As a basketball player, Keith Perry plays a pretty good game of football.
As a basketball team, St. Joseph has as much business being 28-1 as it does taking on Duke and spotting the Blue Devils 20 points.
St. Joseph, in other words, seems to defy all logic.
Less is now more. Tall is short, and short is tall.
Let’s start with Perry, who at 6 feet 2 inches is no shrimp . . . except when he’s belly-to-belly with 7-foot Steven Hunter of Proviso East.
That’s exactly where Perry found himself Friday night in a packed Morton gym in a Class AA sectional finale. St. Joseph’s two tallest starters, 6-6 Jon Brown and 6-4 1/2 Steve Morgan, were in foul trouble, leaving the Chargers in a world of hurt and Perry staring straight up.
The 210-pound senior, who didn’t even play basketball last season because he wanted to concentrate on football, responded by treating Hunter like a blocking sled. Some judiciously applied muscle helped cut the thin 215-pound Hunter down to size, leaving him with just nine points and no doubt as many welts.
Perry scored eight points himself and grabbed several key rebounds as St. Joseph defeated Proviso East 57-54 on junior guard Jabari Mattox’s three-point shot with two seconds to play.
St. Joseph’s fans charged the floor moments later as if their team had pulled a monumental shocker, even though it is ranked No. 2 in the Chicago area and Proviso East (20-9) is No. 10.
In truth, however, it did feel like an upset. Proviso East, after all, had the DePaul-bound Hunter, a shot-blocking machine, as well as 6-4 guard Perry Smith, who has signed with Illinois State.
St. Joseph had a bunch of guys whose next big-time Division I offer will be their first.
This in itself was an upset. Ever since it launched Isiah Thomas into basketball orbit in 1978, St. Joseph has produced an almost endless stream of big-name players.
Through 10 years ending in 1987, the likes of Thomas, Tony Reeder and Tony Freeman produced six trips to the Elite Eight; but the Chargers haven’t been back since, and until Friday had just one sectional title to show for the ’90s.
Last year was all too typical for St. Joe. It had three Division I signees–Marlon London, Rob Walls and Mark Treadwell, but wound up 20-7 and looked dreadful in a 17-point sectional semifinal loss to Fenwick.
St. Joseph coach Gene Pingatore didn’t have a starter back from that team, so for once he didn’t have to worry about fulfilling high expectations. This fine newspaper, in fact, didn’t even pick the Chargers to finish in their usual place atop the East Suburban Catholic Conference standings.
“No one figured on us to have anyone,” Pingatore said.
What he had, it turned out, was better than any one player. He had a team full of guys more interested in success than stardom. Guys such as Mattox and guard Brandon Watkins, who have star talent but were willing to share the ball, and Perry, who came back to basketball even though he knew he’d play third fiddle to Brown and Morgan up front.
“I knew my role–come off the bench and rebound and play defense,” said Perry, who plans to try out for Northern Illinois’ football team this summer as a non-scholarship player. “That was OK with me as long as we win.”
Win they do because every player accepts his role, producing a team chemistry as potent as nitro. That includes Mattox, who doesn’t care that Watkins usually gets more points.
“We all play together as a team,” said Mattox, who had 12 points and nine assists Friday. “There’s no big names, so no one player has to get the ball. We all have confidence in each other.”
Trust comes in handy when you’re losing 48-41 with 6:30 to play. It also helps when you’re down 54-53 with 1:04 left and Watkins is heading to the bench with his fifth foul.
All it took was a missed free throw and a traveling violation by Proviso East and Mattox’s 20-footer to leave East’s fans shaking their heads, wondering how a team so talented could end its season on sectional Friday.
The answer, in part, was a tumultuous year in which Hunter left Proviso East for a prep school last spring, returned in mid-October, was declared ineligible in December for a transfer rule violation (which later forced East to forfeit four victories) and became eligible again Jan. 29.
St. Joseph, on the other hand, was as stable as a frozen pond, blending solid defense and balanced scoring into a Tuesday supersectional date with Thornridge.
“We’ve had tremendous chemistry and senior leadership,” Pingatore said. “There’s no super egos, no selfishness.
“The main thing is the kids want to win. That’s what matters.”
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Send e-mail to Barry Temkin at BarTem@aol.com
