There Is Just 1 Basketball Player In The Big Ten Chicago's Vaunted High School System. How Can That Be?

Public League Slump

March 11, 2001|By Barry Temkin.

Ike Ukawuba is a unique player in the Big Ten tournament.

The Wisconsin freshman has played in just five of his team's 28 games and scored a not-so-grand total of two points. Friday at the United Center, he stayed glued to the bench in the Badgers' 64-52 quarterfinal loss to Indiana.

Still, there's no one like him at the United Center. That's because Ukawuba is the Chicago Public League's sole contribution to these festivities.

Now we like Ike. The 6-foot-3-inch guard was a solid player at Lincoln Park and such an outstanding student--4.61 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale--that he's attending college on academic scholarships. But what in the name of Landon Cox is going on here?

How can a league with 70 teams have nary an athletic scholarship player in the Midwest's No. 1 conference? What's more, why doesn't it seem to matter?

The Big Ten, even without Public League help, has four teams in the AP's Top 25 poll and two--Illinois and Michigan State--among the favorites to secure an NCAA Final Four berth.

Illinois, if you remember, was supposed to be dead meat because former coach Lon Kruger couldn't sign a single Public League player in his four years in Champaign. No wonder he decided the draft beats a signing period and bolted for the Atlanta Hawks.

DePaul, on the other head, appeared to be college basketball's next new thing after Pat Kennedy signed Public League stars Quentin Richardson of Young, Lance Williams of Julian, Bobby Simmons of Simeon and Imari Sawyer of King. But this year's team, sans Richardson, was the biggest waste of potential since the Bulls' Jerry Krause went free-agent shopping.

Which brings us to a couple of the season's hottest questions: Namely, is the Public League overrated, and why isn't the Big Ten getting its players?

According to Dan Laffee, a Chicagoan who tracks the college destinations of Illinois high school products, 202 Public League players--not counting walk-ons--have competed for NCAA Division I schools in the classes of 1990 through 2000, or slightly more than 18 a year. Just 12, by the way, played in the Big Ten.

Laffee also pointed out that just three Chicago Catholic League players competed in the Big Ten from those classes, including freshman Jitim Young of Gordon Tech and Northwestern.

Currently only about a dozen Public League products are impact players at Division I schools, among them Michael Wright of Farragut at Arizona, Jannero Pargo of Robeson at Arkansas, Cordell Henry of Young at Marquette, Ledaryl Billingsley of Morgan Park at Tulane and Marque Perry of Prosser at St. Louis.

Other Public League successes of the '90s, including Richardson, Kevin Turner of Simeon and Illinois, Kiwane Garris of Westinghouse and Illinois and Juwan Howard of Vocational and Michigan, were offset by disappointments such as Michael Hermon of King and Indiana and Thomas Hamilton of King and Pittsburgh. Then there's Ronnie Fields of Farragut and Leon Smith of King, who skipped college and haven't made it in the NBA.

Those players flopped as much or more because of personal and academic problems than basketball shortcomings, something Marshall Athletic Director Luther Bedford said must be considered when assessing Public League talent.

"I think our players basically are underrated," said Bedford, who led Marshall to three top-four finishes in the Class AA state tournament before retiring as coach in 1999. "One thing we have to do to get more kids at Division I schools is upgrade our academics--that's basically it.

"We still have a lot of kids at big schools, but [they] got there by the junior-college route."

Of those aforementioned 202 players, 79 made stops at junior colleges.

Van Coleman, who publishes FutureStars magazine, said one reason the Big Ten hasn't signed an impact Public Leaguer since 1994 is its schools don't recruit many non-qualifiers or junior-college players.

But there are other reasons. Under Lou Henson, Illinois had a virtual pipeline to the Public League, landing Garris, Turner and Nick Anderson and Deon Thomas of Simeon. That dried up when the Illini chose Kruger instead of longtime Henson aide and Public League favorite Jimmy Collins as head coach in 1996.

Kruger and other Big Ten coaches tried to recruit Richardson, Simmons, Williams and Wright. DePaul, with well-connected assistant Tracy Dildy, became the big player in Public League recruiting.

"That's always the way recruiting is," said Rob Judson, an Illinois assistant under Kruger and Bill Self who last week was named head coach at Northern Illinois. "You don't get everyone you want."

Judson said he'll recruit the Public League hard. "The competition there is just tremendous," he said.

FutureStars' Coleman believes that if Richardson had returned for his junior season instead of jumping to the NBA, DePaul would have had a winning record instead of finishing 12-18, and no one would be picking on the Public League.