DePaul Prep v. St. Viator Preview

So here we are.

Today is the day of the sectional final between the St. Viator Lions and the DePaul Prep Rams. Many have been waiting for this day since before the IHSA announced the sectional assignments months ago. It was not a secret that the Lions and the Rams are the two best teams in the Grayslake Central Sectional and probably the two best 3A teams north of Madison Street.

Both teams started out gangbusters and hit a rough patch near the end of the season. St. Viator’s Treyvon Calvin broke a bone in his hand and missed several weeks. The Rams suffered a couple losses in their killer schedule and fell out of the rankings for a bit. Each team rallied, the Rams won the Chicago Catholic League Blue and took care of business in the playoffs and here we are.

Some may know that I have connections to both schools. I graduated from St. Viator in 1981. My brother Dan is a Viatorian priest and taught there for many years. My sister is on the Finance Committee. I have several cousins that are students there now.

And my children attended to Gordon Tech, which then became DePaul Prep. I probably have a dozen close friends and relatives that attended Gordon Tech. It’s a neighborhood school. Since my children started at Gordon, I have gotten to know the coaches, teachers and administrators at the school. I have been photographing Gordon Tech and DePaul Prep athletics for several years now.

I like to think of myself as a photographer, a photojournalist. On occasion, my photos are published so I try to work by journalistic standards. Frankly, my photos are much better when I am concentrating on taking pictures and not watching the game. But I am not really a photojournalist—at least not for today’s game. So I guess I could be rooting for a team.

Joe Henricksen in the Sun-Times makes predictions about which teams are going to win sectional finals. I am much too superstitious for that. My Irish heritage won’t allow such a thing. But I will however offer some thoughts.

The Rams and the Lions match up well against each other. Jeremiah Hernandez and Perry Cowen are similar players. Trey Calvin and Raheem Anthony are similar as well. Conor Kochera and Pavle Pantovic can both play and contribute mightily inside. The size of the players over all is pretty close. Both teams can play excellent defense, can run the floor and play a half court game.

The Lions have been ranked higher than the Rams most of the season. I generally agree with Michael O’Brien and Mike Clark’s rankings but at this point in sectional finals rankings don’t mean much. I guess they will just have to play the game. I am lucky that one of my teams will probably make it to Peoria. That will be tough for me to shoot the state finals and have one of my teams playing. There I will be a photojournalist and can’t have a rooting interest. I will have to find a way to deal with it.

And in the immortal words of Paul Chabura . . .

DePaul Prep Comes Back to Defeat Carmel 57-46 in Sectional Semi-final

The DePaul Prep Rams defeated the Carmel Corsairs 57-46 Tuesday evening (March 5, 2019) to advance in the Grayslake 3A Sectional. (More on that in the following post.)

The Rams started slow. I mean really slow. As slow as I have ever seen them start. They took a lot of shots in the first quarter. good makable shots. The shots would not fall. The Rams were behind 17-7 at the end of the first quarter.

But they rallied going on a 11-0 to start the second quarter. I felt a lot better. I confess at the end of the first, I was a little concerned that we might be a quarter of the way into another evening like the one in North Chicago last March.

It all worked out. Tom Kleinschmidt and his Rams dialed up the pressure and made shots. They gathered a sizable lead late into the fourth quarter. It got a little too close in the closing minutes but Raheem Anthony sealed the victory after a tough first three quarters for him with 6 for sure, but maybe 8, free throws to close out the game. That was clutch. (I am a little sketchy on the details at times because I am taking photos, not notes, during the game.)

My photos aren’t very good because I was watching the game too much. And the light in the gym sucked. Consequently, I had the ISO up too high. The photos are really grainy. Hope you like them.

DePaul Prep Defeats Ridgewood 56-32 to win 3A Regional

The DePaul Prep Rams took care of business against the host Ridgewood Rebels 56-32 on Friday (March 1, 2019) to win their fifth IHSA Regional Playoff Championship in a row.

This is the last phase of the season—the IHSA 3A Playoffs. Been through Thanksgiving, Christmas, Shootouts, CCL games, now the playoffs. Another Regional championship in the books now its only good teams in front of the DePaul Prep Rams. Carmel, St. Viator, Farragut, Morgan Park and Springfield Southeast. That’s all. No problem.

The Rams have played the schedule for it. They played everyone tough. Took Morgan Park to the end. They can play. They know what to expect. Dribble, shoot, play defense, make layups and most importantly—make free throws. Do those things, get a little luck and who knows.  

Go Rams!

DePaul Prep Senior Night v. Mather, Rams 70, Panthers 25

The DePaul Prep Rams capped off a historic season Chicago Catholic League Championship regular season last night (Feb. 21, 2019) with an oversized 70-25 win over Mather. The Rams finish the regular season 20-9 overall and 12-3 in the Catholic League.

Seniors Perry Cowen, Raheem Anthony, Pavle Pantovic and Jack O’Brien played their last game in the Tom Winiecki Gym and it was a fun one. Thank you gentlemen for your Ram pride and dedication to your team and your school.

See you in Peoria!

DePaul Prep Defeats De La Salle 63-44 to Win Catholic League Blue Outright

Below are my photos from the DePaul Prep v. De La Salle game last night (Feb. 19, 2019) at DePaul Prep. By virtue of the 63-44 victory over the Meteors, the Rams’ stand alone atop the Chicago Catholic League’s Blue Division. For the first time since 2000, the Catholic League basketball championship resides at Addison and California.

It was an emotional night for the Rams and their supporters, including this one, after a disappointing loss at St. Rita on Sunday. The Rams improve their overall record to 19-9 and 12-3 in the Chicago Catholic League. One more regular season game remains for the Rams. On Thursday night (Feb. 21, 2019), Mather High School comes to the Tom Winiecki Gym for a 6:00 p.m., senior night finale.

I would like to offer a special word of thanks to Tom Kleinschmidt and Ken Gryzwa for their offer to let me cut down a piece of the net and for giving me a piece after I had to refuse. It has been my honor and privilege to photograph the Gordon Tech/DePaul Prep games for several years now. I have gradually gotten better as a photographer as a result. I could never have done it without so many gracious subjects. I am overjoyed to see the Rams enjoying so much success. I am equally pleased to see that DePaul Prep remains a great school with a rich tradition of and vibrant future for Catholic education in Chicago.

Congratulations and continued success to my friends at DePaul Prep. In the immortal words of Paul Chabura, “And as always, Go Rams!”

DePaul Prep Edged at the Buzzer by St. Rita, 65-64

DePaul Prep Defeats St. Ignatius 51-38

DePaul Prep Rams clinch a Chicago Catholic League Blue title with victory over Wolfpack.

Brother Rice Defeats DePaul Prep 67-54

On occasion I write, mostly in jest, that the light in the gym is the most important part of high school basketball. Well tonight I was down in the 19th Ward at Brother Rice. Please understand that I write this only from a place of Christian charity and as a loyal Chicago Catholic Leaguer, the light in the Brother Rice gym is . . . well . . . horrible.

There, I wrote it. Brother Rice has the nicest high school football stadium outside of Texas but very disappointing light in the gym. Such light as there is in the gym, which is not much, is yellow. All you Crusader fans and especially members of the Congregation of Christian Brothers, please do not hate me. It’s not personal; it’s photography.

I write this only to try and explain what I had to do to get some usable photos. I am still struggling to be a passable photographer. Much of what I have done this year is experimentation on the use of ISO. My current theory is not to go above 3200 ISO and try to bring back the exposure in Lightroom. This goes against my instinct to get the exposure right in the camera. When I shoot ISO above 3200, I find that my photos were noticeably grainy. (For example, look at my photos from the Orr v. Lane game, especially the photo that ended up in the Sun-Times.)

Today’s photos are competent enough but not good. The autofocus was dancing around on me. None of the photos are sharp. I have either reached the limit of my cameras’ capabilities or I don’t know how to make the most of the cameras—probably a little of both. I have got to get better at this.

As for the game, I think I will dial back that sort of commentary for a while. I talked to a friend this week who is a actual sportswriter. He said he enjoyed the blog but I found myself apologizing and explaining that I don’t pretend to be a sportswriter. That being said, the game was marred by fouls. I thought the referees did a terrible job on calls against both teams. Marquise Kennedy is very impressive. His foul shooting won the game. He can carry his team and did this afternoon.

Hope you like the photos.

End of the Regular Season

Early in this basketball season I wrote about the high school basketball season coming in phases: Thankgiving tournament, CCL crossover games, Christmas tournament, assorted shootouts. Now we are upon the second to last phase, the Chicago Catholic League Blue final games and await the IHSA playoffs.

I have told anyone foolhardy enough to listen that winning the Catholic League was what I wanted to see the DePaul Prep Rams do. Getting to Peoria would be nice but winning the 100 plus year old Chicago Catholic League is an accomplishment that means something, at least to me.

Well here we are. 8-1 in the Catholic League Blue with a one game lead on St. Laurence. Win out, and the DePaul Prep Rams and their coach, Tom Kleinschmidt will have won the Chicago Catholic League—the Catholic League Blue. But that is a subject for another day. Winning out means beating De La Salle, Fenwick (at Fenwick), Brother Rice (at Brother Rice), Loyola , St. Ignatius and then a chance to cap it off with a win against CCL White leader St. Rita.

There it is. Six CCL games in twelve days. All against historic rivals and good teams. If you do that, you’ve done something.

Even with this formidable task ahead and despite my frequent refrain against looking ahead, last night’s sixth Superbowl victory by Tom Brady and Bill Belicheck has me thinking. I could not stop myself from looking at the 3A IHSA playoffs and playing out the Sectional matchups.

Unlike most years, DePaul is not hosting either a regional or sectional. The IHSA 3A sectional assignments are out and DePaul has landed in the Grayslake Sectional. There are nineteen teams assigned to that sectional, including the formerly highly ranked and still extremely talented St. Viator Lions.

There are four regionals hosted by St. Patrick, Ridgewood, St. Viator and Carmel. It’s my understanding that teams are supposed to be assigned to geographically close regionals and not purely by seeded by the best teams. In practice, I am not sure how that all works. So I improvised. Basically, I just guessed. Looking at geography and over all records, this is what I came up with:

St. Patrick Regional: St. Patrick , Steinmetz, DePaul Prep, Noble/ITW Speer, Marine Leadership Academy.

Ridgewood Regional: Ridgewood, Sullivan, Noble/Pritzker, CICS/Northtown, Alcott.

St. Viator Regional: St. Viator, Northside, Elmwood Park, Amundsen and Intrinsic Charter.

Carmel Regional: Carmel, Antioch, North Grand and Grayslake Central

It’s not going to be exactly this but I would think not too far off. So we are probably looking at the regional champions being, DePaul Prep, Ridgewood (maybe Sullivan), St. Viator and Carmel with St. Viator squaring off against DePaul Prep in the Sectional final. Even with a Trey Calvin being out with a broken hand, St. Viator with Jeremiah Hernandez is very, very good. This is probably the best St. Viator basketball team in the school’s fifty-eight year history. I have been around that school since I started there are a freshman in 1977. This year’s team is the best I can remember and I am old, really old.

DePaul Prep and St. Viator in a sectional final shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. The Rams and Lions have been the only two ranked teams in the Grayslake Sectional. Each team has scheduled top competition and dominated their conferences.

As for the Super-sectional, the IHSA website hasn’t released which Super-sectionals will play each others. But if last year is a guide, the two northern most Super-sectionals played each other, Sears Center and NIU. If that holds true this year, the DePaul Prep Rams would not face the leading 3A powerhouses, Morgan Park and Bogan until Peoria.

So, there you have it. Win six Catholic Blue games and beat St. Viator. All for the chance to face Morgan Park, Bogan and or Springfield Southeast. This makes that stretch of games in the shootouts look like a walk in the park. Let’s get to work.

DePaul Prep’s Raheem Anthony with an over the head pass to Perry Cowen for the easy layup against Morgan Park.

DePaul Prep’s Raheem Anthony with an over the head pass to Perry Cowen for the easy layup against Morgan Park.

DePaul Prep Falls to Quincy in OT, 64-52

I made the trip out to the Quincy Shootout. I wish I could say I did it simply because of my love of basketball but it worked out where I could drop off my wife at her parents and then I went on to Quincy. Everyone was happy.

My first visit to Quincy. Lots of basketball history. Fancy Hall of Fame room. They put on a nice event at Quincy Senior High School with first rate facilities, good food and very clean light in the gym!

I shot two games. Marian Catholic v. Rock Ridge from Columbia, Missouri. Marian slowly and methodically dismantled Rock Ridge. Every time I see Marian they impress me more and more. They are just calm and steady. No weaknesses. Ahron Uliss had 23 points. The Spartans have one of the toughest roads to Peoria as they could get. They will have to get past Brother Rice, Simeon, St. Rita and Bloom in the 4A Eisenhower Sectional and then either Curie or Whitney Young in the Northwestern Super-Sectional. Ouch!

The DePaul v. Quincy game was a whole other animal. Rams shot poorly in the first quarter. In the second quarter, they settled down, went on a run and took a 29-24 lead into the locker room.

I don’t want to say there was poor officiating. I am no judge of officials but they called 24 fouls on DePaul and 12 fouls on Quincy. I have seen a great many DePaul Prep/Gordon Tech games since Tom Klienschmidt took over. I don’t remember seeing any player foul out. Seriously. I mean like never.

Three starters fouled out tonight at Quincy.

Nevertheless, I have to hand it to Quincy. The Rams had chances and did not take advantage. The Blue Devils made all their free throws at the end of regulation, all except the one which opened the door for Perry Cowen to tie the game at the end sending the game to overtime. As I wrote above, I don’t like to blame a loss on bad officiating so I won’t. But this I learned: beware of the officials when visiting a downstate home team in a big game.

The game got a little chippy at the end. The teams exchanged some choice words as they walked out of the gym. I could not hear what was said so I hesitate to assign blame. I will see what I can find out and report.

As for the photos, there is very nice light in the Quincy gym. After a little testing before the first game, I decided to shoot both cameras at 3200 ISO and 1/800. My plan was to bring back the exposure in Lightroom.

You be the judge.

#5 Morgan Park Defeats #12 DePaul Prep 62-56

Coach Nick Irvin and his #5 ranked Morgan Park Mustangs came to the DePaul Prep this evening (Jan. 12, 2019) for a shootout with the #12 ranked DePaul Prep Rams. In a high energy game, the Mustangs held off the Rams throughout the whole game despite good shooting by the Rams. Although the Rams drew within 3 points late in the fourth quarter, Morgan Park prevailed in the potential state championship preview by the score of 62-56.

More on the game and the rest of the inaugural Steve Pappas Shootout later. Let get right to the photos.

Half Over and Plenty Left to Do for DePaul Prep Rams

The season is half over. 29 regular season games with 14 in books. The DePaul Prep Rams record stands at 11 wins, 3 losses and 5-0 in the Chicago Catholic League. The Rams are ranked #12 in the Sun-Times Super 25 and #15 in the Chicago Tribune top 20.

The Rams have wins over #23 Providence St. Mel and #13 Leo. The three loses have been to Benet Academy, (12-3, 4A, currently ranked #16), Marian Catholic (14-1, 4A, #4) and Oswego East, (11-2, 4A, #17) by a total of nine points. So basically, the Rams have a couple good wins and three “good” losses.

It has been a long time since a DePaul Prep or Gordon Tech team has been this good. The Rams last won the Catholic League in 2000. The 11-3 mark is the best in the tenure of Coach Tom Kleinschmidt.

The first part of the year made believers out of those that thought the Rams might not be very good given the loss to North Chicago in last year’s sectional final. The Rams made a believer out of me early when the just appeared to play angry. Serious as a heart attack. Ask Notre Dame and Lane Tech. Those games impressed me. The Rams put those good teams away. Providence St. Mel came into the Tom Winiecki Gym hot and with a lot of hype. The Knights left soundly defeated.

The Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic, while disappointing for the Rams, was not a failure. They lost a close game to a very, very good Marian Catholic team. I have seen a lot of good teams this year: Evanston, St. Viator, Bloomington, Morgan Park, Curie, Uplift and Bloom. Marian Catholic looked just as good as any of those teams. As for losing to Oswego East in a double overtime 3rd place game, that means nothing. Who cares about a third-place game? Not me.

Still, the season is half over. It’s too early to be a good season. There is a great deal of work left to do and many very good teams to overcome.

The best teams left on the regular season schedule are #5 Morgan Park, #21 St. Laurence, #22 New Trier, and then CCL rivals Brother Rice, Fenwick, Loyola and St. Rita. The best is yet to come, a preview game against Morgan Park, a trip to Quincy, a fun one in a big shootout against New Trier and then the Catholic League games. Win the Catholic League. That’s what I want to see. Win the Catholic League.

After that, we’ll just have to see what happens.

Providence St. Mel Defeats St. Ignatius 62-40

I was impressed by Providence—St. Mel. For a really old building, the facility is impressive. The building was well lite and immaculate.

The gym? Not so much. The light was probably the worst I have seen in the Catholic League. It’s pretty much all about light. We all need clean, white light and lots of it.

As for the game, it was a fast game—one hour and ten minutes. It was well played, not very many fouls. The refs did a good job.

The Wolfpack came out playing well. They made some outside shots and harassed the Knights big men inside enough to make them miss a ton of shots. St. Ignatius also did a great job breaking the press early and scoring off the press break. It was 26-23 at the half.

The second half was a different story. The Knights dialed up the defense. The Wolfpack stopped scoring off the press break. They were limited to some good outside shooting. Providence St. Mel began scored inside and off the break and pulled away.

I ran a Twitter poll on which game I should go to and this game won with 42% of the vote. Really glad I went. Another gym added to my list. Saw another CCL team, St. Ignatius.

The photos are not so good. I boosted the ISO really high. I just wanted to see if I could get away with it even though I pretty much already know that 12,800 is too high. I guess I just prefer grainy photos to photos that are too dark. There are a couple good ones. The dunk by PSM’s Deion Jackson is pretty good. Love the expression on his face.

I hope you like them.

Day One Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic

I saw three games of the Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic. I planned to stay there all day. But I can’t seem to ever stay for a whole day of games.

I arrived in time for the second game, Marian Catholic Spartans v. Glenbrook North Spartans. The Glenbrook North Spartans played a spirited first quarter staying with the Marian Catholic on the strength of outside shooting. But it did not take long for the other Spartans to pull away. Marian Catholic excelled in all phases; they shot well, scored off the fast break and played outstanding defense. Final: Marian Catholic 67, Glenbrook North 47.

I didn’t photograph the third game, St. Charles East v. Stevenson. I caught up on preparing for the DePaul (9-1) Prep v. Urban Prep Englewood (0-9) game next.

The DePaul Prep Rams came out a little flat but Perry Cowen added seven in the second quarter and the Rams never looked back. Granted this was not the most serious test for the Rams but this team of seniors just seems to take care of business.

St. Charles East should prove a tougher test for the Rams on Thursday. Assuming they survive this Kane County test, the Rams are likely to face one of their toughest games so far. Marian Catholic is as good as the Rams have faced with the possible exception of Leo.

And then after Marian Catholic, either Lincoln Park, H-F or Oswego East. The Hinsdale Central tournament is tough.

DePaul Prep Edges Leo in OT

The #11 ranked DePaul Prep Rams edged the #4 Leo Lions on Friday (December 21, 2018) 61-58 in DePaul’s Tom Winiecki Gym. This matchup of the top teams in the Chicago Catholic League did not disappoint. One could tell that it was going to be close in the end even as the Rams opened a six-point early lead.

There were a great many Leo fans in the crowd. I haven’t seen so many opposing fans since the last time Loyola came in. The game got a little chippy. I didn’t really see what was going on. I have a very narrow field of view looking through a 70-200 mm lens all evening. I miss a lot. But of what I saw, it did not look too bad.

Leo’s DaChaun Anderson played inside against DePaul as well as anyone has this year. He is a beast and can finish. Myles Thomas was solid as usual. And of course, Fred Cleveland. He seems so small out there but I have never seen a small guard like that so able to drive and score.

With 4.1 on the clock in the fourth quarter, after DePaul’s Raheem Anthony missed the second of his 1 and 1 with the scored tied, Leo senior guard Fred Cleveland took an outlet pass and launched a shot from three quarters court which banked in off the glass for an apparent Leo victory. But with the ball in air, a ref blow his whistle repeatedly waiving off the shot because of a travel by Fred Cleveland. I didn’t see it in real time but seeing it on video, it looked like a travel to me and the referee started the call before the shot when it. Nevertheless, the Leo faithful were not happy.

In OT, the Rams finished as usual. They seem so determined this year. I wish I could pick a standout performance by one of the Rams. But they all played well. They all contributed. Pavle scored inside. Ty Johnson hit a big 3 late. Perry scored inside and outside including another monster dunk. Lance played great defense, rebounded and hit his shots. Brian Mathews come off the bench in the first half and hit two big free throws. Solid and determined all the way round. The Rams rallied back from losing the lead late in the game.

The Rams improved there record to 9-1 overall and 5-0 in the Catholic League. The games against Blue division CCL teams begin after the Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic which starts the day after Christmas. The Lions record drops to 9-2 overall and 4-1 in the Catholic League. Leo’s #4 ranking is in some jeopardy but if they fall, they won’t fall far. They played well but were edged in the end by the talented and determined #11 ranked Rams.

As for the photography, I took 2130 photos. That’s a lot more than I usually take. I am not sure why—just a lot of action. I tinkered around with the settings again, going with a fixed ISO at 6400, rather than automatic. The auto setting was pushing up to 12,800 which gave me images that were too grainy. These images came out okay but I had to boost the exposure on all of them.

So onto the Christmas tournaments. I am not sure where I will be yet. I will be out at Hinsdale Central for some games but I will be looking for the best matchups of teams I haven’t see yet. I had planned to go to Pontiac but I don’t know if I will this year. We’ll see.

DePaul Prep Handles Providence, Improves to 8-0

The last time I was at Providence Catholic in Lemont was five years ago when Gordon Tech faced Providence and Miles Boykin in a football game. The Rams played hard but lost 42-0. This evening there was a measure of payback.

The DePaul Prep Rams took apart the Providence Celtics at Providence like I haven’t seen in a Catholic League game in as long as I can remember. The first half ended 31-8. The Rams continued their intense play. They continue to play angry. There was no let down. I over heard some Providence parents talking after the game. They kept saying, “our boys played hard but that’s a good team.” “That’s a good team.”

Rams 56, Celtics 25. DePaul Prep improves to 4-0 in the CCL and 8-0 overall. ESCC crossover game tomorrow (Sat., Dec. 14, 2008) versus Benet Academy in the Tom Winiecki Gym. The Rams look to repeat last year’s victory over Benet when the Rams won 35-34 at Benet on Lance Mosley’s last second jumper.

As for the photos, Providence has the nicest light of any gym I can remember. Very clean white light and plenty of it. The photos turned pretty good. I got a couple nice one of Perry Cowen’s dunk.

Hope you like the photos.

Team Rose Shootout

Team Rose Shootout.

The Team Rose Shootout is a great event with top match ups. The Mount Carmel facility is excellent. The light in the gym leaves a little to be desired in terms of quantity but the color temperature is better than most.

St. Viator 72, Oswego East 69. I am more impressed with Trey Calvin and Jeremiah Hernandez every time I see them play. These two young Lions hit their shots. I don’t remember either missing a free throw or a lay up when it counted. The Lions are one of the top 3A teams. We may be looking at a Sectional or Supersectional match up between the Lions and the DePaul Prep Rams in 3A.

Uplift drops Br. Rice 71-59 in OT. I was really looking forward to the Markese Jacobs v. Marquiese Kennedy matchup. It did not disappoint. Almost like a DePaul v. Loyola matchup. Both players put there respective teams on their backs in crunch time. It will fun watching them in years to come.

I couldn’t stay for the big game between Bloom and Morgan Park. I understand Bloom won. I saw Bloom last weekend at the Chicago Elite Classic. They are for real. Balanced. Talented. State title contenders.

Morgan Park I have yet to see this year but I think we all know what to expect. They will be there at tournament time. I will get out to see them at least a few times before. Put the Morgan Park v. Whitney Young game on your calendar.

Here are some photos from the games.

DePaul Prep Dismantles Providence-St. Mel 73-53

The DePaul Prep Rams dismantled the Providence-St. Mel Knight 73-53 s on Friday evening (Nov. 28, 2018) . The Knights came in off busting into the Super 25 with a #18 ranking, just behind the #16 Rams. This was a premier game this opening night of Chicago Catholic League play.

It was a tight game through much of the first half. The Rams opened a 32-24 half time lead on the strength of Ty Johnson’s three pointers.

The third quarter as all Rams—just took them apart in all phases. It was all Rams after that. If they can do anything, they can finish.

One CCL game down. Mt. Carmel next Friday.

Basketball Season Starts; DePaul Wins Thanksgiving Tournament

The DePaul Prep Rams survived a very tough Lane Tech Indians team, 45-38, to win the fifth annual Lane/DePaul Prep Battle of the Bridge Thanksgiving Tournament. First time the Rams have won their own tournament.

What I saw on Friday evening was toughness. The first half was close. Defense and missed shots predominated. With the Rams leading by nine at the half, I expected Perry Cowen to come out and take over the third quarter the way he did against Notre Dame. Perry scored four points but by the end of the third but Lane had rallied on some three pointers to take a one point lead early in the fourth quarter.

It was Raheem Anthony who took over the game in the fourth quarter with seven of his game high twenty-one points. At the start of the quarter, Raheem committed a foul and got t-ed up. I couldn’t see or hear exactly what happened that lead to the technical foul. But it didn’t seem to bother him. He went right back to work running the office. At one point, his drive and crossover dribble literally caused Lane’s star point guard Michael Molloy to fall down leaving Raheem a wide-open jumper in the paint.

In the last minute, with the Rams up by seven Raheem was fouled on successive possessions. He walked up to the line as confident as could be and drained the 1-1 free throws sealing the victory all the while shooting looks to his pals in the front row.

This senior group doesn’t panic. They take care of business.

So far.

The first part of the season over. Now on to Catholic League play.

As for Lane, that is one tough determined team. DePaul Prep is one of the best teams in the Chicago area and the Indians almost beat them.

I was very impressed with toughness in the paint. Sr. center Vuk Djuric battled DePaul’s Pavle Pantovic. It was actually more of boxing match. Neither player could make shots underneath because the other would not allow it. Djuric took a elbow to the nose spilling blood on the floor and sending him to the locker room until the second half. When he came back, they picked up where they left off.

Lane’s Michael Molloy scored 14 points including a couple late layups to keep the Indians close at the end. (The photo below is of Michael Molloy in the fourth grade “Big 10” championship game at St. Benedict.)

I don’t know how Lane will fare in the tough Red North against Farragut, Lincoln Park, Crane and Marshall, but if tonight was any indication, those teams better come to play. They are going to be in for a fight.

DePaul Prep Defeats Lane 45-38 to Win Battle of Bridge Tournament