Mundelein aims to hit the ground running

Basketball practice at Mundelein used to run two hours. That was back in November.

But these days, boys coach Dick Knar keeps his team on the floor for barely an hour at a time. He’s into preservation now, attempting to save his players’ legs and energy for what he hopes is a long postseason run.

That run will begin Tuesday when the Mustangs, seeded third in the Barrington sectional, open state tournament play in what is stacking up to be one of the toughest regionals in Lake County.

“Ever since the IHSA went to the four-class system, every regional is extremely, extremely tough,” Knar said. “In our regional, every game will be a dogfight for us.”

Mundelein (24-6) is the top seed in the Zion-Benton regional, but could face a difficult obstacle right out of the gate.

No. 16 Zion-Benton will face No. 19 Round Lake in Monday’s play-in game. If the favored Zee-Bees get a victory, Mundelein will have to play them on their own floor (6 p.m. Tuesday). And Zion-Benton isn’t an easy place to get a victory.

“Zion is always a tough team and I think this year their record is very deceiving,” Knar said of the Zee-Bees, who are 13-14 headed into the tournament. “They had that teachers strike (for about a week in January) where they couldn’t play games, so that made things tough on them. They had to play a lot of games in a short period to make up for that.

“All I know is that whenever you have a guy like (6-foot-4 Zion-Benton sophomore forward) Malik Yarbrough, you’re a good team.”

Mundelein can vouch for the fact that two other very good teams reside on the other side of the bracket at Zion-Benton. No. 6 Barrington takes on No. 11 Lake Zurich in the second semifinal (8:10 p.m.) on Tuesday.

The Mustangs have had tight games with both teams this season. They defeated Barrington on a last-second shot by Jordan Wiegold over Thanksgiving and they swept Lake Zurich in North Suburban Conference Lake Division play, but the two wins came by an average of only 6 points and one came in overtime.

“We feel confident we can be competitive with Mundelein,” Lake Zurich coach Billy Pitcher said. “We can put stock into how we played them this season, and we put stock into our game over Christmas against Barrington, too.”

Lake Zurich defeated Barrington in overtime at the Jacobs Holiday Tournament. The 14-15 Bears are hoping to draw on that positive experience on Tuesday.

“We’ve had success through the season at different times and we’ve got some confidence from that,” Pitcher said. “The other nice thing is that outside of Warren (the No. 1 seed in the Barrington sectional), it’s a very open field. At the seeding meeting, 14 of the 21 teams had records that were over .500. There are a lot of good teams out there.”

Back in the groove: It wasn’t a question of if, just when.

When would Mundelein forward Chino Ebube be back to his old self?

The answer is: Just in time.

Ebube fell behind around Christmas when he missed about a month of games and practices so that he could attend his grandmother’s funeral in Nigeria. With nowhere to shoot the ball, or even workout there, he struggled both with his skills and his conditioning when he returned in early January.

But over the last couple of weeks, Ebube has looked more like the player he was early in the season when he was dominating the boards and scoring frequently in the paint.

In his last four games, Ebube has scored in double-figures each time while also grabbing at least 9 rebounds. In games against Libertyville and Lakes, he finished with 12 and 11 rebounds respectively.

“He’s back!” Mundelein coach Dick Knar said excitedly. “Chino’s been a game-changer for us since he returned. I knew he’d get back, I just wondered how long it would take.

“It was hard for him at first because not only did he miss 9 games, he missed 10 practices. So while the rest of our guys were in mid-season form, it was like he was starting over when he got back. He had to get back in shape, re-learn things, all that.”

Once Ebube got back up to speed, he provided some much-needed relief for forward Sean O’Brien, Mundelein’s only other true post presence.

“Sean was kind of on an island out there by himself when Chino was gone,” Knar said. “Chino really helps Sean a lot inside. He’s such a strong kid, an athletic rebounder who is so quick off his feet. He’s extended a lot of plays for us with his offensive rebounding and we don’t shoot as many 3-pointers now because we have him as another option to look for inside. We want to get him the ball.”

LZ needs some O-B: With 14 wins on the season, Lake Zurich has already doubled its win total from last season.

But the wins haven’t come lately. The Bears have lost their last five games, including their North Suburban Conference crossover with Vernon Hills in which they led for nearly the entire game, were up by 5 points with a minute to go and ended up falling by a single point.

The common dominator in Lake Zurich’s current slide?

The absence of senior forward Jeff O’Brien.

O’Brien has missed the last four games because of a hyper-extended elbow, which means that the Bears are missing their second-leading scorer (9.8 ppg), their third-leading rebounder and one of their veteran leaders.

“Jeff landed on his elbow wrong in the Stevenson game and it just bent back in the wrong direction and he’s had a tough time with it ever since,” Lake Zurich coach Billy Pitcher said. “He tried to play in our game on Senior Night against Lake Forest, but he just couldn’t do it, so we’re not sure when we’re going to get him back. He’s day-to-day, I guess.

“It been tough without him because we miss him as a scoring threat. Teams have been triple-teaming (leading scorer) Mirko Grcic and just daring our other guys to shoot and so far, we’re just not hitting the shots. The Vernon Hills game was the perfect example. They were tripling Mirko and we had wide-open 3-pointers and we missed all five that we took in the fourth quarter. We need some other guys to step up and hit those shots.”

Two candidates are Brad Kruse and Ryan Roach, both of whom hit some early three-pointers against Vernon Hills. Kruse and 3 and Roach had 2.

Roach was hot earlier in the season, too, hitting four 3-pointers against both Mundelein and Zion-Benton.

Taking charge: Doug Murphy is a take-charge kind of guy. Literally.

The Lake Zurich forward has been rolling up the charges this season. Murphy has taken so many charges this season – 40 to be exact – that he single-handedly has out-paced all of Lake Zurich’s opponents combined. Opposing teams have taken a total of 34 charges on Lake Zurich this season.

“Doug has done a great job defensively for us this season,” Lake Zurich coach Billy Pitcher said. “He’s the first to sacrifice his body. He really has no regard about that. And he does a great job of selling the charge.

“But it’s also about seeing the ball well and being in position to take the charge. Doug has great vision and he’s always in position and ready to take the charge.”

Murphy took a season-high 5 charges against North Chicago earlier this month.

Shooting star: It’s no secret why 11-16 Wauconda is having one of its better seasons in recent memory.

Guard Kyle Ryan is scoring a lot of points for the Bulldogs. In fact, he’s scored so many points that he now ranks third on the school’s all-time scoring list. He scored his 1,000th career point earlier this month and now has 1,014 to his name.

“Kyle has always been a really good shooter,” Wauconda coach Scott Luetschwager said. “But he’s added to his game. We talked to him last year about how we also needed him to get to the basket and score and he got himself in the gym and worked on that. He really took it to heart and I think he’s really improved his game because he’s become so much more versatile.”

Familiar face: When 10th-seeded Wauconda takes on No. 7 Vernon Hills in Tuesday’s regional semifinal at Ridgewood, Al Marks should feel right at home.

The Wauconda assistant coach used to coach at Ridgewood. In fact, Marks spent the majority of his 30-plus years in education as a teacher and coach at Ridgewood, including a stint as the head boys basketball coach there.

“When we found out that Ridgewood got a regional, Al kept saying, ‘I hope we don’t have to go to Ridgewood, I hope we don’t have to go to Ridgewood. And then we get sent to Ridgewood,” Wauconda coach Scott Luetschwager laughed. “It’s tough for him because the loyalties he has as an individual will be tugged at.”

After retiring from Ridgewood about seven years ago, Marks got hired at Wauconda and has tirelessly served both the football and basketball programs.

“Al has been a great assistant. He really knows the game,” Luetschwager said. “They have this plaque in the trophy case at Ridgewood with all of his accomplishments listed on it. And he goes back every year to present some award. He’s still got a lot of ties at Ridgewood.”

Looking ahead: Coaches almost always refuse to look too far into the future.

It’s why the explanation, “We’re taking one game at a time,” has become one of the biggest clichés in sports.

And yet, it has been nearly impossible for Grayslake Central coach Brian Moe not to consider what could be in store for his team down the road.

If the fourth-seeded Rams can advance out of the Antioch regional this week, they’ll get to play in a sectional that will be held on their home court.

“Of course right now we’ve got to focus on getting through the regional,” said Moe, whose team opens on Tuesday (7:30 p.m.) with the winner of Monday’s Antioch/Senn game. “We’ve cautioned the kids that there is a lot of work ahead.

“But you do think about how much fun it would be to play in a sectional at home in a packed gym. I think it’s been at least six or seven years since we’ve hosted a sectional. It would be a great environment for our team and our school.”

Join the club: It’s been a career-year this season for two of the best players to ever put on a basketball uniform at Grayslake Central.

Earlier this month, Skyler Jessop from the girls team scored her 1,000th career point, and within days, Jordan Taylor, a star guard for the boys team joined the club, too.

Taylor, who is averaging 19.4 points per game, now sits at 1,093 points for his three-year varsity career. His 1000th point came in a win over Woodstock in which he scored 31 points.

“Jordan has had a great season, a great career,” Grayslake Central coach Brian Moe said. “He’s been the focus of our offense but one thing that’s been nice for him this year is the development of (senior guard) Savonte McWilliams. Savonte has really improved his game since last season and he’s started at point guard this year and that’s really taken a lot of pressure off Jordan. Jordan doesn’t have to handle the ball as much anymore or work so hard to handle pressure because Savonte has taken on a lot of that. That’s really helped Jordan’s game at the offensive end.”

Girls basketball

With a loss to Zion-Benton in the Palatine sectional semifinal on Monday, the Stevenson girls basketball team didn’t finish the season as hoped.

But senior center Julia Dabrowski sure did finish the season with a bang…and a few blocks. More than a few, actually.

Dabrowski rolled up 183 blocks on the season, falling just 5 blocks short of breaking Stevenson’s career record for blocks in just one season. Former Stevenson star Tauja Catchings had 188 blocks for her career.

But Dabrowski does replace Catchings at the top of that all-time blocks list at Stevenson because she had 28 blocks coming into this season. She finishes her career with 211 career blocks.

“Julia’s presence was huge,” Stevenson coach Tom Dineen said. “We could take some defensive chances knowing she was behind us to block, alter or discourage players from shooting. We will miss her tremendously. She is the sweetest, happiest, nicest and most personable girl around.”

Dabrowski’s block binge also helped her record two triple-doubles this season, including a 10-point, 14-rebound, 11-block performance against Lake Forest just before the start of the state tournament.