Fenwick senior Mike O’Laughlin is a strong, 6-6 football player signed with West Virginia. He’s also the undersized center on the Friars’ basketball team.
He gave Simeon star Talen Horton-Tucker, a 6-5 wide-body, a nice bump early in the game on Monday in Oak Park. It was just enough to let Horton-Tucker know he was there and not backing down.
“I like that he did that,” Horton-Tucker said. “I want them to know who I am. I came back on him and bumped him back. It will just prepare me, next year I will be around a lot of guys that are bigger and stronger than me.”
No. 7 Fenwick played hard-nosed, gritty basketball and it was good enough to hang with the top-ranked Wolverines for three quarters. Simeon dominated the fourth quarter and won 56-39.
The Wolverines looked a bit lethargic in the first half, they played USA Today’s top-ranked team, Montverde (Florida) on Saturday in Massachusetts.
“[The travel] was a little rough,” Horton-Tucker said. “We lost the game so basically we had to regroup on this game and kinda take our anger out. We kinda played around a little too much in the beginning.”
Horton-Tucker finished with 15 points and nine rebounds. Xavier Pinson, who picked up scholarship offers from Georgetown and Dayton this weekend, added 10 points and five rebounds.
Zion Young and Kejuan Clements each scored nine for Simeon (15-3).
Young and Pinson, two players that transferred in, are good enough to start for any other team in the state. They’ve accepted bench roles with the Wolverines. Situations like that don’t always go smoothly, but the chemistry is good so far this seaon.
“Everyone has accepted their role,” Horton-Tucker said. “[The new players] can’t really come in and take [starting positions]. They have to ease their way in. They are accepting their role and it is actually working for us.”
Sophomore DJ Steward led Fenwick (13-5) with 11 points and Damari Nixon scored 10.
“We guarded Talen Horton-Tucker pretty well,” Fenwick coach Rick Malnati said. “[Senior Billy Bruce] was the only guy that really showed up for us. We just didn’t play well, we didn’t shoot well. We are playing so sped up, it is frustrating. We just never had a run.”
No. 8 Bolingbrook beat No. 5 Morgan Park 75-71 in the first game of the event.
Illinois recruit Ayo Dosunmu played most of the game for the Mustangs, but clearly isn’t 100 percent recovered from an ankle injury yet. He scored nine points.
Joey Saracco, a 6-7 senior, was terrific for the Raiders (13-2) he had 17 points and five rebounds. Junior Tyler Cochran added 14 points and eight boards.
Five Bolingbrook players scored in double-digits. The impressive victory catapults the Raiders into any discussion of the area’s elite teams. They were playing without starting point guard Kaleb Thornton, who is expected to miss six weeks with a hand injury.
The Raiders led by 18 points after three quarters but a furious comeback from Morgan Park (12-7) made it close at the end.
Sophomore Adam Miller drained eight three-pointers and scored 30 for the Mustangs.
