Techincally, Stevenson gets the best of Woodlawn
His brand-new boys basketball team trailed 2-0 before tipoff again and lost convincingly again, but University of Chicago Charter School-Woodlawn coach Aaron London knows his program is already ahead.
Never mind the Torches' 0-2 start, which includes an 80-32 defeat to Stevenson in Buffalo Grove's Bison Classic on Wednesday night.
Nate Johnson scored 13 points and Ryan Chapman added 10 for Stevenson (3-0), which jumped out to a 26-3 lead in the first quarter.
Freshman guard Greg Jones (three 3-pointers) and sophomore guard D.J. Kelly scored 17 and 11 points, respectively, for UC Woodlawn.
"Even losing tonight, we were clapping it up in (the locker room), because they had a lot of positives," London said. "But we got a long way to go."
UC Woodlawn, a fourth-year school but first-year basketball program, has come a long way already.
London talks about how 6-foot-7 Aaron Howard, who never played basketball before this season, has learned to dunk in the last two weeks. London is even prouder of some of his players who have had discipline issues in the past but who have embraced being student-athletes and have stayed out of trouble.
"The biggest thing is having them buy into our program," London said.
In each of its first two games at Buffalo Grove, UC Woodlawn was penalized before tipoff because players were wearing illegal uniform numbers. Nos. 6, 7, 8 and 9 are not allowed in basketball, thus two-shot technicals were called.
The officials' decision to enforce a uniform rule didn't surprise Stevenson coach Pat Ambrose, especially after the IHSA cracked down on North Lawndale College Prep at state last March. North Lawndale was "T'd up" before its Class 3A state semifinal because its uniforms did not meet standards.
"The IHSA said, 'We're going to clamp down on rule violations and we're going to give technicals,' " Ambrose said.
Chapman made both free throws for Stevenson and finished the game 8 of 8 from the line. Stevenson played 16 of the 17 players on its roster, with reserves Michael Fleming, Boe Miljkovic (6 rebounds, 4 steals) and Cory Stern each scoring 8 points.
The only Patriot who didn't play was starting point guard Jeff Levitt, who sprained his left wrist the previous night against Elgin.
"It was the last play I was in," Levitt said. "I drove baseline, went in for a layup, got fouled and landed on my wrist. I didn't even think about it at the time. Then (Tuesday) night and all day (Wednesday) it killed so I went to the doctor and took an X-ray."
Levitt is hoping to get back on the court Saturday, when Stevenson resumes the tournament with a 7:30 p.m. tipoff against the host Bison.
"I hope so," Ambrose said. "But it's the first day with it so we don't know. We'll see."