Oak Park and River Forest boys basketball on Saturday got to within two points of an opportunity to try to contain what head coach Al Allen referred to as “the Derrick Rose show” at the Pontiac Holiday Tournament. Rose, the Memphis-bound Sports Illustrated-cover boy and Simeon star, would have awaited OPRF in the championship had the Huskies squeaked past Warren, but a 52-51 defeat sent the Huskies to the third-place game against West Aurora, which OPRF dropped 41-34.
But that was not to take away from OPRF’s achievements in the first two days of the tournament, including a 20-point rout of Danville and an upset of Bloomington, the No. 3 seed at Pontiac.
“Making it to the final four is always our goal when we go to Pontiac, so I am proud that we achieved that goal,” Allen said, “but I am disappointed we didn’t get to the championship.”
Trailing by two against Warren, Daniel Barnes missed a three-pointer with 15 seconds left, but the Blue Devils split a pair of free throws to give the Huskies another chance. A broken play on the ensuing possession led to an Iman Shumpert two with 1.6 seconds left that made it 52-51 but didn’t leave enough time for the Huskies to foul.
Warren went on to fall 56-50 in the title game to undefeated Simeon, which won its second consecutive title and fourth in five years.
OPRF (12-3) advanced to the semis with a 70-68 double overtime victory over Bloomington Friday. Phil Gary was the hero in that one, scoring 22 points, including the game-winner with 47 seconds left in the second OT. Gary also put the Huskies up 58-56 with two free throws at the end of regulation, but a Bloomington putback at the buzzer sent it into the extra frame.
“It was great to see the kids come back from how demoralizing it was to see a kid come from nowhere and grab a rebound and put it back to send the game into overtime,” Allen said.
After the loss to Warren, the Huskies were back on the court about five hours later for the 7:30 p.m. third-place game against West Aurora (the Blackhawks’ semifinal loss to Simeon ended about 4 p.m.) and were down just one after three quarters before falling 41-34.
“Saturday was a very bad day. We shot very poorly both games,” Allen said. “We played good defense but we could not score. Our foundation is defense and we do that well, but if we can’t find ways to score we will be in trouble.”
Shumpert averaged 15 points in the tournament, followed by Gary at 11 and Barnes at 10. Shumpert was named a First Team All-tournament selection.
“He was the only underclassmen named to the team,” Allen said. “It is amazing for a junior to be mentioned in the same breath as Rose and [Warren senior Ceola] Clark. It’s an honor for our school.”