Jabari Parker, Jahlil Okafor and Jalen Brunson have earned the Illinois High School Mr. Basketball award over the past three years as well as bringing the Class 4A State Title home to their respectable schools.
Parker helped Chicago Simeon capture four straight State titles from 2010-13, went on to play college ball at Duke for one season and eventually became the second overall pick in the NBA draft to the Milwaukee Bucks. Simeon is also the same school who produced two-time state champion; Chicago Bulls point guard and former MVP Derrick Rose.
Okafor was finally able to win his state championship for Chicago Whitney Young after Parker’s graduation. He was the no. 1 player in the nation out of high school and is now a leading candidate for the National Player of the Year award at Duke while averaging 17.8 points per game and figures to be the number one overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft.
Brunson took second at state his sophomore year when his Lincolnshire Stevenson team fell to Parker and Simeon, and took third his junior year after falling to Okafor’s Whitney Young squad in the state semi-finals where he put on the most amazing high school basketball performance I have ever seen as he erupted for 56 points (an IHSA State Tournament record) in a 75-68 loss. Brunson finally took care of business his senior year to win his first state championship over Normal Community 57-40 as he will head to Villanova, who earned a one seed this year in the NCAA tournament, to play college ball next season.
The point is Illinois has some serious basketball studs.
But who was there in the thick of things? That’s right, The Edwardsville Tigers were. Despite having a down season in 2015, I don’t think the students of EHS realize how lucky they were to have a team from the south make back to back state runs in 2013 and 2014.
The 2013 Tigers went 31-3 and eventually lost to Brunson’s Stevenson team in the state semi-finals. However, they were able to comeback in the third place game to fend off Proviso East who had lost to Parker’s Simeon team the year before.
That Tiger team was the first southern team to make it to state since their own SWC rivals, the O’Fallon Panthers, made a run in the 2009-2010 season with Roosevelt Jones, who just finished playing his senior season at Butler, leading the way as they fell to Simeon during Parker’s freshman campaign in the semi-finals.
Tre’ Harris and Garret Covington were the Tigers top two scorers that year as they both sit in the EHS 1,000 point club and in my opinion are some of the best basketball players to come out of Edwardsville. Harris just finished up his freshman year at Kansas State after playing at Fishburne Military Prep School in Virginia the year before. Covington ended his sophomore campaign at Western Illinois where he averaged 15.5 points per game for the Leathernecks.
Also on the 2013 Tiger squad was senior Drew Curtis, who played a key fifth man role and later on went to play baseball for SLU and then transferred to SIUC, the trusty junior point guard Shawn Roundtree and junior forward Armon Fletcher.
Roundtree and Fletcher led the Tigers their senior year by finishing 30-4 on the season and taking fourth place at state. In the super-sectional EHS defeated Chicago Heights Marian led by point guard Tyler Ulis who is now playing a key role for the undefeated Kentucky Wildcats in his freshman year.
The Tigers fell in the state semi-final game to Lisle Benet Academy led by forward Sean O’Mara who is now playing at Xavier and just advanced to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament. Benet Academy is the same school who produced National Player of the Year candidate Frank Kaminsky at Wisconsin.
Brunson took care of EHS in the third place game one day after dropping his 56 points against Whitney Young but the Tigers season was definitely one to be proud of.
Roundtree continued on to play college basketball at Missouri State where he saw some key minutes in his freshman year for the Bears. Fletcher, now at SIUC, took a redshirt his freshman year and will see some time next season. Also Trevor Clay, the one year EHS transfer from Crossroads College Preparatory School in Mo., played a key role in helping the Tigers make their state run saw some time at Drury this season.
Though 2015 was a step back for the Tigers, they’re headed in the right direction. Three sophomores led the Tigers in scoring this year, AJ Epenesa (13.8 ppg), Mark Smith (12.5 ppg) and Oliver Stephen (10.4 ppg) as they fell to Alton in the regional championship game. But with another year under their belt and a handful of talented freshmen who succeeded at the junior varsity level this season maybe this team will make a state run in the future like the previous Tiger squads.