Libertyville looking forward to Bradley Center
For most teams, road games typically aren’t as fun as home games.
The exception, of course, is when one of those road games is on the home court of an NBA team.
Libertyville will be hoopin’ it up under the bright lights of the Bradley Center on Saturday (3:15 p.m.) in a nonconference game against Maine South that will be the warm-up act for a tilt between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Bulls.
“Our kids are really excited about it, especially since the Bulls will be up there,” Libertyville coach Scott Bogumil said. “We’ve done this for four years now with Maine South. I’m friends with their coach, so it’s fun for us to play each other and it’s always a great experience for our kids.”
Many NBA teams, including the Bulls, host high school games prior to their own games. They require that the two teams involved sell a minimum number of tickets to their fans. Those tickets include admission to the high school game as well as the NBA game.
“The thing with the Bulls is that they’re such a hot ticket that they make you sell an enormous amount of tickets, like 500 or something,” Bogumil said. “So we looked into the Bucks and we were shocked to see that each (high school) team has to sell only 60 tickets or so in order to get a game there.
“This year, with as well as the Bulls are doing, we couldn’t sell the tickets fast enough. We’ve got like 200 people coming. That should be fun.”
Needing a hand
Libertyville will be short-handed during its special game in Milwaukee, and likely for the rest of the season.
Starting forward Jack Diechel broke his hand in last week’s loss at Lake Zurich and was scheduled to have surgery on Wednesday. Doctors were expecting to have to insert pins, which is bad news not only for basketball fans at Libertyville, but also for football fans.
Diechel, a junior, is also the quarterback of the football team.
“It’s his shooting and throwing hand,” Libertyville basketball coach Scott Bogumil said. “He’s not sure how it happened. He got hit on a foul and then fell down. He got up and thought he jammed it and he tried to play through, but it just blew up on him.”
Diechel was the Wildcats’ third-leading scorer (7 ppg) and their leading rebounder (6 rpg). At 6-foot-5, Diechel also gave Libertyville some much-needed size inside.
“I think we’re all still stunned right now that he’s out,” Bogumil said. “It’s a tough loss for us. We’re going to have to have other people step it up.”
Bogumil is already looking for junior Matt Varner to pick up some of the slack. Varner is listed as a guard, but at 6-foot-3, he’s tall enough to bang inside. He’s got the skills to do so as well.
“Matt has already been giving us some minutes at the 4-spot,” Bogumil said. “Now, I’m expecting that he’ll be giving us even more minutes.”
No extras, please
Libertyville has played in three overtime games this season, and has come out on the losing side twice.
The Wildcats will get a chance to avenge one of their overtime losses tonight, at Stevenson. The Patriots defeated Libertyville in overtime back in December.
Last week, the Wildcats lost in overtime to Lake Zurich. Against Carmel, Libertyville pulled out an overtime win.
“All three of those games we made comebacks in the last minute to force the overtimes,” Libertyville coach Scott Bogumil said. “It’s frustrating because we’re 13-7 and you think about how close we are to being 15-5. As a coach, you’re always looking at those close games that you didn’t win and thinking about what small thing you could have done differently.”
There’s one big thing that the Wildcats could have done differently in their latest overtime loss: hit free throws. Against Lake Zurich, Libertyville missed 10 free throws in regulation.
“The tough part is, we shoot better than 70 percent from the line as a team,” Bogumil said. “We’re a good free throw-shooting team. That was very uncharacteristic of us to miss free throws like that.”
In fact, it was free throws that kept the Wildcats alive in their other two overtime games.
Against Carmel, with Libertyville down by 3 points, senior guard Griffin Pils knocked down 3 free throws with two seconds remaining to force overtime.
Pils also came up big in the clutch against Stevenson.
Again with Libertyville down by 3 points, this time with 20 seconds left, he drained 3 free throws to force overtime.
“We focus on free throws every day in practice,” Bogumil said. “We put the kids in pressure situations and if they don’t make their free throws, they run. They’re used to the pressure, but they didn’t handle it very well against Lake Zurich.”
A cut above
When Stephen Curry reluctantly took his hand away from his head, Vernon Hills coach Matt McCarty knew the prognosis for his starting guard wouldn’t be good.
“There was blood everywhere, gushing from his head,” McCarty said of Curry. “We had to stop practice and get him to the hospital. It was a pretty deep gash.”
Curry wound up with seven stitches above his left eye. While running through a play during Monday’s practice, he accidentally collided with Dylan McNamara and the two knocked heads.
The next day, the Cougars were forced to take on North Suburban Conference Prairie Division heavyweight North Chicago without Curry. They lost decisively, by 37 points. Per doctors’ orders, Curry is likely also to be out through the weekend, which would mean missing tonight’s division game at Wauconda as well.
“That’s a tough loss for us, not having him in the mix at a key time in the season,” McCarty said of Curry, a junior who is averaging nearly 14 points. “I don’t think he would have made up a 40-point difference against North Chicago, but he is a big part of the puzzle for us, especially with ball-handling and our perimeter defense on guys like (North Chicago star) Aaron Simpson.”
Ironically, Curry was coming off his best game of the year, a 60-40 victory over Palatine last week. He scored 21 points and grabbed 8 rebounds and led a relentless charge by the Cougars in transition.
“That’s where Stephen is at his best, when he is able to push the ball,” McCarty said. “He was getting a lot of defensive rebounds against Palatine and moving the ball quickly down the floor. He had a couple of really nice 3-pointers in that game, but the majority of his points came in transition.
“We’re hoping we can get Stephen back as soon as possible. But until we do, other guys are going to have to step up.”
Birthday blitz
There may be a big gash and 7 stitches above his eye, but Vernon Hills guard Stephen Curry can still use his legs.
After slamming into teammate Dylan McNamara at practice on Monday, doctors told Curry he had to avoid contact for at least five days while the stitches above his eye took and the area became less tender.
But they didn’t say anything about Curry having to avoid independent cardio work.
So guess what Vernon Hills coach Matt McCarty gave to Curry on Wednesday, his first day back at practice, and also his birthday?
A gift? Not exactly.
“Well, he’s not going to be very happy with me, especially since it’s his birthday, but I put together a special conditioning practice, just for him,” McCarty said with a laugh. “It’s not a great way to celebrate, but, hey, we’ve got to keep moving on and we’ve got things we need to get done.”
Message from McCarty
It wasn’t easy for Vernon Hills to stomach Tuesday’s 37-point loss to North Chicago.
But the one thing that head coach Matt McCarty could take solace in was the fact that his brother-in-law is about to reap the fruits of his labor.
McCarty’s brother-in-law is Rob Judson, an assistant basketball coach at Illinois State. Judson had a significant role in getting North Chicago star guard Aaron Simpson to sign with the Redbirds.
Simpson dropped 30 points on Vernon Hills on Tuesday. That’s just 1 point below his 31-point average, which at times this season has led the entire state of Illinois.
“I was about to text Rob to tell him how well Aaron played against us and that he looked like a first-team all-stater,” McCarty said on Wednesday morning. “The other thing is, Aaron’s 30 points weren’t even the most impressive part of his game. His passing was unbelievable. He’s the best passer I’ve ever coached against. He doesn’t even look at his teammates when he passes to them. And it’s not like he had one great no-look pass, he had a ton. He also had this one-handed dunk that was phenomenal, and he played so hard on the defensive end.
“I think Aaron Simpson is definitely the best player in Lake County.”
Getting over the hump
Four years.
It can be a long time in political years, but it can feel like forever for a sports team that is on the wrong side of the tracks.
The last time Mundelein defeated Warren was four years ago, which means this current crop of Mustangs are still waiting for that first win against Lake County’s premier team.
It didn’t come last weekend.
Warren got a victory to sweep Mundelein in their two-game North Suburban Conference Lake Division series. The same thing happened last year, when the Blue Devils then went on to hand Mundelein a loss in the sectional championship game as well.
Despite their frustration, the Mustangs, who boast 19 wins and are just behind Warren in the Lake Division standings, are trying to stay positive. They’re also hoping for yet another shot at Warren in the tournament.
“Tonight showed something … that we’re getting there,” Mundelein junior guard Robert Knar said Saturday after the Mustangs lost at Warren, 87-78. “We’re young and we’re still learning but that’s a good thing because we’re going to close that gap. The gap between great and excellent for us is minimal. I think we’re going to get there.
“We’re not big on moral victories, but this (game on Saturday) showed us something. It showed our guys that (Warren) is not unstoppable. Stevenson beat them, and we played them tough here at their place, which was really important to us. We’re just going to take things one game at a time for the rest of the season and hope that we can get another shot at them.”