Simeon has its eyes on coveted Chicago city basketball title

The battle before the battle begins this week.

When the Chicago Public League playoffs begin Wednesday (pending the city able to clear up to two feet of snow from Chicago's biggest snowstorm in more than 40 years), the Simeon (Chicago) boys basketball team will set out to achieve a rare double. In at least the last two years, the Illinois Class 4A state champion has not won the city championship.

Simeon, the 2010 state champ, lost to Morgan Park in last year's playoffs. In 2009, state champ Whitney Young lost to North Lawndale in a third-round game.

Simeon (19-0) enters the tournament as the nation's third-ranked team in the MaxPreps Xcellent 25 and No. 1 in Illinois. The Wolverines tore apart 2010 4A finalist and city rival Whitney Young by 21 points last week. One of the nation's best starting lineups includes sophomore sensation Jabari Parker, a 6-foot-7 forward who already has 20 scholarship offers.

Simeon's best team, in terms of a won-loss record, surfaced in 1984 when it lost just once in a state-championship season.

The Wolverines meet Chicago Wells in the first round of the city playoffs, but looming precariously on the near horizon is a second-round date with Louisville recruit Wayne Blackshear and Morgan Park.

LUKAS VERZBICAS CHOOSES OREGON
Two-time national cross country champion Lukas Verzbicas of Sandburg (Orland Park) verbally committed to Oregon, according to the Chicago Tribune. He announced his decision while being honored at a school board meeting.

JEWELL LOYD IS STILL UNCOMMITTED
Jewell Loyd, a junior guard at Niles West who won a FIBA World Championship gold medal this past summer with the USA Basketball U-17 Women's National Team, remains uncommitted. Among those watching her closely is University of Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, who went to Park Ridge on Jan. 28 to watch Loyd play against Maine South. Loyd scored 24 points on a bad night for Niles West. The Wolves (17-8) scored just 29 points in a 17-point loss to Maine South; Loyd was the only Niles West player with more than one basket.

5 BIG PERFORMANCES
* Connecticut recruit Ryan Boatright scored 47 points, leading East Aurora to a 101-97 overtime win over North Chicago in the Ernie Kivisto Tomcat Hoopsfest. East Aurora is 15-5.

* Simeon's Steve Taylor scored 14 points and had 10 rebounds, leading the unbeaten and defending state champion Wolverines to a 60-39 win over city rival Whitney Young. The game between the two 2010 Class 4A finalists was played at Chicago State University. Simeon (19-0) is up to No. 3 in the MaxPrep national rankings.

* Mikey Lebeau of Riverside-Brookfield scored eight of his 17 points in the fourth quarter, leading the Bulldogs back from a 14-point deficit and to a 61-56 overtime win over Chicago Farragut in the Ronald "Chops" Billinger Jr. Memorial Shootout.

* Leiya English, a senior guard at Evanston, scored a career-high 24 points and had seven steals in a 55-53 win over Oak Park. Her biggest basket: English won the game with a layup as the buzzer sounded to end the game.

* Kyle Anderson, a senior at Lockport, made Illinois history on Jan. 28-29 when he won the individual state bowling championship with a two-day pinfall of 2,817. He is the first boy to win consecutive state titles in bowling. He won the championship in 2010 with a score of 2,799.

STORYLINES AROUND CHICAGOLAND
* Glenbard North (Carol Stream) won its 13th consecutive DuPage Valley Conference wrestling championship, led by six wrestlers who won titles in the final round of the competition. Glenbard North topped runner-up Naperville North by 30.5 points. Among the individual title winners was Joey Gosinski, a defending state champion whose win at 130 pounds was his 35th victory this season in 37 matches.

* Led by Nic Aures' two-day pinfall of 2,609, Guilford (Rockford) won the school's first state championship in bowling on Jan. 28 and 29 at St. Clair Bowl in O'Fallon. Guilford trailed Vernon Hills by 163 pins after the first day of competition, but stormed back the next day and totaled 12,696 pins to win the title by 309 over Vernon Hills.

* Donald Robinson, a former associate executive director at the Illinois High School Association and a former member of national rules committees in football and wrestling, died Jan. 30 in Peoria at age 72 after a battle with cancer. Robinson was with the IHSA for 22 years, retiring in 1999. He was inducted into the Illinois Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1993, and was a former football and wrestling head coach at several high schools before joining the IHSA.

* Seven Illinois schools, including Chicago Orr High School, were suspended from state championship tournaments in all sports due to school officials not attending principal rules meetings for two years in a row. The other schools: Chicago Academy of Scholastic Achievement, Chicago Best Practice, Chicago Henry Ford Power House Charter, Chicago Las Casas, Christ Lutheran Academy in Plainfield, and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in Rockford. Orr, a public school on Chicago's West Side, is one of several city schools with such poor academic performance that it was made a turnaround school, in which entire school staffs are fired and replaced. The Illinois High School Association requires a school official attend one principal rules meeting each year.

* In Illinois, lacrosse will wait. The IHSA voted to delay the start of the state-sanctioned Boys and Girls Lacrosse State Series until the 2011-12 school year. The IHSA was prepared to begin state tournaments this spring, but the number of schools currently offering lacrosse and prepared to begin lacrosse was not high enough. Forty-seven boys teams and 33 girls teams were registered with the state, underneath the state's benchmark of 65 boys teams and 40 girls teams. By 2011-12, the numbers are expected to rise. Despite the non-sanctioning, there has still been a state lacrosse tournament sponsored by the Illinois High School Lacrosse Association. New Trier, a northern Chicago suburb, has won the last six boys championships.

Paul Bowker, an online and newspaper sports journalist for 25 years and the author of two Major League Baseball books, covers the Chicago area for MaxPreps. He may be reached at bowkerpaul1@aol.com.