The Winter Sports season tipoffed this week with first games in boys and girls bowling and girls basketball. Next week chess tournaments begin, girls basketball Thanksgiving tournaments tip off, wrestling meets start, boys swim meets begin, and the big dog boys basketball Thanks Tournaments will start. Indoor track won't start until February.
I look forward to another exciting winter sports season.
I'll still be focusing on football and track and cross country talk in this blog. Lots of offseason material to discuss. But from time to time I'll write about some of the other sports. I'll cover some basketball, but basketball by iteself is a beast. There are more hardcore CPS basketball fans out there than any other CPS sports. When I was at the Simeon Lake Zurich state playoff football game, I talked to several Simeon alumni. Although we started talking about football, the topic somehow always veered towards basketball.
I'll do some basketball posts, but the topic of boys basketball is so big that someone can easily make a whole separate blog just on boys basketball and have unlimited number of material to write about. So, I'll leave most of the talk about the big boys- the CPS has tons of them (Simeon, Whitney Young, Morgan Park, Bogan, Curie, Crane, Orr, Farragut, etc) - to other publications. Instead I'll talk around the fringes and talk about some schools that don't get all the attention (Mather, Lane, CVS, and of course Harlan, etc).
I'm ranking 5 CPS teams in the top 8 for boys basketball. The suburbs may crush us in football. In basketball we rule:
1) Simeon - defending champ, great coach, led by super soph, and most of the key pieces are back.
2) Morgan Park - they pretty much have all the positions covered, including a legitimate superstar. the guards are seasoned, and big man, xavier taylor, just looks mean down low. i don't know how they could be anything but top 5, top 3 in my opinion.
3) DLS - i always have them way up there every year. is this the year they meet my expectations?
4) WY - on paper, they look fantastic! on the court, you never know what you're gonna get. still a fun team to watch and loads of untapped potential waiting to be unleashed.
5) Benet - i've only seen a bit of sobolewski and kaminsky over the summer. i kinda feel like this slot is a bit high for them, but i definitely don't feel they are top 3. didn't they lose a bunch from last year?
6) O'Fallon - this team randomly made the chicago area rankings.
7) Brooks - i can't see first year coach, bobby locke, making a huge splash in his first year, but you never know.
8) Orr - seems to be pretty much the same team that lost to st. joe's last year so are they in the top 10 because the field got weaker or because mycheal henry put the whole team on everyone's radar? i don't know, but henry is still a gem of a talent.
9) Glenbard East - sounds about right.
10) HF - best in the south burbs? lol...
11) Evanston - i just had to throw these guys in here because of garret jones and james farr. maybe their new coach will get them somewhere.
12) East Aurora - just added them for kicks.
13) Warren - a Ramsey coached team always seems to do good things.
Posted by: CPS basketball beast | November 19, 2010 at 06:07 PM
Why did Lamont Bryant change his name from Lamont Morris?
Posted by: LAMONT BRYANT: WHY DID HE CHANGE HIS NAME? | November 19, 2010 at 09:44 PM
Lane Tech is gonna surprise some people this year. Their first game is vs. Northside.
Posted by: CPS Basketball | November 20, 2010 at 07:21 PM
Does that mean Northside's gonna be at Lane's Thanksgiving tournament?
Posted by: Lane Northside | November 20, 2010 at 08:22 PM
Lane Tech WILL beat Simeon BADLY this year in basketball.
Posted by: Erick | November 20, 2010 at 08:29 PM
Northside sucks. I could gather 4 guys from the local park and myself, and we could beat northside.
If Lane doesn't win, they should forfeit their season.
If Northside is in Lane's tourney, I hope they were the worst team invited.
Posted by: Educated | November 20, 2010 at 08:31 PM
Lane and Northside Prep play Monday at 3:30pm.
Tuesday, Lane plays Taft at 3:30pm and I think Northside plays Evanston.
Lane will open 2-0.
Northside will open 0-2 - losing by 25 to Lane and 40 to Evanston.
Posted by: Lane Tourney | November 20, 2010 at 08:52 PM
Why did Lamont Bryant change his name from Lamont Morris?
Posted by: LAMONT BRYANT: WHY DID HE CHANGE HIS NAME? | November 20, 2010 at 10:00 PM