Boys basketball: Joliet Central, Bolingbrook impressive in first day at Morris Shootout

MORRIS – Bolingbrook has been one of the top performers at the Morris Boys Shootout for the past several years, including winning the event in 2017 and 2018.

The Raiders got off to an outstanding start Tuesday in this year’s edition of the 32-team affair after last year’s event was called off because of slippery floor conditions. Bolingbrook went 3-0 in its pool, defeating Burlington Central 63-46, Chicago Ag Science 100-53 and Pontiac 95-33. Bolingbrook posted the two highest scores of the first day. Kankakee had the next highest scoring game with an 88-48 win over Dundee-Crown.

Bolingbrook wasn’t the only Herald-News area team to enjoy a strong first-day showing. Joliet Central opened its day with a 64-43 win over Morris, then edged Normal U-High 54-50 before taking on Waubonsie Valley at 8 p.m. in its final game of the day.

The Steelmen return several familiar faces from last season, and coach Lawrence Thompson Jr. was pleased with his team’s growth.

“We are definitely more confident shooting the ball,” Thompson said. “There is more of a threat of more people scoring for us. Last year, we had some times where we really focused on JayLin Murphy to score for us and that was about it. Other teams knew that. So far this summer, a lot of the other guys have gotten a lot more comfortable with looking to score.

“We have five players that return that started at some point last year [Murphy, Jamarcho Holman, Danny Thompson, Zion Kostyra and Isaiah Molette], and that experience will help us out. We have a lot of players that are more confident, and it’s really showing.”

Plainfield South went 1-2 in the early session of pool games, beating Dundee-Crown 51-49 and losing to Loyola Academy 47-31 and to Kankakee 58-50.

“We are missing a couple of players because they have to be in summer school,” South coach Jeff Howard said. “I am not taking them out of school to play basketball. They are in summer school so they can be eligible to play basketball in the winter. The books come first.

“We’ve had a pretty good summer. We just got back from a camp at Purdue University, and had a good camp there. Devin Tyda has been outstanding for us all summer, and Jeremiah LeSure has also played really well.”

Plainfield North went 2-0 in its first two games of the event, beating Tolono 48-39 and topping Galesburg 50-29.

Old face, new place

A familiar face among local coaching circles showed up wearing different colors Tuesday, as former Lockport head coach Brett Hespell has taken over the program at Minooka.

Hespell’s Indians began the day 1-1 with a win over Streator (44-43) and a loss to Deerfield (34-25). He couldn’t think of a better way for a new coach to get to know a team than to play five or six games in a span of two days.

“You have to get out there and play other teams,” he said. “There’s only so much we can learn by practicing against ourselves. Here, we get to see what we’ve got against several other different teams and styles of play. We’re learning a lot about the kids, which is a good thing.

“I am very excited to be at Minooka. The kids and the administration have been very welcoming and supportive. [Former Minooka coach] Kevin Cain gets a lot of credit for building a good foundation with these kids. He and I have pretty similar styles in that we stress playing defense with a lot of effort. That’s something that can be there every night. You might have an off night shooting the ball, but you can give a good effort on defense every night.”

Hespell said he was happy with the work of D.J. Hampton, Jahmari McCoy and Micah Hamilton.

“The kids have responded well,” Hespell said. “Coach Cain wanted his teams to set the tone on defense, and that’s been my calling card, too, so it hasn’t been difficult to get the kids to buy in. We know we are going to have to play tough defense in our conference.”

Hometown heroes

Morris went 0-2 in its first two games of the first day, falling to Joliet Central 64-43 and to Waubonsie Valley 70-53.

“We seemed to be a little flat today, and that’s the most frustrating thing,” Morris coach Joe Blumberg said. “We were without two of our best ball-handlers – Caston Norris and A.J. Zweeres – but that gives the other guys an opportunity to step up. I thought Joey Vinachi shot the ball well today, and Blaine Beshoar has just been a workhorse for us.

“As a school of our size, we know we are going to be sharing guys with other sports, and we encourage our guys to play two or three sports. Sometimes there are conflicts, and we understand that. I hoped that when it was our time to play, we would be enthusiastic, but we were a little flat. And, we played two solid Class 4A teams in Joliet Central and Waubonsie Valley. We always practice with the thought that we are preparing to beat the best team on our schedule. If either one of those teams were on our regular-season schedule, they would be the best team on the schedule.

“Both of those teams played zone against us, and we just don’t work on a zone offense during the summer. We work against man-to-man, so facing a zone is a little different. We took some lumps today, but we’ll see how we bounce back tomorrow.”

The shootout concludes Wednesday with bracket play. The Gold Bracket will feature teams that finished first and second in their four-team pools, while the Maroon Bracket will be the teams that finished third and fourth in their pools.