Vikings to leave Big Dipper for Pontiac
It was Valentine’s Day, so before the home game with Lincoln-Way East the Homewood-Flossmoor boys basketball players reached behind their bench and grabbed roses to take to their moms in the bleachers. For a brief moment, a team laser focused on winning another state championship took its attention away from the court.
The coaches donned red ties for the night, too, though the always demonstrative coach Jamere Dismukes tossed his under his chair in frustration about two minutes into the game.
“I don’t know if it was the circulation of my neck or how bad we were playing as a team in the first few minutes. Maybe it was a combination of both,” he said with a laugh. “The tie had to go.”
The Vikings beat the Griffins 80-64, though it was close at times thanks to LWE’s sharpshooting. The visitors hit eight 3-pointers, finding open space by moving the ball as H-F helped on defense.
“We just did a terrible job of guarding the ball but they did make those shots,” Dismukes said. “Some I thought we contested pretty well but they still went in. That’s a really good shooting team. You’ve got to give up something and tonight it was them shooting threes.”
Lincoln-Way East. (David P. Funk/H-F Chronicle)
H-F pulled away in the second half with Jayden Tyler pouring in 23 of his game-high 25 points in the final two frames. Tyler did it in a variety of ways, getting to the bucket on drives, finding his way to the free throw line where he shot 9-9 and even hitting a couple of treys.
“You can’t get too high or too low and if we going on a stretch when we’re not scoring a lot, that’s a low but we can’t let that sink in too much,” senior Brent Taylor said. “With (Tyler) able to go get a bucket any time he wants, that can bring up our lows so we can stay on our feet and finish the game.”
Taylor had 23 points to help finish the game. He hit a pair of fourth-quarter 3-pointers that put the game out of reach for the Griffins. For stretches, Taylor was too much for Lincoln-Way East to handle.
Arden Eaves scored 19 and was also too much for the Griffins for portions of the game.
“We just feed the hot hand,” Taylor said. “Whoever is hot, we just keep giving it to him.”
Another tick marked off the list of goals for H-F came when it secured a SouthWest Suburban Conference title in early February. The Vikings (26-3, 14-0) clinched the league crown well before the end of the regular season.
As anticlimactic as it was, Dismukes said it remains an annual goal for his program. Winning any title possible, whether it’s a midseason tournament, a conference or postseason one, is part of what he calls “a championship mindset.”
“We have a checklist every year. We want to win the (Big) Dipper championship. We want to win all the championships,” Tyler said. “We do have the bigger picture (in mind) with state, but conference is as important as everything else.”
H-F leaving Big Dipper for Pontiac Holiday Tournament
Homewood-Flossmoor announced in February that it would be leaving the Rich Township Big Dipper in favor of the Pontiac Holiday Tournament.
The Vikings will take the place of Simeon, which is leaving the nation’s oldest high school basketball event. The Pontiac began in 1926 and is considered one of the country’s best.
“When you look down the list of players who’ve played in it and won MVP, coaches who’ve coached in it and won, when you look at the field now with DePaul Prep, Joliet West, Curie, Bloom, those are arguably the top programs in the state every year,” Dismukes said. “I’m a competitor. I want to beat the best. I don’t say it a lot, but I want to be the best coach.”
