Holiday Basketball Tourney Time in Illinois is Something Special
A struggle to find a parking spot on Monday night at York was a good sign. My son Dillon and I wound up finding one on a nearby street in Elmhurst and walking about a block for the semifinals of the 50th annual Jack Tosh Holiday Tournament.
There was a huge buzz for the first of two semifinals inside the newer gym at my alma mater named after Hall of Fame coach Dick Campbell. A rematch of last year’s title game where Metamora beat Bolingbrook on a last-second shot. A matchup that featured one of the country’s top sophomores in Bolingbrook guard Davion Thompson and one of the state’s best players in Metamora’s Bradley-bound guard Matthew Zobrist.
A jammed gym was evidence once again that the holiday hoop season is the most wonderful time of year for high school basketball fans in Illinois. I can’t speak for other states but I can’t imagine any other in the country that has the passion and fervor for boys and girls basketball tournaments during the Christmas season like Illinois does from Libertyville, Wheeling and Dundee-Crown to Pekin, Waverly, Pinckneyville and Centralia.
We joked that the Elmhurst police could have made a killing on all the people illegally parked in the York parking lots - and a warning was announced during halftime of the first semifinal. As we made our way through the crowded lobby we ran into Lake Zurich coach Terry Coughlin, who was understandably ecstatic about his team’s first Tosh appearance resulting in a run to the second semifinal against Fenwick.
“This is really cool,” Coughlin said. “It will be a really cool environment for our kids.”
The holiday tournaments always seem to be the perfect break to the basketball season and it’s not contrived like the NBA Cup. Players, coaches and fans are genuinely fired up to see what teams are capable of with four to five games in a short period of time and what it could mean in the new year’s drive toward conference championships and postseason success.
And basketball’s holiday tournaments give you the opportunity to see so many players and teams at different places in a short period of time. On Saturday, we got the chance to see Zobrist and Metamora battle Rolling Meadows and Marquette recruit Ian Miletic and Bolingbrook and Thompson in quarterfinals and then zipped over a few miles east to Proviso West to see Warren star sophomore Jaxson Davis and repeat tourney MVP in an intense title game victory over Lincoln Park.
I’ll take dealing with those crowds over the ones at a mall for post-Christmas shopping deals any year!
As the intensity of the games increases so does the quality of play to often remarkable levels. Moses Wilson of Waubonsie Valley scored 7 points in around 10 seconds in a title-game win in Jacobs’ Hinkle Holiday Classic over Crystal Lake South. A.J. Demirov put on a remarkable display of 3-point shooting for the Gators before Illinois State-bound guard Tyreek Coleman and Wilson led the Warriors to a repeat title. And in a semifinal loss to Waubonsie, Barrington’s junior star Oliver Gray hit an amazing five 3s in the fourth quarter.
As a Bradley alum the chance to see Zobrist’s all-around game and work with 6-10 South Dakota recruit Jonah Funk was exciting. It’s also fun to see how Metamora has embraced the trip from central Illinois to Elmhurst the last two years as it even brought its cheerleaders to the tournament.
Thompson was fantastic in leading Bolingbrook to comebacks from 10-point halftime deficits against Metamora in the semifinals and Fenwick in the championship at York. Davis took a beating with Warren down two starters against a really good Lincoln Park team but late in the game beat the shot clock and swished a 28-footer where Dillon said he probably couldn’t even see the rim with a defender in his grill.
And Fenwick senior Nate Marshall was a joy to watch for multiple reasons as he scored 22 points to finally end Lake Zurich’s magical run at York. Marshall is going to Michigan to play defensive end but showed plenty of shooting skill from beyond the arc and heart and guts on the court.
Coughlin joked that he wished Marshall had already gone to Ann Arbor to get a head-start on his college football career. But in an age of more and more single-sport specialization it’s refreshing to see great athletes excel in multiple sports like Marshall or Fremd’s Ella Todd, who is going to Utah for basketball and starred on the school’s state championship flag football team.
One of the great things about the tournaments now is the ability to watch so many games that are available through broadcasts done at a high level. My son, who is considering it as a career, has been fortunate to do games the last three years at Jacobs even though he has to carry his old man in the sidecar. Ben Erickson and his crew from South Elgin’s Beacon Academy do a phenomenal job producing a high-quality product with great graphics, camerawork and replays for all 32 games.
The production of 67 games at the Tosh is amazing and a big part of what makes it such a special event under the leadership of people like Vince Doran and Rob Wagner. Wheeling also does a great job with its broadcasts.
But there is still nothing better than being in the gym for many of these great moments and games. Not to mention it being a reunion of sorts and catching up with old friends like Bruce Firchau, Mike Hare, Al Cosentino, Tom Dineen, Rich and Jimmy Roberts, Troy Whalen, Scott Hennig, Paul Belo, Doug Millstone and Jeff Myers. Jim Hinkle, the retired Jacobs coach who is a fixture around the tournament named after him, is an absolute treasure.
All of it is why the holiday basketball tournament season is something special across Illinois.
