Boys basketball notes: Bolingbrook leans on large group of talented guards

Bolingbrook hasn’t been the picture of health to start the season, but there seems to be an endless reserve for the Raiders to call on should a situation such as this present itself.

The Raiders have three players – Torrien Harris, Donaven Younger and Aries Hull – unavailable to them. All three are expected to play a major role for the Raiders when ready to go. The trio also provides a large amount of the team’s potential low-post presence, leaving Keon Alexander as the only battle-tested interior player available to dispatch.

Alexander has stepped up in a major way in the early going to fill some of that void, but Bolingbrook has been running out lineups that largely consist of guards, and that’s one thing the Raiders never seem to run out of.

Led by the steady hand of Miami (Ohio)-bound Mekhi Cooper, Bolingbrook’s four-guard front overwhelmed Lincoln-Way Central on Friday night and has helped allow the Raiders to get off to a 6-2 start.

“I hope that it continues,” Bolingbrook coach Rob Brost said of his team’s seemingly endless supply of stellar guards. “We’ve had really, really good guards for a long time, and hopefully that’s going to continue for a long time. We’ve got a couple of really good ones on our sophomore team, and there’s a couple of good ones on our freshman team.

“So, we’re going to try to keep the ‘Guard U’ thing going.”

So what happens when everyone is ready to go?

“The expectation here is always next man up, and you take care of your responsibilities, whatever those may be,” Brost said. “And when those guys come back, they are going to have to get in shape pretty quick, and they are going to have to beat some guys out. It’s encouraging from my standpoint, just in the competition and the guys stepping up and doing what is asked of them.”

It’s gotta be the shoes

Joliet West sophomore standout Jeremy Fears was held scoreless for the first time in his high school career Dec. 6 during a Joliet West win over Plainfield East.

Fears has been a consistent scorer since debuting on the varsity roster as a freshman, but something simply wasn’t clicking against the Bengals.

He was itching to get back in the scoring column and wasted little time in doing so, canning a pair of long 3-pointers early in the first quarter on his way to a game-high 23 points in a victory Saturday over Joliet Central.

What was different between those two games? Probably not much in theory, but Fears went to interesting lengths to switch things up.

He wore mismatched shoes in the victory, and although Fears doesn’t admit to being superstitious, he decided it was time to change his mojo.

“Having zero points is hard. It can destroy your motor and your mindset,” Fears said. “Usually I try to wear shoes that stand out and people will recognize. I was just trying to switch things up.”

Seeding season

The holiday tournament season is quickly approaching, and with it many tournaments have been seeding their upcoming extravaganzas.

The most notable of those is the Pontiac Holiday Tournament, which once again boasts one of the most impressive fields in the state.

Joliet West was tabbed with the No. 2 seed in the field behind Chicago Simeon. Benet is the No. 3 seed, while Curie is the No. 4. Simeon defeated Curie in last year’s title game, and one of those two schools has won the Pontiac title in each of the past 12 years (Simeon eight times, Curie four).

The Tigers took that No. 2 seed in a field that features 13 of its 16 teams that are at or well above the .500 mark. Even the host school is experiencing one of its better seasons in recent memory with a 7-2 record. And bracket placement is more key at this tournament than most, as the field’s collective record at the end of this past weekend stood at 83-42 (.664).

Joliet West also recently added another resume-building game with a Dec. 23 contest against Sacred Heart Griffin, the defending Class 3A state champion, at the Chicago Elite Classic. The result of that game won’t be helpful or hurtful to the Tigers’ already-determined seed at Pontiac but likely will hold some weight in the postseason seeding process.

Other schools awaiting potential high seeds are Lemont and Bolingbrook at the behemoth that is the 32-team Jack Tosh Tournament at York. Those pairings will be announced early next week.

Romeoville has received its seed in the State Farm Classic in Bloomington-Normal, a No. 6 billing in the Large School bracket, while Seneca is the No. 1 seed at the Ottawa Marquette Christmas Classic, formerly known as the Marseilles Tournament. Lincoln-Way East appears to be the No. 2 seed in the pairings recently released from the Effingham/Teutopolis Tournament.