High School Sports

#51      
Curbelo Fanboy
Roundball Sage said:
There was a guy named Tom Kelly. He'd come in from California for several years to do the tourney. He was pretty good. Also, a fairly famous announcer named Jack Drees (who lived in Western Springs? -- at least I once saw him get on a train there once) who used to do the White Sox and other events. And there was a megastar announcer named Ray Scott who was a big wheel doing NFL TV games for a long time. Even he did the IHSA tournament. And the WGN presentation was indeed something special. Four games on Friday, four on Saturday... and we roundballers were still begging for more.

I still can hear in my head commercials for Illinois Bell Telephone and The Illinois Pork Producers Association...
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I know Tom Kelly was on it in the late 70's. I think Frank & Art came on in 80 or 81. I know they are on 81 for the Quincy games along with former Illini announcer Jim Turpin. But all of them were pros who obviously cared deeply about the product & did research. And this was in the pre internet age where it was a chore to find out info on a team let alone see them in person or on tape unless it was a team in your immediate vicinity.
 
#52      
Roundball Sage
Curbelo Fanboy said:
And this was in the pre internet age where it was a chore to find out info on a team let alone see them in person or on tape unless it was a team in your immediate vicinity.
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That's the thing about the One Class Tournament on Friday and Saturday. You may not have ever seen any of these teams before (for most people around the State, anyway) but by the time of the late game on Saturday night you felt you knew these guys. You got to know the players and their tendencies. You became a community of viewers with everyone else. And sometimes a team would return the next year and you'd remember them if you had a good memory.

And you just could not wait to chow down on some of that good Illinois Pork and go out and buy that Country Companies insurance -- even if you didn't need any!...

With the great High School Sports web channel you get to see many/most of these teams during the Season so you can get real familiar with them ahead of time if you want to. And watch the other State tournaments as well. Hoops Heaven.
 
#53      
Se Il Illini
fuddrules said:
Could you or anyone explain this better.

Under the oldish system, 16 teams made the state tournament.

The current format, 16 teams make the tournament.

Im sure only a few here attended many pre-1972 tournaments.
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If you go back to the 1950's, 16 teams made it to the state tournament which was played in Champaign at Huff gymnasium. Sometime in the early 60's after the Assembly Hall was built the tournament switched to the Assembly Hall. I have not looked up the date, but I believe in the mid to late 50's the Super Sectionals were added after the sectionals. As a resuilt there were 7 super-sectionals along with the public league champion who advanced to Champaign. Now here is some interesting trivia which may just be wife's tails. Supposedly a deal was made at this time. The original schools in the South 7 were guaranteed that each school would be sent to 7 different regionals in the southern part of the state. For example, Mt. Vernon always ended up in a regional with Carmi, Fairfield, Albion, , most years Mt. Carmel, the district champion, Grayville and maybe Wayne City. ( Teams like Eldorado, Ridgeway, McLeansboro which were closer to the other schools went elsewhere.) The other part of the deal which actually was put in place was that a Chicago Public League school was guaranteed a spot in the elite 8. At that time the public league had their own tournament and the winner advanced to the elite 8. Furthermore, at this time we are talking about the 1960's, the Chicago Catholic league was not a member of the IHSA. So essentially there were 7 supersectionals outside of Cook county who advanced to Champaign along with the Chicago public league champion. This was in place until the 2 class system came into play in the early 70's. When the 2 class came into place, the old district tournaments were was eliminated. Hebron was the last district champion to win the state tournament.
 
#54      
Rap47
This is a question for you history buffs. What was the enrollment of Chicago Marshall in 1958 and 1960 when they won state championships? I see now that they are in 1A.
 
#55      
Curbelo Fanboy
Se Il Illini said:
If you go back to the 1950's, 16 teams made it to the state tournament which was played in Champaign at Huff gymnasium. Sometime in the early 60's after the Assembly Hall was built the tournament switched to the Assembly Hall. I have not looked up the date, but I believe in the mid to late 50's the Super Sectionals were added after the sectionals. As a resuilt there were 7 super-sectionals along with the public league champion who advanced to Champaign. Now here is some interesting trivia which may just be wife's tails. Supposedly a deal was made at this time. The original schools in the South 7 were guaranteed that each school would be sent to 7 different regionals in the southern part of the state. For example, Mt. Vernon always ended up in a regional with Carmi, Fairfield, Albion, , most years Mt. Carmel, the district champion, Grayville and maybe Wayne City. ( Teams like Eldorado, Ridgeway, McLeansboro which were closer to the other schools went elsewhere.) The other part of the deal which actually was put in place was that a Chicago Public League school was guaranteed a spot in the elite 8. At that time the public league had their own tournament and the winner advanced to the elite 8. Furthermore, at this time we are talking about the 1960's, the Chicago Catholic league was not a member of the IHSA. So essentially there were 7 supersectionals outside of Cook county who advanced to Champaign along with the Chicago public league champion. This was in place until the 2 class system came into play in the early 70's. When the 2 class came into place, the old district tournaments were was eliminated. Hebron was the last district champion to win the state tournament.
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The public league winner advancing to state existed until I think when they went to 4 classes for the 07-08 season. Prior to that the public league tournament was the post season tourney sending the winner (and only the winner) to state.

As an aside, I was reading some information a couple weeks back about some ancient tourney history. In the old old days, like 1930's & prior there were years where the top 2 teams from districts would advance to a regional. So a team that had lost the district final would still be in the tournament. I believe one state champion actually had lost in the tourney & there was a team that got 4th in the tournament that had 3 post season losses. Lost in district final but advanced & then lost the semi final & 3rd place game. Very odd formats back then.
 
#56      
2X2L
What a screwed up world we live in. You gotta stream and pay to watch IHSA basketball tournament? Or am I missing something? Yourtube, maybe?

Got excited the other day: Marquee Boys High School Basketball. But it's Ioway. Am watching. Fun to watch.
 
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#57      
Roundball Sage
Curbelo Fanboy said:
In the old old days, like 1930's & prior there were years where the top 2 teams from districts would advance to a regional.
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Yes, let’s start with the 1930s.

This is hard for people today to wrap their heads around... and almost impossible for a young person. But the high school tournaments were a really big deal many years ago. Why?...

Professional basketball in America was almost nothing for a very long time. First, it did not exist at all. Then for decades it was just a niche sport in the Northeastern part of the United States (train travel days). It began to catch some local fire in the 1950s and Sixties. It was played in places like Syracuse and Fort Wayne and the City of St. Louis which was already in decline. Then Boston came to dominate for years and the NBA was pretty much their personal property. Hard to build a National footprint that way.

The NBA did not really begin to take off until starting with the early ‘70s Lakers and Bucks. And the League really hit its stride in the 1980s with Magic Johnson and Jabbar and then a guy who wore Number 23 in Chicago. That’s when the NBA started to take up all the air in the room. And today’s NBA is World-wide attention and heavy on entertainment and less on fundamental basketball ball.

Add to that how much the NCAA tournament continued to grow over the decades. More and more attention was taken off the high school game. (Not for us folks that visit around here but in the general public).

So, many things have evolved since those 1930s both in the IHSA and in roundball in general. And for my view, the biggest change has been how much the World has adopted the Game and the number of really great players that now come from so many Countries.

I guess we all better increase our pork supplies.
 
#59      
Se Il Illini
Curbelo Fanboy said:
The public league winner advancing to state existed until I think when they went to 4 classes for the 07-08 season. Prior to that the public league tournament was the post season tourney sending the winner (and only the winner) to state.

As an aside, I was reading some information a couple weeks back about some ancient tourney history. In the old old days, like 1930's & prior there were years where the top 2 teams from districts would advance to a regional. So a team that had lost the district final would still be in the tournament. I believe one state champion actually had lost in the tourney & there was a team that got 4th in the tournament that had 3 post season losses. Lost in district final but advanced & then lost the semi final & 3rd place game. Very odd formats back then.
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I was trying to remember about the Public league. Initially, I thought it changed when the 2 classes came in during the early 70's. However, I think you are right. Some of the Chicago public league schools are in 2A and possibly 1A right now. I believe there is one in the elite 8 this year. As for the districts in the 1930's, I have read tthe same thing. I believe in Kentucky the 1st and second place finisher in the opening round of the state series advance to the next level.
 
#60      
Se Il Illini
Rap47 said:
This is a question for you history buffs. What was the enrollment of Chicago Marshall in 1958 and 1960 when they won state championships? I see now that they are in 1A.
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Pure speculation. I would say somewhere around a 1000. I do not know if you could find that information on the IHSA website. The IHSA has updated their site. I have not searched it throroughly to see if they kept all of their history on it. In 1960 ( I believe it was 60 and not 58) Bridgeport was second led by Purdue recruit Steve Cunningham and Bernie Gray. Steve Cunningham's daughter, Mandi, is one of the top lady's scorers in the history of Illinois women's basketball.
 
#61      
Se Il Illini
Se Il Illini said:
Pure speculation. I would say somewhere around a 1000. I do not know if you could find that information on the IHSA website. The IHSA has updated their site. I have not searched it throroughly to see if they kept all of their history on it. In 1960 ( I believe it was 60 and not 58) Bridgeport was second led by Purdue recruit Steve Cunningham and Bernie Gray. Steve Cunningham's daughter, Mandi, is one of the top lady's scorers in the history of Illinois women's basketball.
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Correction. Marshall's enrollment was 2433 and Bridgeport's enrollment was 385.
 
#62      
Se Il Illini
Marshall was led by George Wilson, who played his college ball at Cincinatti with Oscar Robertson. He was the center on the 1962 NCAA tournament champions. And later played professionally for the old Cincinatti Royals.
 
#63      
Rap47
I was just wondering how Marshall's enrollment has dropped down to under 400.
 
#64      
Oracle21
Goreville-Lawrenceville rematch in the Semis.

I echo others thoughts in this thread. The NFHS Network crap has killed viewership. IHSA needs to reclaim those rights and at least put the games back on OTA TV.

For me, I don’t think HS basketball will ever be what it was in the 1990s. I used to watch Farragut, Manual, Thornton, Whitney Young at the State Finals and probably my favorite team was seeing Carbondale behind Troy Hudson/Rashad Tucker make their run.

I played against Mt Vernon when they had Kent Williams/Knoche/Gamber teams and they were great too. They made the USA Today top 25 at one point which is unheard of for a small town Illinois school. You watch them in warmups and they don’t look that great. Not much size, not much athleticism. But they were the best fundamental team i ever saw. Every player perfect shooting form, handle the ball, no mistakes. And Kent was obviously really good. Ran into Darius Miles though who despite not doing much in the NBA was a phenomenal HS player.
 
#65      
Curbelo Fanboy
www.ihsa.org

IHSA - Illinois High School Association

The official site for the Illinois High School Association, providing schedules, scores, and news for high school sports in Illinois.
www.ihsa.org www.ihsa.org

This takes you to a pdf on the IHSA website that lists what OTA networks the games are available on. So it still exists but I think you are correct it is nowhere near as available as it "used to be" & some of those channels pre-empt games or dump them to a B channel as needed. Also the 3rd place games are streaming only.
 
#66      
IlliniFaninHoosierLand
Oracle21 said:
I echo others thoughts in this thread. The NFHS Network crap has killed viewership. IHSA needs to reclaim those rights and at least put the games back on OTA TV.
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To be honest, I'm okay with it being streaming only. I'd be willing to bet most of the people watching the 3rd place game on TV were either state tournament diehards or fans of the teams playing.
 
#71      
logjam
It seemed so but we had a terrible 4th qtr so...
Angry Conan Obrien GIF by Team Coco
 
#73      
Oranges
Shoutout to my Alma mater Quincy Notre Dame for reaching their first 2A state championship, looking forward to a great game Saturday!
 
#75      
IlliniCub 16
Pretty exciting finish to the 4A state semi between DePaul College Prep and Benet. The first three quarters had me looking forward to the shot clock coming in next.

 
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