Boys basketball: Kankakee stays unbeaten at home with win over Waubonsie Valley
Kankakee’s boys basketball program has seen quite a few senior classes leave a lasting impact over what’s now an eight-year streak of 20-win seasons, excluding the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season.
And perhaps none of them, or any other class of Kays, graduated with a legacy as lasting as the Class of 2026.
In their home finale, the Kays wrapped up a perfect season in front of their home fans by zipping past Waubonsie Valley 63-47.
The Kays only played seniors, their starting lineup dubbed the “fly five” of Lincoln Williams, EJ Hazelett, Myair Thompson, Cedric Terrell III and pivotal sixth man Eli Cunningham, a seasoned group coach Chris Pickett can’t believe is done defending its home hardwood.
“I remember going over to the junior high to watch them in eighth grade,” Pickett said. “As a district, the district really cared about keeping them together. You look up, now they’re seniors who just played their last home game.
“You get emotional because of everything they went through together to get to this point, on and off the court. Travel ball, summer basketball, they’ve all been on varsity for three years at least. Special moments, but it happens fast.”
On Monday, the Kays (25-1) fell behind fast, watching Kyler Payne and Joshua Brackett sandwich 3-pointers between three straight Kankakee turnovers to open the game, a start in a hostile road environment that Warriors coach Andrew Schweitzer couldn’t have imagined going much better.
“You’ve got to hope your kids come out about it, that they’re juiced,” Schweitzer said. “Right away I said ‘OK, we’re ready.’ At the end of the day, that’s all I can ask for.”
But the Kays settled in quickly, and with a combined 17 points from EJ Hazelett (nine) and Lincoln Williams (eight), took a 19-15 lead by the end of the first, one that continued to climb until reaching a crescendo of a 16-point final margin in perhaps the most fitting way possible — four-year phenom Williams catching an alley-oop for a sensational slam with a minute to go.
“It basically sums up what we do, it sums up the team,” Thompson said of Williams’ soaring dunk. “Energetic, we’re live and active.”
Williams had a game-high 20 points to go along with five rebounds and three assists. Hazelett finished with 19 points and nine boards, while Cedric Terrell III, who was on the delivering end of Williams’ highlight flush, added 11 points and four assists.
While Hazelett, who hit 1,000 career points last week, returned to Kankakee, where he spent some of his grade school years, this year, Williams is a four-year varsity standout and the other seniors who saw action Monday are all three-year varsity talents.
“The emotion is joy with a little bit of sadness,” Thompson said. “The joy part is man, I won a lot of games, I did a lot in this gym. The sadness is I’ll never able to play in my hometown again.”
On Monday, Williams eclipsed the 600-point mark and sits at 606. Over his four-year career, the Kays went 63-5 at home.
“Any time a high school player is able to put his name in the record books is a special moment,” Pickett said. “To be a coach for that tells me a lot of things we’re doing are beneficial to the kids. … He’s had a special, special career. The last thing standing for him is to get to Champaign.”
The Warriors (16-13) got 13 points from Payne, nine apiece from Brackett and Aiden Lee and eight from freshman TJ Adams. They host DuPage Valley Conference rival Naperville North on Wednesday before their Class 4A postseason journey begins against regional host West Aurora next week.
“As a coach it’s hard coming into a game where basically they’re more talented at every spot on the floor,” Schweitzer said. “But we just told our kids be gritty, be tough and you never know what can happen. Even when they started pulling away, I thought we kept fighting.”