MSL Basketball Title What Tradition, Dreams are Made of for Meadows
Mustangs and Fremd Put on Another Good Showcase for the League
Only a few stragglers remained from the big crowd Wednesday night in the Rolling Meadows gym. Kevin Katovich looked up toward one of the now-empty areas at the top of the bleachers in the place where he’s spent countless hours for nearly a quarter-century.
Katovich’s team had just won the school’s fifth Mid-Suburban League boys basketball trophy with an entertaining 69-62 victory over Fremd. The same trophy the Conant graduate saw Rolling Meadows win for the first time in another matchup with Fremd in 1989.
“I was at the Rolling Meadows-Fremd game with Todd Leslie (Fremd star and future Northwestern standout) standing in the back corner of the gym,” Katovich said. “It was packed and it was fun.”
It was definitely a lot of fun for Meadows senior guard Jack Duffer and the close group of classmates and teammates after three consecutive disappointing title-game endings. Now he was celebrating for the same team and on the same floor as his dad Pete, who was a senior guard on the 1991 team that capped an MSL title three-peat.
And the younger Duffer remembered the excitement of watching the 2020 game at Schaumburg against Buffalo Grove - where his dad is a teacher and coach.
“I was in awe of the atmosphere and all the good players,” Jack Duffer said. “It was great to see the (all-conference) players recognized at halftime.
“In the summer this was one of our goals. We want to win the MSL East championship, the MSL championship and regionals and sectionals. It’s nice to get two of our goals done so far.”
Playing, coaching and watching this game has meant something to people around the MSL since the first one in 1971 after the league split into divisions. It was a brilliant decision by the people in charge then to set up championship games that started with the football “Super Bowls” from 1970-74 and baseball and extended to girls and newer sports.
No other high school conference in the Chicago area has a tradition of holding meaningful showcases like this where the best of its best are on display. It’s one handed down where you also have a player like Fremd’s Ryan Brown and his dad and coach Mike, who played in the game for Schaumburg in 1995. Or Brown’s junior teammate Sean O’Connor, whose dad Ryan helped Meadows win the 1989 game and coached in three of them at Buffalo Grove.
“You look forward to it every year,” Katovich said. “It’s so unique in our conference.”
Meadows’ fifth consecutive trip to the title game - matching the MSL record of Prospect (1982-86) and Schaumburg (1999-2003) - was also a shot for redemption. A shot to erase the sting of losses the previous three years.
“We stayed poised this year,” Duffer said as he alluded to last year’s 54-44 loss to Palatine where Meadows led at halftime.
Duffer had a lot to do with that even though he took only 3 shots from the field - and a rarity of none behind the arc - but made them all. Fremd got within 54-47 early in the fourth when a traditional MSL bone-crunching screen by 6-8 Patrick Coen freed up Duffer to find senior supersub Lazar Lazarevic for 3.
Duffer returned the favor at 1:19 by finding Coen for a layup and a 65-57 lead. And after Ryan Brown located Samuel Hirsch for a 3 to get Fremd within 65-60, Duffer stepped up to hit a pair of free throws to help put Meadows just 37 seconds from a title celebration.
While that revelry was still going on the court, long-time Conant boys and girls coach Dan Travers expressed his admiration for Duffer. Katovich got his coaching start with Travers on the Conant underlevels for Tom McCormack. The classy Travers was coaching the Meadows’ freshmen - including the current group of seniors - until he retired two years ago.
“I’ll get in a foxhole with him,” Travers said as he pointed to Duffer. “I’ll go to war with him.”
And this year’s Meadows championship team epitomizes what is also traditionally the case in the MSL. Pete Duffer, who coached them when they were younger, alluded to it as a team that has grown up together rather than being put together.
It’s why the school and program celebrated the return of NBA players Max and Cam Christie for the regular-season finale. It’s what made Wednesday special for smooth 6-7 Marquette recruit Ian Miletic. They stayed true to their original school in an era where kids now make elaborate announcements of their high school transfer decisions on social media.
“That makes it that much more fun, especially in an age of transfers and kids moving wherever they want,” Jack Duffer said. “We’ve all been together, we all love each other and we just want to win.”
Lazarevic said in early January he likes coming off the bench after starting last year and he finished with 13 points. The Mustangs consistently go eight deep with Ryan Meyer, Kenan Pekovic, the only junior in the main rotation, and Lazarevic typically sub in together. Katovich said they call themselves “R-K-L.”
“They’re like ‘Slap Shot’ with the Hanson brothers,” Katovich laughed about the classic 1970s hockey comedy movie. “They get along so well and they’re unselfish and don’t care who gets the credit.
“It’s very unique because they’ve played together for a long time and they know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. They’re the best of friends with the right amount of goofiness and intensity. It’s been a really fun year.”
Katovich said that includes the scout team that refers to themselves as the “Goon Squad” from the movie “Space Jam.” It’s the kind of fun Duffer, Miletic, Coen, Lazarevic, Meyer and fellow senior starters Gavin Escobedo and Jaeden Warrener want to enjoy for a few more weeks.
“It’s definitely a little sad because I went to kindergarten with some of these guys,” Duffer said. “We’ve grown up together our whole life. It makes it that much sweeter with people you’ve been around who always have your back.”
Duffer said it was also sweet to get the East back into the win column for just the seventh time in 27 matchups against the West. Meadows understood it was a last shot for bragging rights before the MSL heads into a radical realignment with divisions based on success factors. The championship games will continue but the harsh reality is they are unlikely to be the same as they’ve been during the previous 55 years of North vs. South or East vs. West.
That wasn’t lost on someone who grew up with this game like Jack Duffer.
“It was a little point of emphasis on us that the West was 20-6 versus the East but now it’s 20-7,” Duffer said. “We know this is a really special game and ultimately it might be the last East versus West. I’m glad to be a part of history and see all of our efforts rewarded.”
