as the teams traded buckets. But in the second half, the drive-kick-pass-shoot offense of St. Ignatius installed resulted in seven three-point field goals.

“They shot 50% from three. We had two tough teams that know each other exceptionally well. They know what we are going to run. We know what they are going to run. They did a good job of taking us out of some of the things we wanted to do. We made some adjustments and we were getting some clean looks. But at the end of the day, we made some bonehead mistakes,” LoGalbo lamented.

The Champions move on into Chicago Public League play with upcoming games against Westinghouse, Kenwood, Clarke and a rematch against Phillips. Lane also travels next weekend to Washington D.C., to play in the Gonzaga high school tournament. This is more of the boot camp to get ready for the March state title run.

The Chicago Elite Classic is a high school basketball “shootout” organized and hosted by legendary CPS high school coaches Tyrone Slaughter and retired Simeon coach Robert Smith. Top teams from the Chicago area are invited play other top teams. Also invited are top teams from around the country. This year, those teams are Mater Dei from Los Angeles, Chaminade from Missouri and Duncanville from Texas.

Curie Defeats Kenwood 68-49

Kenwood led 28-24 at halftime only to be outscored 28-4 in the third quarter. I don’t know what’s happened to Kenwood but they look like a whole different team from the one I saw play Thornton at the Chicago Elite Classic.

These are the photos. Curie’s gym is a great place to photograph a game. The light is pretty good. The gym in colorful. And otherwise a great atmosphere.

Simeon to Play Kenwood in City Championship Game Saturday

The Simeon Wolverines went to four overtimes, surviving four last shot chances by Curie to advance 64-60 to the Chicago Public League’s basketball championship on Saturday. Kenwood advanced as well with a deliberate but convincing 56-42 win over a newcomer to the City Championship final four, Perspectives-Leadership.

I have never seen four overtimes in a basketball game, until today. Four times Simeon had chances to put away the Curie Condors and four times Curie battled with a shot to win the game at the buzzer. Simeon’s defense wouldn’t allow it.

Curie’s head coach Mike Oliver called times out at that the ends of the second and third overtimes with under nine seconds giving his team not a lot of time to inbound the ball, crack the 1-3-1 pressure from Simeon’s Rubin twins to get up a game winner. Twice the Condors launched desperation shots that were nowhere close to going in, twice they didn’t even get up shots.

In the fourth overtime, Simeon managed to get a lead on Jalen Griffith and Miles Rubin’s free throws that Jeremy Harrington and the other Condors could not overcome.

Simeon’s Jalen Griffith finished with 21 points. Miles Rubin had 10 including two late free throws to seal the victory. Sam Lewis had 9. For Curie, Carlos Harris had, 17 Jeremy Harrington 16, Kros Barrett 13 and Shawn Brown 10. 64-60 was the final with the winner to meet the winner of the following game, Kenwood v. Perspectives-Leadership.

Mike Irvin and his Kenwood Broncos faced the unlikely upstart Perspectives-Leadership Warriors. On January 17th, the Broncos went into Perspectives’ gym and jumped out to a 31-7 lead after the first quarter on the strength of points in transition. The Warriors had no way to stop the lighting quick Broncos.

Until today that is. “We did a better job slowing down the game, playing a half court zone [defense] in the first half. It helped us out a lot. At home, we put a lot of pressure on the ball in half court. They got a head start on us. Today we were able to play a slower game. It worked in our favor in the first half. In the second half, it went the other way,” said Warriors head coach Mike Smith.

Even so, the Broncos were too much for the Warriors. The Broncos pulled away in the second had outscoring the Warriors 31-18.

Perspectives-Leadership’s impressive first half against Mike Irvin’s powerhouse Broncos squad bodes well for the upcoming IHSA 2A state tournament. The Warriors land the #1 seed in the Julian Sub-sectional B. Other top seeds in the Joliet (Central) Super-sectional include Phillips, DePaul Prep and Christ the King.  

Perspectives has taken a big jump in its first year in CPL’s Red Division becoming the first charter school to make it to the City Championship final four. The addition of transfers Jakeem Cole (for Leo) and brothers Gianni Cobb and Kamarion Cobb from Bloom raised expectations. Gianni Cobb and Jakeem Cole lead the Warriors with 16 and 14 points respectively.

Kenwood’s leading scorer was Jaden Smith with 14 points. Darrin “Dai Dai” Ames and 13 points despite sitting much of the second period with two early fouls. Tyler Smith had 12.

Saturday evening’s City Championship at UIC’s Credit One Arena—the old Pavilion, will be a showdown between the old and the new. Simeon head coach is on his victory lap as he plans to retire after this season. Mike Irvin and his Kenwood Broncos fancy themselves the new rising powerhouse in CPS. Never at a loss for words, Mike Irvin said, “we are excited.”

“This is what we worked for all season. We told everbody, we are a great team. We will be here. We changed his name to Disco Dai Dai [Darrin Ames] because he was dancing tonight. We are excited to be here.”

We got the matchup of the best teams. I guess we see how it works out.

Curie Defeats Bogan 69-66

Last year’s 4A third place finisher #1 ranked Curie Condors (13-1, 4-0) hosted last year’s 3A runner-up #4 Bogan Bengals (14-2, 4-1) in a showdown of the current top teams in the CPS Red-South Central Division. The Condors came into the game hot off their victory at the Pontiac Holiday Tournament with a 3-0 conference and a 12-1 overall record. Bogan was hot too, and confident. I am not sure I have seen a team with such swagger as Bogan.

Bogan showed up for their 5:00 p.m. game at 4:56. When I pointed this out to someone at the game, he said, “You must not get to too many Public League games.” Well, now that I think about it, a lot of the games do start late. I must not have I noticed because I am rarely early myself.  

The first quarter was tight with neither team seeming like it could get in any rhythm. In the second quarter, Curie took control going on an 21 to 9 run and took a 39-30 lead into the locker room.

In the third, Curie charged back despite Raheen Hinton’s cold shooting. Elijah Pickens and Saiveon Williams came through for the Condors with clutch defense and inside points done the stretch. The Bengals did not help themselves with missed free throws late in the third quarter which would come back to haunt them.

The officials called a lot of fouls in this game. It seemed like every player on the floor was playing with four fouls at the end. Both coaches were going crazy over the foul calls. I don’t think the problem was the lack of fouls but the lateness of the whistles.

But that is just me. I am not really watching the refs through my camera lens. Neither am I in any position to criticize the refs. It’s a very tough job. (I officiated a parents v. grade school kids game years ago. Even that was hard. I took a lot of grief—in a kids v. parents game. Can one imagine a CPS game between top teams? No thanks.) 

Curie held off furious charges by Bogan throughout the fourth quarter. The Condors stayed just out of reach and closed with a 69-66 victory to take the lead in the Red-South Central Division.

Still plenty of basketball to play including the City Championship. Looking forward to it.

As for the photos, I like the Curie gym. It was my first trip there. There is not a great deal of light but it is better than most and has good color. I boosted the ISO higher than I would like but the photos looked okay. I hope you like them.