The winningest high school basketball programs of the decade: No. 13 Bolingbrook

When high school basketball fans think back to the 1980s, programs like Quincy, Providence St. Mel, East St. Louis Lincoln and the arrival of city powers King and Simeon are easy to think back on.

The 1990s brought us memorable basketball giants in Peoria Manual and Thornton, a few steamrolling Proviso East teams and the continued dominance of King.

The first 10 years of the 2000s included Glenbrook North, Peoria High and the beginning of a Simeon juggernaut.

Earlier this year we broke down the decade’s best teams and best players. Now, with every season of the past decade complete, it’s time to look at the Chicago area programs who won the most.

This list is comprised of the 50 winningest programs over the past 10 years, starting with the 2010-11 season and concluding with the 2019-20 season. Every team in every class throughout the Chicago area will be broken down in a variety of ways. But total wins, with winning percentage used as tie-breaker, determined the rankings.

We present No. 13 Bolingbrook today and will add one program a day going forward.

13. BOLINGBROOK: 220-70

Decade’s biggest storyline: When it comes to the Raiders and the past decade, you take the best season in school history and run with it. The 2016-17 season was pretty magical.

Bolingbrook rolled through the regular season and postseason with regional, sectional and supersectional wins. Coach Rob Brost’s team headed to Peoria with a glitzy 29-1 record and the program’s first-ever trip to the State Finals. The Raiders fell to Simeon in the semifinals and beat Fremd to finish third in the state in Class 4A.

That great Raiders team, which was led by Nana Akenten, Kaleb Thornton, Malik Binns and the sophomore guard tandem of Joseph Yesufu and Tyler Cochran, won 23 consecutive games. They were the No. 1 ranked team in the state at one point and rose to as high as No. 14 in the country in one national poll.

Underrated highlight: The talent Bolingbrook has churned out over the decade is as impressive as any suburban program in the area. The eye-opening list includes 50 players who went on to play college basketball, including a lengthy list of Division I players.

Plus, Ben Moore (2013), who starred at SMU in college, reached the NBA with a cup of coffee with the Indiana Pacers in the 2017-18 season.

Sun-Times file photo

Player of the Decade:Ben Moore (2013)

All-Decade Team:Ben Moore (2013), Prentiss Nixon (2015), Tyler Cochran (2019), Joseph Yesufu (2019) and Darius Burford (2020)

Other decade highlights:

-The decade was unlike any other in Bolingbrook basketball history. Prior to the start of the decade, Bolingbrook had enjoyed little postseason success with four regional championships since the school’s initial season in 1974-75. But Bolingbrook emerged as a state power with three sectional championships and two third-place state trophies.

-There were seven 20-plus wins seasons in the past 10 years, the same amount of 20-win seasons in the previous 35 years.

-Bolingbrook won three conference championships in the decade.

-While the run of talent is undeniable at Bolingbrook of late, there has been an impressive run in the classroom as well. Players in the program have earned a team GPA over 3.0 in 21 of the last 22 semesters during this decade.

-The amount of 1,000-point scorers at Bolingbrook is not a lengthy one, but the decade produced four of them: Prentiss Nixon, Joseph Yesufu, Tyler Cochran and Darius Burford. In fact, that foursome ranks third, fourth, fifth and sixth on the all-time scoring list at Bolingbrook behind Trent Jackson and Will Walker.

-The Raiders captured the 2016 Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic championship.