Schuckman: As curtain rises on QHS basketball season, there’s an angel looking over these Devils

QUINCY — The laughs shared in a calm moment between practice drills Tuesday afternoon were a small sign healing has begun.

It may take all season — or longer even — for the Quincy High School boys basketball players and coaches to fully embrace the fact a voice they listened to and cherished hearing has gone silent. But being on the court and being together helps.

“We all have to help each other,” senior forward Keshaun Thomas said.

Tuesday morning, former assistant coach Tom Lepper — a Hall of Fame player as well — was laid to rest after passing away late last week following a two-year battle with brain cancer. QHS coach Andy Douglas delivered the eulogy during the funeral mass, and the Blue Devils attended Monday’s visitation as a team.

“We have to stay together as a team,” Thomas said. “It’s a very sad time. If someone is down or someone is struggling, we have to talk to them and be there for them. The coaches, too. We know how they’re feeling. We have to help them through it.”

The all-for-one mantra doesn’t change even if the circumstances have.

Typically, they say when one wins, they all win.

In this case, when one grieves, they all grieve.

“It’s brought us closer,” senior guard Dom Clay said. “It made us think about things other than basketball. It’s made us think about what he’d want us to do. He wouldn’t want us to stay here and be sad. He’d be like, ‘Let’s go. Let’s get it.’”

Thursday, the Blue Devils will.

Coming off a 31-win campaign — just the fifth team in program history to win 30 or more games in a season — the Blue Devils are hungry to see where experience and talent take them. Four seniors who have been on varsity since their freshman year are the nucleus of a team ranked No. 5 in Class 4A in one preseason poll.

The first look at this group will be against Chicago Lindblom, which won a Class 3A regional championship last year and returns. The rest of the field for the 53rd QHS Thanksgiving Tournament includes Dunlap and Chicago St. Laurence.

“This is a group that’s hungry,” Douglas said. “I love the fact that this group has a bunch of different personalities, but they still come together and play for each other.”

They lift each other up, too.

“You can’t prepare for something like this,” Douglas said of Lepper’s passing. “You can try as much as you want, but you can’t prepare for what this group has had to go through, what the coaches have had to go through. The biggest takeaway is they’ve been able to lean on us and we’ve been able to lean on them.

“The messages I received, the kids coming into the coach’s office and giving hugs and telling each other that we love each other, it means the world to me. It means the world to the coaches.

This season is for Lepp. As much as he put in for us, we have to put in that work for him.”

The work is just beginning. The Blue Devils have to stay diligent in their approach and understand there will be bumps in the road — physically and emotionally — that will challenge their resolve. But there is one thing they know will constant.

There’s an angel looking over these Devils.

“When someone you have a relationship with passes away it’s always tough,” senior guard Bradley Longcor III said. “We have to stay focused and stay together. It would be easy to lose focus, but we’re there for each other.

“This year is for Lepp. That’s what we’re doing. It’s definitely for Lepp.”