Stinging success: Brown County boys basketball team showcases its future during shootout in Chicagoland area

ROMEOVILLE, Ill. — You can get exposure or you can get exposed.

That was Brown County boys basketball coach Jeff Bottorff’s message to his team ahead of their trip to Romeoville on June 28 and 29 for a live event featuring more than 100 teams and several college coaches in attendance.

Bottorff saw much more of the former than the latter from his team.

“You’ve got to be ready to play, and our guys were,” Bottorff said.

The Hornets went 2-2 against Bremen, Wheaton Academy, Joliet Catholic and Fenger Academy, bookending their trip with wins over Bremen and Fenger. Bremen went 11-22 in Class 3A last season, Wheaton Academy went 21-9 in 3A, Joliet Catholic went 15-15 in 2A, and Fenger Academy went 22-10 in 1A and won a regional title.

“I really liked how we handled pressure against really quick, athletic teams,” Bottorff said. “Bremen has about 1,400 kids. They’re really quick and tenacious, and we handled pressure well against them. Chicago Fenger Academy is a really strong 1A team that lost in the sectional to the eventual state champs last year. They’re really quick and athletic, but we handled the ball well against pressure like that.”

Bottorff was especially impressed with the Hornets’ 53-41 victory over Fenger in their final game on Sunday.

“Joliet Cathlolic was a really tough one for us,” Bottorff said of the Hornets’ game preceding the showdown with Fenger. “We missed shots, and they had a lot of runouts on us and beat us by 15, and Fenger beat them by 15 earlier that day. There was a little bit of them overlooking us and a little bit of our guys saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to prove we can play with these Chicago guys.’ We hit the first shot, jumped out to a quick lead on them and got a little momentum and confidence.”

Michael Kassing led the Hornets with 14 points that game, Wyatt Kassing had 10 points, Jackson McNeff had nine points and 12 rebounds, and Bradley Markert was the primary defender on Fenger’s Jayden Taylor, who scored 50 points in a game last year. Markert held Taylor to eight points.

“Throughout the summer, they’ve taken another step both physically and with ball movment, trust and chemistry,” Bottorff said of his squad, which featured three freshmen and seven sophomores last season. “I had a coach tell me he could notice a remarkable difference in our man-to-man defensive coverage and our ability to move the ball, find an open man and knock down shots. We’ve been shooting the ball really well from three this summer.”

While the live event was a chance for the Hornets to continue to build that chemistry and develop cohesion as a unit, it also gave the young hoopers a chance to experience an environment unlike some of them have ever encountered.

“The most important piece was for us to experience different level talent in a really big, chaotic environment,” Bottorff said. “As I shared with them, this was a good opportunity to go out and put yourself in a really unique experience so when you face something like that during the season, you’ve been there before. It’s all about can you create some of those experiences that you hope to be fortunate enough to have during the season.”

In Bottorff’s mind, the earlier his players can get that experience, the better.

“I wanted to do it now so as we do it over the next couple years, they’ve been there, they know what to expect and can really perform,” Bottorff said. “From a recruiting standpoint, it’s going to be much more important over the next couple years than it is right now, but now they know what to expect.”

More eyes on the Hornets players led to some interest among coaches at the next level.

“I’ve had some calls with college coaches from Division I to Division III on our guys,” Bottorff said. “We’ve got a handful of guys who have the potential to play at the next level. As a coach, you want to help promote them. You want to help get them visibility, and I think this was an important step in doing that.”

It all starts with exposure, but making that exposure a net positive is a different ball of wax.

“I told our guys going up, ‘This is an experience for yourself to learn and be in an environment like that, but also make no mistake, we’re going up there to win. We’re going up there to make a statement,” Bottorff said. “If you want to be the best, you’ve got to play the best. We wanted to go take a shot and do that, and we learned a lot.”