Chicago Demons Basketball Program

17U Demons beat ECI Elite 74-58 on Friday night.  Leading the win was Christian Byrd with 18, Brandon Smith 15 and Jeremy Head 13 and Chris Eversley 13.  Gerald Carter had 11 and 10 boards. The team went on to lose a close one to Iowa Attack and then get demolished by Howard Pulley Black that has won the Houston Hardwood Classic.

Things were different in the playoffs though.  The 17U team beat the Madison Spartans Saturday night.  The rematch with Howard Pulley Black loomed Sunday morning.  Well the team won their biggest game of the young traveling season and beat HP Black to move to the Final Four.  Running out of gas they fell to the St. Paul Grassroots.  It was a good weekend finishing in the Final Four with a 3-3 record.

 16U Demons beat Howard Pulley White 51-40.  DeShun Watkins led all scorers with 15, Joseph Macon had 9 points, 7 rebounds; Floyd Campbell had 11 points and 9 rebounds, and Jermaine Hiler had 7 points, 10 assists, 4 rebounds, and 3 steals. The team went on to beat Wisconsin Playground Elite and Iowa Attack to win the pool.  That night proved not as easy as the team lost to Madison Spartans in the Sweet 16.  Good Job Guys! 16U finished the tourney with a 3-1 record.

Led by Christian Byrd, Chris Eversley, and Brandon Smith, the 17U team went to the final four of the Greater Midwest Classic in St. Louis this weekend.  The semi final game was decided by one point.  More info coming.

Jeremie Simmons will be finishing his college career at The Ohio State University.

Kendall Russell will be playing with Western Carolina his next two seasons.

Mike DiNunno will be at NIU for four seasons.

Congrats to all!!!  Get your ESPN updated!

 2008 RAFFLE WINNERS

1ST PLACE $500 JULIE WHITE

2ND PLACE $300 JADEN CAMPBELL

3RD PLACE $150 LASHONDA WATKINS-HEATH

Youth, George Bernard Shaw said, is “wasted on the young.” The remark is open to multiple interpretations of either a bitter lament about aging or the realization that by the time we develop the necessary experience and appreciation for life’s lessons, our very youth has passed.

In the aftermath of the Luther Bedford Classic at the all-too appropriately titled Young Saturday, the moment is appropriate to consider the promise and glory of young athletes by looking at both where they have come from and where they are about to go. On Saturday, a group of Public League coaches stood at the center court. 

In the main event game, won by the Northside 137-131, the group was pleased that thirteen of the 24 participating players have either signed or made commitments to Division I programs. They also recognize if the Public League has made great strides, there are still great hurdles to be surmounted.

The Public League has long used an all-star game to “honor,” or recognize top talent. Now, it is more diversified and opened to reflect the changes in the game throughout the city. This was the second year of the four-game bonanza named in honor of the revered Marshall coach who passed away in December of 2006.

In the past academic deficiencies meant too many players had no option but playing junior college before making the leap to a four-year program.

“We’ve made tremendous strides, and I think we’re seeing that,” said Von Steuben coach Vince Carter. “After last year’s group, especially Derrick Rose, I don’t think most people would have thought we’d see this many [Public League] players going Division I.”

In the first boys’ game, not a single player has committed to a Division I program. The only college-bound athlete participating was Young’s Julian Kenner, a Division I baseball prospect. The all-star games were not sanctioned, that is open for Division I college coaches who evaluate and recruit athletes.

Several Division III programs were there, and multiple junior college coaches were on hand.

“It’s kind of a misnomer to think all of these kids who go [to junior college] are because of grades,” said Carter. “In a lot of cases, the question is not about their grades but about whether they have the ability to play Division I basketball.

“Take my kid Homer Denson. He’s a 3.9 GPA student who has been accepted to Purdue’s engineering department.  The question is whether he is able to play basketball at that level.  That’s a whole other issue.”

College is the time when most kids find their niche. For basketball prospects, that is a process that involves different levels of growth, maturity and discipline.

“Whether it is [junior college], Division II or Division III, the important thing is to get the kids into college.  After that, they have to find their own way,” Carter said.

Nearly 100 boys and girls participated in the four games. 

“In the past, there was just one game,” continued Carter, “and just think of all the players that would not have been able to play under that format.”

This has been a year to celebrate the unprecedented achievements of Public League basketball.

Marshall and Young swept the large school state championships in girls’ Class 3A and 4A basketball. A first year Public League program, North Lawndale, routed Peoria Manual to capture the 2A state title.  Englewood, a school on the verge of closing, provided the Phoenix’s most pressing challenge. The Marshall boys’ squad outlasted Simeon in the first ever all-Public League state final in the Class 3A title.

Like the 3A state title game, Simeon coach Robert Smith and Marshall coach Courtney Hargrays squared off as coaches of the South and North groups respectively in the marquee game. If the games were conceived as a tribute to the tradition and honor of the Public League that Bedford exemplified, the ascension of a younger generation coaches testifies to the changing of underlying attitudes and presuppositions.

In the past the Public League could be fairly arrogant in privileging its on-court performance to the point many outside the league found it exceptionally off-putting.

Basketball has always been the most pluralistic of games. A Canadian (Dr. James Naismith) invented the game, the first generation stars were Jews and the game is now dominated and defined by African-Americans. 

The Public League tended to operate in a self-enclosed world or bubble that was often suspicious if not outright hostile toward the outside world.

“The segregation that we used to see, and I don’t mean black and white, is now over,” Smith said. “In the past, everything was about South Side, or West Side, and now we’re seeing the end of those divisions.”

From 1986 to 1993, King won three Class AA state championships and became the last team to post undefeated seasons. The Jaguars’ success was not shared throughout the league. Whether it was a legitimate grievance or not, many Public League coaches thought the King program achieved it success through questionable means of offering illegal inducements to recruit top players or even worse, hijacking players from other programs. During one particularly contentious period in 1993, several coaches staged a boycott against the school.

By contrast, Simeon and now Marshall’s rise as elite programs by which the rest of the state is measured is viewed as something the rest of the Public League ought to admire and take comfort in rather than envy.

“[Marshall guard] Sarah Rogers probably expressed it best Downstate when she was interviewed,” said Carter. “She said, ‘We’re all CPS.’ There’s a sense now which is quite different from the past that we are all part of something.”

The emergence of Carter’s Von Steuben program also marks an important step of this new golden age of the Public League. The sharp cultural divisions of the South and West Sides (like the East and West Coast rivalries in hip-hop) were accentuated and made possible by competitive absence of North Side schools. 

Top young prospects that lived in North Side neighborhoods migrated to programs like Westinghouse, Crane (Sherron Collins grew up near Diversey) and Simeon. In 2003, the first year the Public League relinquished its automatic qualifying bid in the state quarterfinals, Carter’s Panthers became the first North Side program since World War II to qualify for the state quarterfinals.

They lost to eventual state champion Peoria Central, but the larger consequences reverberate today. Von Steuben elevated the level of play on the entire North side, and forced other schools to meet their level or quite frankly risk embarrassment. Not surprisingly, in the five years of Von Steuben’s emergence, Foreman and Senn have gradually improved their level. Senn qualified for the Class 3A sectionals. Senior Lamar Clinton, a 6-5 wing forward, was the most impressive player in the preliminary boys’ game Saturday at Young. The Hornets have two of the top prospects in the sophomore class in Lavonte Dority and Mike McCall.

The Public League needs that geographical competitive balance to ensure participation. One reason football has not achieved parity with the Catholic League or top suburban conferences is the lack of numbers at the lower levels, attributed in part to the lack of historical success and the fact that too many kids are dissuaded from playing because they lack the confidence or the feeling they have a chance to compete.

In high school basketball, success breeds success.  In this revealing year, the dividends for the Public League are likely to be felt for years to come.

Making it official

Now that Derrick Rose has made himself eligible for the NBA draft, his chance to secure the number one selection continues to gain momentum. The credible Internet site nbadraft.net is projecting Rose as the top choice of the Miami Heat in the June draft. 

Coming just after Rose and Collins dueled in the NCAA Championship game, the specter of Rose being the top selection would make a glorious year even more divine.  That goes beyond bragging rights. 

“Kids need a peer, a peer hero,” said Carter.  “Most of them know Michael Jordan is the greatest player ever, but he’s too far removed for most of them.  They probably never even saw him play [with the Bulls].

“Derrick is a kid they have all watched and played against since he was at Beasley [in grammar school].  For him to get that kind of recognition [the top pick of the draft], that would be crazy,” Carter said. “For a lot of people Derrick is already our Obama.”

Watch out

Robert Smith has heard the rumors about several top suburban players indicating a desire to play in the Public League next year. He cautions them not to be too wide eyed and think that success is guaranteed. 

“Sometimes players come from different conferences and they don’t realize the level of competition and what it takes to play here," Smith said. "This year, Stan [Simpson] was the only one who really made that leap. Marcus [Jordan] improved as the season wore on and he got more comfortable. Steve [Goins] did not really have an impact year. It takes a year at least to learn how to play in the Public League.”