The Public League championship game went big time this year–taking up a position not just at the United Center but in TV land as well. The city’s most important high school basketball game drew about 15,000 fans to its biggest indoor arena, even as the game claimed two hours on public television’s WTTW–during pledge month, no less. So, thinking vive la difference, I watched the game at home late last Sunday afternoon instead of seeing it in person, my usual practice.
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The championship pitted two west-side rivals: Westinghouse, a city powerhouse since the golden age of Mark Aguirre in the 70s, against Farragut, a more up-and-down program that hadn’t claimed a Public League title since Garnett’s one-year visit. It also pitted two familiar tactical approaches: Westinghouse’s brotherly swarm of more or less equal talents against Farragut’s one-man wrecking crew, Elliott Poole, a 6-foot-6-inch center with a dour, stone-faced expression, a soft, wristy shooting touch, and an insouciant manner at the free-throw line, where he turns his head a little as if to sight across the top of the ball with his right eye, then tosses it up as if daring it not to go in. Team versus star (or stars) is a common Public League conflict, and for every example of one side coming out on top–say, Kiwane Garris’s scrappy Westinghouse crew topping King’s twin towers of Rashard Griffith and Thomas Hamilton several years ago–one can think of a contest that went the other way, such as King’s Leon Smith and Imari Sawyer redeeming themselves after an uneven season by beating Westinghouse’s undefeated Bailey brothers and Cedrick Banks a few years ago.
Westinghouse’s aggressiveness paid dividends, and it just seemed to be the Warriors’ night. At one point Glover lost the handle on the ball spinning into the lane, and it bounced off the bottom of the backboard and right back into his hands. He had the ball back up and into the hoop before the other players could figure out where it had gone. Westinghouse opened a commanding 20-5 lead at the end of the first frame and scored first in the second quarter for a 17-point lead. The game seemed over.
Again Westinghouse broke the press for a quick advantage at the other end, and Ellis played middleman, swinging a pass in the lane to Glover on the baseline for a hoop that put the Warriors back in front, 58-56. Again Poole tied the game at the line. With 26 seconds left, Westinghouse got sloppy and almost lost the ball. Ellis put up a desperation shot and missed, but 6-6 Westinghouse center Richard Russell, who’d had his hands full with Poole all game, came down with the rebound and was fouled. He missed the first shot and Nelson called a time-out to try to ice him, but the pause allowed Russell to compose himself, and he made the second free throw. Farragut broke the ensuing press in such textbook fashion that it must have been set up during the time-out, and a perfect pass found an open Bailey driving the baseline. But again Ellis came out of nowhere to swat the shot out of bounds–this time with no foul in advance. Farragut inbounded to McGee who passed to Poole–who else was the ball going to go to?–and his shot in the lane went in, lipped around the back of the rim from left to right, and rolled out like Mick Jagger’s tongue. Glover pulled down the rebound, was fouled, and made both shots at the other end. Seconds later, another rebound and foul sent him back to the line. Glover made one of the shots, to make the final 62-58 and give him 26 points for the game, the same as Poole.
