Boys Basketball notes: Max Niesman, Oswego playing their best ball in season’s stretch run

Max Niesman has designs to be a civil or architectural engineer, and plans to pursue that degree in college while continuing his basketball career.

“I’ve always liked building things,” he said.

His family has built quite a legacy at Oswego.

The third Niesman brother to go through Oswego basketball, Max is the model for the kind of player coach Chad Pohlmann wants in his program. The senior guard has a grade point average over 4.1, and is the first one in the gym every morning or the weight room.

“He’s awesome, fun to be a part of in practice, communicates with you, every day comes out and says hi, really understands the player/coach relationship,” Pohlmann said. “I’ll be honest with you, we’re going to be sad to see the Niesman boys leave OPB. They’ve been awesome.”

Oswego has had its share of ups and downs in Niesman’s three varsity seasons. But the Panthers are playing their best basketball in the stretch run of his career.

A win over Joliet Central on Tuesday was the fourth straight for Oswego (10-13), which surpassed last season’s win total with the 10th win. Niesman, who is averaging 15 points per game on the season, scored a game-high 23 points in the win, 15 coming in the second half.

“I like the way we’re playing recently. We’ve won four in a row, I’m pretty sure the longest streak we’ve had since I’ve been on varsity,” Niesman said. “I feel like we know how to win now. At the beginning of the season we had some close games that went the other way. We know how to come on top now. I’m loving it.”

Pohlmann is loving this group.

Even during a tough start, Oswego was competitive in nearly all of its games. The Panthers were right with a ranked Brother Rice team for a half at Christmas, only lost to Oswego East by five, beat Yorkville and reached the consolation championship of the State Farm Holiday Classic.

“When we execute what we want, we like our chances,” Pohlmann said. “We’ve been competitive all year long. It’s been honestly a lot of fun, and I feel like the guys have had a lot of fun coming off a rough season where we didn’t play very well. They’re super competitive.”

And it starts with Niesman, who only won’t reach 1,000 career points because of a limited number of games. His sophomore season was shortened due to the pandemic, and Oswego lost a number of games last season due to a COVID pause.

“In my book he’s a 1,000-point scorer and it comes from his work ethic,” Pohlmann said. “All those brothers have been tremendous. They love basketball, they play for the right reasons and they play the right way.”

Niesman holds offers to play at the Illinois Institute of Technology and at Rose-Hulman, and is also considering the Milwaukee School of Engineering. In the meantime, he’s focused on ending his Oswego career on a high.

“I feel like we’re playing more together now than we had before; nobody has been selfish,” Niesman said. “We have more bite than before, we want to win more than anything. In the beginning of the year we heard everybody say that Oswego was bad, was an easy win and we let it get to our heads. Now we realize we are a good team.”

Oswego East headed in right direction after grueling month

Oswego East (19-5, 11-0) has had a very challenging January schedule, one that has not been without blemishes.

The Wolves won at Romeoville by eight, and lost by two at Bolingbrook in a game they led most of the way. Oswego East followed it up with its best win of the season, 72-59 at Joliet West. The Wolves lost to Hillcrest last Saturday, 69-60 at Batavia’s Night of Hoops, but coach Ryan Velasquez likes where his team is at heading into the season’s stretch run.

“We are headed in the right direction,” he said. “We can look back at the Hillcrest loss, we played arguably our best half of the season in the first and second quarter, and then had a really bad third quarter but with all of that we were still in the game. I like where we’re at, not to say we’re content with where we are at. We are learning from those losses and growing from them.”

Velasquez said that the Wolves’ success, in the first half against Hillcrest and as a whole, starts at the defensive end.

“Our defense will generate us to play effectively at the offensive end. Our defense gives us energy,” he said. “When you get down to the really challenging games you have to execute at a high level and I thought we did that in the first half against Hillcrest. We have to play defense and we have to be able to execute. We stress that to our guys on a daily basis.”

Next up for Oswego East is a game Friday at West Aurora, a team the Wolves beat twice by double figures back in November. The Blackhawks (15-10, 7-4) have perhaps not met expectations this season, but Velasquez expects to get their best game.

“They’re a gritty group, they have some really nice players and we know they’re going to bring it. We have to be ready,” Velasquez said. “We know there are no days off, everything has to be earned. They’re capable of scoring in bunches and defending. We have to be ready for a hostile environment; they always have a nice crowd. Our guys are ready for the challenge.”

Playoff preparation

Yorkville (19-4, 8-3) acquitted itself fairly well last Friday, hanging right to the end at a packed house at Joliet West in an eventual 64-56 loss.

Afterward, Foxes’ coach John Holakovsky was already thinking of the big picture.

“My message at the end of the game was, we didn’t talk about the game but that this is the type of atmosphere and pressure we will feel in a regional championship or sectional game,” Holakovsky said. “We’re going to have some games, even if it’s a playoff game, on the road. We’re going to have to beat some teams with bigger fan bases than us in the gym. That was the message. It’s a great game to learn from. Yeah we want to win, and we’re mad that we lost but we want to use this to be a lot better going forward.”

Yorkville will definitely be looking at some significant road trips once the playoffs start. Its regional will be at either Bradley-Bourbonnais or Pekin, with a sectional at Moline. Seedings and pairings are released in two weeks.

First things first, though. Yorkville plays at Plainfield North Friday night – and the win would be the Foxes’ 20th. The Yorkville program last won 20 games in the 2011-2012 season, current football coach Dan McGuire’s first as head basketball coach.