The city of Chicago has supplanted New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. as the incubator for the best high school basketball talent in the country over the last eight years. Point guard Derrick Rose led Simeon to consecutive Illinois state championships before becoming the No. 1 pick in the 2008 NBA draft after spending just one year playing for John Calipari at Memphis and leading the Tigers to the NCAA tournament championship game. In 2012, 6-10 Anthony Davis, a late bloomer who grew eight inches to 6-10 between sophomore and junior year at Perspectives Charter School, went No.1 after leading Calipari’s 2012 Kentucky team to the national championship in his only year in college. Duke’s freshman forward Jabari Parker, who led Simeon to four state championships, could well be the No. 1 pick this June.
And 6-10, 275-pound Jahlil Okafor, a senior from Whitney Young who is a sophisticated low post player who dominated elite international competition and led the U.S. to the FIBA U19 world championship last summer in Prague before signing with Duke, seems poised to follow in their footsteps.
That would be four No. 1’s from the Chicago Public League in eight years.
Okafor is generally considered the best prospect in the country.
But for this week at least, there are questions whether he is the best player in his own city.
Chicago has another embarrassment of riches this high school season.
When Curie played Young for the Public League championship before an SRO crowd of more than 8,000, including Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel, at Chicago State’s arena, it was chance to watch Okafor face off against 6-9, 250-pound Kansas bound athletic dynamo Cliff Alexander. Okafor and Alexander are two of the top three players in the country and arguably the two best bigs ever produced in that city.
Alexander, who was a dominant force for Team USA in the FIBA U18 3×3 world championships in Jakarta, scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds as Curie defeated defending city champion Whitney Young, 69-66, in four overtimes. Okafor finished with 16 points and 8 rebounds, but only played four minutes in the second half before fouling out with 2:13 left in regulation in the biggest game of his blossoming career.
Even though Alexander barely touched the ball when top-ranked Curie chose to hold the ball for most of the overtimes, the game more than lived up to its’ hype. Backup guard Kamar Marshall came off the bench after Joseph Stamps fouled out to make a three pointer with one second left in the fourth overtime to break a 66-66 tie and provide a dramatic finish, giving the Condors their first city title ever in a game that was so big, it actually led ESPN’s 11 p.m. Sports Center.
Curie is now the No. 2 team in the USA Today’s Top 25 poll and, if Curie is eligible for the Illinois state playoffs, Alexander could suddenly the frontrunner for Mr. Basketball in the state.
The two high school goliaths could meet again in the sectional finals of the state tournament, although there is no guarantee Curie will have the same lineup. The Chicago Sun-Times, the bible of high school sports in that city, is reporting that a Chicago Public Schools spokesman as saying the school is being investigated on eligibility issues.
It’s unclear who the ineligible players might have been, but it didn’t take long for the Curie coaches and players to express outrage.
“They wanna take back our title that’s crazy we won fair & square,” Alexander Tweeted Sunday night.
“It’s an embarrassment if they try and take this back,” Curie coach Mike Oliver told the Sun-Times. “It makes the city of Chicago and Young look like sore losers. [At 3 p.m.] they are asking about eligibility. But if they cancel the game they have to give back almost $60,000. So they let us play the game, get the money and then make us forfeit? That isn’t right.”
Young, for the record, has denied any involvement in the allegations, which reportedly started with an anonymous e-mail.
It would be a shame if Curie’s magical season went up in flames. It would be nice to see another Clash of the Titans between Okafor, who is a old school low post power player with great footwork, and Alexander, the most powerful dunking machine in the country.
Okafor has always been a class act, a thoughtful teenage prodigy who said he hoped Chicago’s elite basketball talent can be a positive influence for a city plagued by senseless violence and chose to prepare himself for the NBA by following in Parker’s footsteps and playing for Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski at Duke. Where Okafor has been a star since eighth grade when he was offered a scholarship by DePaul. He was selected MVP of the FIBA U17 championship in 2013 and made the all tournament team in the U19 Worlds.
Alexander did not play organized basketball until eighth grade, but by late in his freshman season he became a heavyweight contributor to his high school’s varsity and rose quickly in the national rankings. Alexander he has more swagger to his personality than Okafor and is more demonstrative on the court. He loved the attention he received during his recruitment, constantly photo shopping pictures of himself in various schools’ uniforms in the months leading up to his announcement. The decision came down to Kansas and Illinois and Alexander broke the hearts of Illini fans when he initially put on an Illinois cap before announcing for Kansas.
Both Okafor and Alexander, who played for Mac Irvin’s Chicago Fire travel team last summer, are friends and have been selected to play in the both the McDonald’s All American game and for Team USA in the Nike Hoop Summit in Portland. .
But none of that means anything until after this high school season is over and bragging rights can be determined.. High school basketball still means something in Chicago..
