Not just any ol' seniors

It's a rite of passage in most athletic circles.

If you're the rookie, you're also the team gopher, the ball boy, the locker room cleaner-upper.

It's how you earn your stripes, your seniority.

Three years ago, seniors Connor Mooney, Brandon Kunz and Danny Coleman were rookies on the varsity basketball team at Lake Zurich with rookie responsibilities.

But just as they avoided playing a whole lot of underlevel basketball as underclassmen, they often found a way to ditch the mundane rookie jobs that the upperclassmen couldn't wait to pass off on them.

"We were just sophomores," Kunz said. "But we were always being kind of sneaky to get out of things."

"Like, we would steal the seniors' (car) keys," Mooney laughed. "We would say that we would give their keys back if we didn't have to put away the ball rack or clean up the floor in the locker room, stuff like that.

"Now that we're seniors, if someone did that to us - "

But the question is, would anyone have the nerve?

Mooney, Kunz and Coleman aren't just any ol' seniors, they're seniors who are also three-year varsity starters. Having started every game since their sophomore year, these guys - collectively and individually - have just a bit of clout on their side.

"They mean a lot to us," Lake Zurich coach John Zarr said of his "Big Three." "They've done an awful lot for this program."

But according to Mooney, a point guard, and Kunz and Coleman, both 6-foot-6 forwards, their work has just begun.

Lake Zurich enters a crucial weekend against top-rated Warren (today) and always tough Stevenson (Saturday) with a ho-hum 7-7 record.

It's not quite what the three were expecting for their senior year, the big finale of their long-running, three-man production. But a tough nonconference schedule and an extraordinarily stacked North Suburban Conference Lake Division have made it tough for the Bears to gain much steam.

But Mooney, Kunz and Coleman aren't all that worried.

They're convinced that their experience and chemistry will prove to be huge assets in the stretch run, when the games get more intense and each play becomes more critical.

"To have three three-year varsity starters and be 7-7 - it's a little frustrating and disappointing," Mooney said. "But I don't think our record speaks for where we really are. Not at all. So, it's kind of like, 'Watch out.' "

Indeed, watch out for Mooney raining 3-pointers, for Coleman hitting from inside and out, and for Kunz banging his way inside for layups and rebounds. The Big Three can put the hurt on from just about anywhere, which could make Lake Zurich quite a darkhorse in the coming weeks.

Mooney leads the team with 16.2 points per game. He's hit 36 three-pointers and is recording 3 steals per game, both team highs.

Kunz averages a double-double with 14.3 points and a team-leading 11.1 rebounds per game, while Coleman is at a solid 11.8 points and 6.9 rebounds per game.

The Big Three all put up similarly respectable numbers over the last two seasons. But this season, those numbers are coming a bit easier. And that's a change.

As sophomores on the varsity, almost nothing came easy.

Mooney, Kunz and Coleman were thrust into the starting lineup having had absolutely no varsity experience between them. Mooney played on the sophomore team as a freshman, and Kunz and Coleman came up directly from the freshman team.

The Bears finished 12-17 in Year One of their youth movement.

"We lost a lot of close games that year," Kunz said. "We'd be right there, but we'd do things, make little mistakes that made it tough for us to ever push through."

"There was a lot of frustration that season," Mooney said. "You knew you could play with all those teams, but they were just older, more experienced, stronger. I remember having to dribble against the other point guards who were seniors and I always felt so rushed, so anxious, like I couldn't wait to get the ball out of my hands. You just felt like you couldn't wait until you got to that point. You wanted to be able to do that to teams."

The young Bears knew their time would come. But sometimes, it wasn't easy for them to see beyond their frustration and shortcomings.

"I didn't always see (a promising future) and sometimes my dad would have to point it out to me," Coleman said. "He'd keep saying, 'Get all the problems out now and then once you're juniors and seniors, you guys will really know what you're doing.' It's tough to just wait, but sometimes that's what has to happen in order for you to be successful."

The Bears did eventually see a few glimpses of success that season. Most notably, they beat a Burlington Central team that featured the highly publicized Cully Payne.

"I think that gave us some confidence that we really needed," Coleman said. "I think it made us feel like maybe we could compete with anyone and that we could beat anyone."

That year, the Bears also played perennial power Zion-Benton to within 2 points in both of their meetings, and, in the regionals, they nearly knocked off a Stevenson team that wound up advancing downstate and placing fourth.

"Losing that (Stevenson) game, I was so frustrated, but then I realized that we should be excited. It was like, 'Look what there is to come,' " Mooney said. "We were sophomores doing that against a team that went downstate. And we still had two more years together."

In the last two years, Mooney, Kunz and Coleman have gotten bigger and better in every way, which is why all kinds of colleges from just about every level are recruiting them.

They're more confident, stronger, faster, smarter and more savvy. And they say that all of that comes with maturity, the kind of maturity that few players have as sophomores.

"The biggest thing I've done over the last few years is I've gotten a lot stronger," Coleman said. "Sophomore year, I was pretty weak. Going against the older kids was pretty tough."

But worth it. Mooney, Kunz and Coleman say they would never trade the lumps they took as sophomores on the varsity.

And not just because those lumps made them better.

"We're all really close, really good friends," Kunz said of the Big Three. "We've been playing basketball together since seventh grade and we do pretty much everything else together, too _ sleepovers, going out, playing video games, all that.

"We've all improved so much since sophomore year, but I think one of the best things about what we've done is that we've been able to do it all together. That's been fun."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com

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