The annual When Sides Collide on Saturday at Benet is loaded with heavyweights and takes center stage on Saturday.
But there are many more high-stakes matchups, including several huge conference slugfests. Overall, there is no shortage of ranked teams going at it this weekend.
Here is a look at a big and busy weekend of high school basketball in this Weekend Forecast.
Last week:4-1
Overall:20-9
Friday
No. 11 DePaul (17-1) at No. 9 Brother Rice (19-2)
What a massive Chicago Catholic League tussle we have on tap. They both join Mount Carmel as unbeaten teams in league play, so something has to give atop the standings.
Brother Rice is sky high, fresh off a beatdown of rival Marist earlier this week. DePaul, meanwhile, is grinding along shorthanded but still churning out wins, the lone loss coming to No. 2 ranked Homewood-Flossmoor.
DePaul is adjusting to losing a couple of starters to injury. But defense will travel to Chicago’s southwest side. The Rams, led by 6-7 senior Jaylan McElroy, make it difficult for everyone in the halfcourt.
Brother Rice may have just the kryptonite to DePaul’s defense in poised and savvy point guard Cale Cosme. He makes the Crusaders go, while 6-7 senior Zavier Fitch gets better by the week and 6-3 junior Marcos Gonzales is blossoming. Throw Tyler Wooten in the mix and coach Conte Stamas has enough weapons — and the home court — to pull this off.
The pick: Brother Rice 46, DePaul 42
No. 22 Loyola (18-3) at No. 3 Mount Carmel (20-2)
Mount Carmel can’t be looking ahead to its When Sides Collide showdown with Kenwood on Saturday, because Loyola is the type of team that will take advantage of any team’s warts.
The Ramblers have underrated senior guard Miles Boland and their typical physical defense to rely on. But against the four best teams on the schedule, Loyola is just 1-3, beating Glenbrook North while falling to New Trier, Brother Rice and DePaul Prep. The Ramblers could use a statement win.
With nearly everyone capable of hurting you among their top six players, including star Angelo Ciaravino (19 ppg), the Caravan have emerged as the team to beat in the Chicago Catholic League.
The pick: Mount Carmel 48, Loyola 43
No. 12 Rich (14-4) at No. 20 Kankakee (14-2)
The Southland Conference is stacked and a fun watch this winter. The attention has generally centered around Bloom and Thornton, but this is a good one with two tantalizing sophomores to watch: Rich’s Jameson Coulter and Kankakee’s Lincoln Williams.
Playing on its home floor, Kankakee finds a way to hold off a Rich team that has won nine of its last 10 games.
The pick: Kankakee 70, Rich 66
No. 24 York at No. 7 Downers Grove North
Downers Grove North has a headline-grabbing game Saturday against Homewood-Flossmoor, but it shouldn’t — and likely won’t — sleep on a York team that is more than capable.
York is one of those “best unranked teams” in the Chicago area, thanks in large part to the 1-2 punch of point guard AJ Levine and 6-7 Kyle Waltz.
Levine, who is headed to Penn, impacts in so many ways. He leads the Dukes with 15.8 points a game. But he also dishes out 4.3 assists and is a pickpocket defensively with nearly four steals a game. The late-blooming Waltz averages 12.7 points and 5.8 rebounds a game.
This won’t be easy for DGN. But Jack Stanton and Company are home and hold off the upstart Dukes.
The pick: Downers Grove North 52, York 47
Lake Park (17-3) at Batavia (13-5)
If you want points, this might not be the one for you. The first time these two met there were a combined 60 points between the two in a 37-23 Lake Park win.
The first matchup included an anomaly of a run — a nearly 20 minute stretch of the game where Lake Park held Batavia scoreless in the midst of a 23-0 Lancers run.
But Batavia gets a key DuKane Conference game on its home floor, trailing Lake Park and high-scoring guard Cam Cerese by one game in the conference standings. Can they contain Cerese? He scored 20, below his average, in the first matchup.
The pick: Lake Park 42, Batavia 36
Saturday
No. 14 New Trier (18-3) at Barrington (13-3)
A nice measuring stick for a Barrington team that is quietly piling up wins and has a recent confidence-building win over Rolling Meadows last week. The Broncos get a lot of mileage out of the 1-2 punch of Alec Schmidts and sophomore Oliver Gray. Schmidts and Gray combined to average 33 points a game.
New Trier has a surplus of weapons and are awfully tough to beat when they’re shooting the ball well. Sophomore Christopher Kirkpatrick, who scored 21 in a big win over Kenwood earlier this week, has taken a nice step forward over the past month at point guard.
The pick: New Trier 58, Barrington 50
No. 6 Waubonsie Valley (18-0) vs. No. 16 West Aurora (14-5) at Marmion
The Aurora area gets a treat with this one. A battle of ranked teams on a neutral floor who have really thrived with their team defense.
Waubonsie Valley has emerged as one of the big stories of the season with its perfect record and rocketing up the rankings out of nowhere. Tyreek Coleman, a junior point guard with a burst, has been playing some high-level basketball. With a defense with terrific positional size and versatility, it’s been a deadly mixture.
West Aurora gets a rare shot at an unbeaten team in January. The Blackhawks may be recharged, but they also hit a bump in the road earlier this week with an upset loss to Wheaton North. Due to endless turnovers, the Blackhawks let a 13-point lead slip away.
Coach Mike Fowler’s team, led by scoring guard CJ Savage, Jordan Brooks and 6-4 junior Terrence Smith, has a bad taste in its mouth after that one but could feast on this opportunity.
The pick: Waubonsie Valley 55, West Aurora 50
