There is the memory of De Paul at the 1979 Final Four and, in the early ’80s, atop the national rankings. There is the memory of Loyola winning twice in the 1985 NCAA tournament, losing finally to Patrick Ewing and No. 1 Georgetown. There is the memory of Illinois-Chicago just a victory away from that tourney in 1993 and 1994, and of Northwestern in the 1994 NIT.
But this season, a season of struggle for each, those clearly are ancient memories. The story line has been different for college basketball in the Chicago area this year.
It’s proving to be a season to forget.
One thread is common for the four major programs in the Chicago area: losing. Loyola, which had hoped to have a solid season under second-year coach Ken Burmeister, is 6-14. UIC dropped to 8-13 with a loss Saturday at Detroit. Northwestern basketball has failed to duplicate the football team’s success story, sliding to 6-14 overall and 1-10 in the Big Ten.
Then there is the onetime standard-bearer for Chicago basketball, DePaul. The once-proud Blue Demons, formerly a fixture on national television, have completely slipped off the screen. Joey Meyer’s team carries a school-record 11-game losing streak and 7-14 record into Sunday’s game against Marquette.
Indeed, the only bright spot for Chicago, if it can be called that, is Northeastern Illinois, the little-publicized North Side school that plays at the Division I level. The Golden Eagles are close to .500 at 10-11 and are promoting themselves as “the winningest Division I team in Chicago.”
Hardly something to hang the town’s basketball hat on.
How can this happen? How can the local schools in an area filled with basketball talent fall so precipitously off the edge?
“I don’t think there’s any relationship,” says UIC coach Bob Hallberg. “I don’t think you can categorize. It’s like saying why are the White Sox and Cubs floundering this year? You can’t say it’s because they’re both located in Chicago. I think it’s just a matter of coincidence that four teams are struggling.”
“I think things like that go in a cycle,” says Illinois assistant Jimmy Collins, who for 13 years has recruited this area for the Illini.
There is surely truth in both of their statements, and to be regarded as well are situations singular to each school. Northwestern of the Big Ten and DePaul of Conference USA continually face stiffer competition than Loyola and UIC, which play in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference. DePaul, which looked so promising after its victory Dec. 23 at Indiana, was derailed when two players were declared academically ineligible Jan. 3. UIC, which featured current pro Sherell Ford last season, is rebuilding this year with nine new faces.
Rebuilding, too, are Northwestern, in just its third season under Ricky Byrdsong, and Loyola, in only its second under Burmeister.
But that said, some undercurrents do cut through all these programs. Theories abound as to why the four major Chicago-area programs are having so much trouble. They include:
– Raised collegiate academic standards have shrunk the pool of players and precluded some area universities, such as Northwestern and DePaul, from recruiting some athletes here.
– For those players who are academically qualified, there is increased competition from schools outside Illinois.
– In a major market like Chicago, college basketball doesn’t get as much coverage because of the presence of pro teams. This lessened visibility makes Chicago-area schools less attractive than a Kentucky or an Indiana or a Duke.
Yet other major cities do sport winning programs this year. The Philadelphia area has highly ranked Villanova and a potential tournament team in Temple. Washington boasts Georgetown and George Washington. However, Iona is the only winning program from the New York area.
The Chicago area struggles in part because the top local talent has fled to attend college.
The Chicago area delivered Mt. Carmel’s Antoine Walker to Kentucky, Nazareth’s Sean Pearson to Kansas, Batavia’s Corey Williams to Arizona, Glenbrook North’s Chris Collins to Duke, Westinghouse’s Damion Dantzler to Louisville, King’s Rashard Griffith to Wisconsin and Vocational’s Juwan Howard to Michigan, among others.
Here’s Pearson, a Kansas forward, on why he left:
“The big thing was I didn’t want to be close to home. It was just something I thought would be better for me. I thought of them (the four local schools) seriously. I thought about the reasons to stay home–I’d be close to my family, I’d be playing in front of people who knew me from high school. But as I went on visits, I just thought it would be better for me to get away.”
The schools feel the frustration.
“Parents love the fact that it’s Northwestern,” says NU assistant Shawn Parrish, who recruits the area for the Wildcats. “But more and more today, kids are into quick fixes. Kids see who’s on TV. Kansas is on TV every night. Michigan. Kentucky. They’re seeing who’s on TV . . . quick flashes. So you can sell the high academics. But they’re looking for instant glorification.”
Hallberg has been the most successful fighting this trend to flee, his Flames this season featuring a dozen players from the area. And four of Loyola’s starters are from Chicago.
Two players from the area, Mark Aguirre of Westinghouse and Terry Cummings of Carver, catalyzed DePaul’s most glorious string of successes. But compare their era with today.
Back then, in the late 1970s, academic requirements were far more lenient, and they and the other area players who followed them to DePaul needed only a high school diploma and a 2.0 average to be eligible. But now that average must be in designated core courses, and a minimum ACT or SAT score is needed as well.
Of the dozen players who performed for the city team in a city-suburban all-star game last spring, only one had qualified for college. It should be noted, however, that players such as Howard, Griffith and Illinois’ Kiwane Garris, who attended Westinghouse, did qualify out of high school.
“A lot of players who 10 years ago would have been very good players for UIC, DePaul, Northwestern or Loyola have to go to a junior college now,” says Hallberg.
“Chicago has some intelligent kids,” said NU’s Parrish. “We can get into the big cities and draw a kid out. But the fact is we have to get the first one and get him to believe. You’re fighting tradition there. You tell them about the great education, but Duke’s telling them the same thing, and while Duke’s telling them that, the kid’s looking up at the banners and (coach) Mike (Krzyzewski’s) championship ring is hitting him on the back of the head.”
Schools like Duke coming to recruit in Chicago is also something that Meyer, then an assistant coach, did not confront when he corraled Aguirre and Cummings. Just 20, maybe 30 schools worked the area then, and as recently as a decade ago even those were still primarily limited to colleges in neighboring states.
When Illinois’ Collins plucked Nick Anderson from Simeon High in the mid-’80s, for example, his only competition was DePaul and Indiana. “No one else was really coming in to get him,” he remembers. But when he more recently got Jerry Gee from St. Martin de Porres, his main competition came from Duke and Minnesota.
“People,” Collins says, “constantly ask me, `Why do you recruit Chicago so much?’ I have to. Everybody else does.”
“I remember when I was the only coach in the (high school) gym,” says Hallberg, thinking back to when he coached at St. Xavier College in the mid-’70s. “The kids would get excited. They’d say: `He’s from St. Xavier. He’s a scout.’
“Now everybody comes to Chicago, so while we’re trying to convince them to stay here, everybody else is telling them to get out.”
The local coaches do not have a chance to outwork those intruders, a final difference they must face. Back when he recruited Aguirre, remembers Meyer, he attended every one of his games, watched any number of his practices. He often just dropped by Westinghouse simply to stroke Aguirre and show him how much he cared.
He could not do that now. NCAA rules limit how often any coach can see a player, so he and Hallberg, Byrdsong and Burmeister can do no more in the area than Duke’s Krzyzewski or Kentucky’s Rick Pitino.
“Financially, being in Chicago helps you,” says Burmeister. “But you can still only go see a kid twice. So now, if some kid scores real big, someone can come in to see him, one call, boom, it’s a done deal. See, sometimes your name is bigger if you’re from outside the area.”
This, then, is why all local coaches hope Meyer lands Farragut’s Ronnie Fields, why each hopes the brightest name in Chicago high school basketball stays home for college.
If Fields signs with DePaul, every local college would benefit.
“No question I want to see Joey get the top players,” says Burmeister. “Same with UIC. As soon as I hear an odd school from far away is here recruiting, it’s like a cavity.”
Fields, though, still hasn’t qualified academically, once again accentuating the root of the problem. But Meyer holds out hope that he will qualify and then come to DePaul.
“I think that goes in cycles sometimes,” Meyer says. “Staying home is very popular for a time, then going away is in vogue. Who dictates the cycle is the one great player. The Mark Aguirre. The Terry Cummings.
“Those are the players who set the trend, and when people see they’re successful, they’re more apt to follow.
“It takes only one certain player to start a new trend.”
