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. 26 Indian Creek today and will add one program a day going forward.
26. INDIAN CREEK: 209-93
Decade’s biggest storyline: Even with all the decade wins and success from this tiny school in the remote town of Shabbona, which is roughly 60 miles west of Chicago, there is nothing close to what transpired last year. The Timberwolves went 35-1 and were the No. 1 ranked team in the state while cracking the Sun Times’ Super 25 rankings at one point.
The small, tight-knit community rallied around a team that captured a sectional championship before falling to Aurora Christian in the super-sectional.
Underrated highlight:Impressively, the basketball program had 12 different players throughout the decade that were either class valedictorian or salutatorian.
Player of the Decade: Cooper Larsen (2020)
All-Decade Team:Seth Sanderson (2011), Nolan Govig (2018), Cooper Larsen (2020), Drew Gaston (2021) and Cameron Russell (2021)
Other decade highlights:
-There are five 1,000-plus point scorers in program history and four (Seth Sanderson, Garrison Govig, Trevor Guerra and Cooper Larsen) all played in the decade.
-Paw Paw consolidated with Indian Creek in 2018 with two starters from the 2019-20 team (Michael Lampson and Brennen McNally) coming from Paw Paw.
-The last four years of the decade produced an impressive 102-22 record overall.
-The history of the Little Ten Tournament is over a century old. Indian Creek won its first tournament title in school history in 2020.
-The Timberwolves won three regional titles and appeared in two sectional title games in the decade.
