Inside Oak Forest’s magical high school basketball season

When Matt Manzke took over as head coach at Oak Forest in 2008, the transition was rather smooth.

Manzke had already been around the program for several years. He was an assistant to head coach Mike Brown since Manzke was hired at Oak Forest in 2001, which also happened to be Brown’s first year as head coach.

So when Manzke headed up the program he wanted to continue what he and Brown had started together in terms of the direction the program was headed. No, the tangible results weren’t there yet, though there was a slight spike in wins during Brown’s final two seasons, but the foundation had been laid and the building needed to continue.

“It was an ongoing process,” says Manzke of the massive overhaul. “It was always going to take time with what we wanted to do, to build what we needed to in order to have some success.”

The building plan began in the latter years of Brown’s run as head coach, with Manzke as his assistant, and it continued through the first few years under Manzke, who has Brown on his bench as an assistant. But it wasn’t about X’s and O’s. It wasn’t about implementing a new offensive system or defensive scheme.

The plan was more fundamental, on a deeper level and one that went beyond basketball and what was happening each year within each individual team at Oak Forest.

“It was about building relationships, having connections with kids and families in the community and not just the players in the program,” says Manzke of the extended blueprint.

That process takes time. There isn’t an ultra-quick formula to build trust and those types of relationships. Energizing the younger grades through youth camps and getting into the junior high schools and doing it in waves, grade by grade, can take years. Manzke and Brown understood this and were patient while appreciating the support they received from administration.

“It was about getting kids excited about coming to Oak Forest and playing basketball here,” says Manzke. “We felt we needed to have connections with those younger kids in order to keep kids in our community. Now we see it with younger brothers and cousins and families we have known over the years.”

Juan Avila returns

Current senior Juan Avila is an example of the outreach the coaching staff felt was so critical in the development of the program.

Avila, who has been a highly-productive, do-what-it-takes player and leader for the Bengals, attended De La Salle out of eighth-grade. Football was Avila’s passion as an eighth-grader, so he thought the private school in Chicago where his father attended was the best fit for him and his football future.

But after just a year at De La Salle, Avila was back, returning to Oak Forest to play with the friends he grew up competing with and against. His familiarity with Oak Forest, from the friends he grew up with to what he already knew about Bengals basketball from attending sports camps throughout his childhood, made it an easy choice.

“I was all about football for me,” says Juan Avila of his junior high days. “But coming back here has been great. It’s what I was used to anyway. I was always going to camps at Oak Forest as a kid. My teammates and I have been playing together since middle school. We were all in those camps together while growing up.”

And Manzke is sure glad Avila made that decision.

”He came back, he’s enjoyed it and I think he has had a positive experience,” Manzke says of Avila’s three years at Oak Forest. “I think his brother saw those positive experiences and that led Robbie [Avila] to coming here out of eighth-grade.”

And Robbie Avila just so happens to be a 6-8 sophomore and one of the top 10 prospects in the Class of 2022 in Illinois. He’s been a monster all season and a player to build around over the next two seasons.

The magical season

In this second week of March, it’s about the present for Oak Forest. The Avila brothers, senior star Jayson Kent, senior floor general Devin Tolbert and all the Bengals are having the most fun they’ve had playing basketball.

“The crowds, the atmosphere we’ve played in have been incredible,” says Avila of the 2019-20 season thus far. “Going out this way as a senior? Making these kinds of memories? That’s been my favorite part of it all.”

Along the way they have stolen the hearts of the Oak Forest community while piling up 28 wins and those elusive, hard-to-come-by championships.

When the season began, Oak Forest was the City/Suburban Hoops Report’s No. 24 team in the preseason rankings. So it’s not as if the Bengals snuck up on everyone en route to its 26-3 regular-season record. There were big expectations from within and a little bit of hype surrounding this team back in November.

However, living up to those preseason expectations and, more importantly, surpassing some hurdles the program has been so desperately trying to surpass, was another thing. This was a downtrodden program for decades.

But Oak Forest has grabbed a share of its first conference championship and won a regional title for the first time in 33 years, beating T.F. North 69-53 last Friday night to improve to 28-3 on the year.

“Coach Manzke and coach Brown have always preached family and togetherness,” Avila says of the coaches who have instilled both Oak Forest pride and a closeness throughout the program. “They have drilled that into our heads since my sophomore year. That right there has been a large part of our success. As a result, this team is closer than ever.”

The comparisons: Three decades apart

This year’s close-knit team will always be measured and compared to the great, memorable 1986-87 team that finished the regular season 23-2 and was ranked No. 5 in the final Class AA state rankings. And the players are excited about and welcome that comparison, because it means they’ve done something to deserve it.

“We wanted to put Oak Forest on the map,” says Kent, who averages 18 points a game. “We wanted to be one of those teams everyone talks about and remembers.”

And at Oak Forest there aren’t many of them.

While it’s going to be really difficult to surpass what the 1986-87 team did for the community and the statewide recognition it received, the revival in Oak Forest basketball is real. And the results are finally tangible.

Allen Cunningham/For the Sun-Times

The 1986-87 team was loaded. Led by 6-8 all-stater Larry Gorman, sweet-shooting all-state guard Jeff Delaney and 6-8 big man Troy Agler, Oak Forest reached the Elite Eight before losing in Champaign to East St. Louis and LaPhonso Ellis in the state quarterfinals, finishing the year 28-3.

But people have either forgotten or really never were aware of the journey this program has taken since that famed 1986-87 team was among the state’s very best teams.

For starters, highly-successful head coach Ken Connor was suspended –– and ultimately let go –– just a week before regional play began in that 1986-87 season for what was called conduct detrimental to the overall athletic program. Assistant coach Denny Denman coached the final few regular season games and throughout the postseason run.

But following that dream season, the Bengals went 0-24 the next year and a pretty unbelievable 7-113 over the next five seasons.

The futility continued. Oak Forest went 5-20 in 1993-94. There was the winless 0-25 campaign in 1996-97. And a rough five-year run from 2000 through 2004 saw the program go a combined 23-107.

There were only two winning seasons (14-11 in 1994-95 and 16-12 in 2006-07) from the time Oak Forest captured the entire state’s attention in 1986-87 to when Manzke was hired in 2008.

Manzke went through four losing seasons of his own in his first five years on the job. But the Bengals have been a steady winner over the past seven seasons, with seven straight winning seasons, four 20-win seasons and an average of 20 wins a year during that stretch.

Winning championships

All that’s eluded Manzke and this program were accomplishments to remember.

Last year, despite 23 wins on the year, a stunning loss as a No. 2 seed to eighth-seeded Providence in the regional semifinal left an incomplete feeling. The regional drought continued as a result and the pressure only mounted. But that loss, according to Manzke and the players, fueled this year’s success.

“That loss drove us,” says Kent of the loss to Providence. “We took that loss and decided we were going to work as hard as we could to avoid being in that same position again.”

Manzke agrees with Kent’s assessment of the impact of that loss.

“The loss last year was a huge factor,” Manzke says of the how it impacted this year’s team and success. “It left a sour taste in our mouth. Despite having a really good season with 23 wins, it felt incomplete.”

Manzke believes the loss to Hillcrest in this year’s regular-season finale was a quick reminder to his players of that incomplete feeling. It was another game with a lot on the line.

“We lost to Hillcrest in the last game, on our home floor,” says Manzke. “We won a share of the conference, but we all really wanted an outright championship. But I think that because of that they were driven to play their best basketball.”

Oak Forest did just that and finally got over the regional hump the next week.

Now that it’s over and the elusive regional championship was won last Friday night, Manzke admits he felt the pressure of the regional drought. Coaches all have pressures they must hide for the benefit of the players and the program. But he thinks his players felt it as well, particularly in the opening round regional win against Brooks.

“I definitely felt it, especially on the heels of last year’s regional loss,” Manzke admits. “That regional opener was a bit of a hurdle for us. But I thought we came out and played loose and showed more of our style in the championship game.”

The Bengals are looking for more

This season has provided Manzke and his players with sold out gyms, high-profile games and now conference and regional championships. Manzke and the Bengals, however, don’t want it to end. And with the pressure relief that came with the conference and regional championships, the feel-good story behind them, don’t think for a minute this group is satisfied. Manzke recognized that immediately following the regional title win.

“I had more than one kid come to me, on their own, after winning the regional who told me they aren’t satisfied,” says Manzke. “They said they know there is more out there for them.”

Manzke knows every game from here on out will be a dogfight. There won’t be an easy game and the tests will only be bigger, starting up again Wednesday night when the Bengals face Kankakee in a sectional semifinal at Thornridge. However, he knows enough about this team, how far it has come and the intestinal fortitude to know it will be ready for games the program hasn’t played in over 30 years.

“There may be times where we aren’t playing our best, but I know based on the makeup of these players and what they’ve experienced this season that they won’t be intimidated,” says Manzke. “What separates this team is that the players on this team have an edge about them. They aren’t going to back down.

“Sometimes you just have to make a play, get a loose ball, get a rebound, make a big shot, and we have multiple kids who not only can do that but aren’t afraid to do it when it matters. They are willing to step up in those situations. That’s what has set this team apart.”

Now it’s a team that is set apart from any of the previous 33 and can only be compared to one other in Oak Forest history. And now, with one more win the Bengals will match another milestone: most wins in school history.