Scouting the State: No. 1 boys basketball team in Illinois remains open to debate

QUINCY — Who is the No. 1 boys basketball team in the state of Illinois?

A handful of candidates have tried to state their case.

The Associated Press will release its first state polls of 2025 on Wednesday with Quincy High School potentially being the top-ranked team in Class 4A. There have already been two different teams hold that spot over the first six weeks of the season. Two different teams also held the top spot in Class 3A over the same timeframe.

Aaron Britton, who runs nestohoops.com and puts out weekly state rankings, listed Quincy as its No. 1 team this week. It is his third different top-ranked team as his computer-based rankings are constantly fluctuating, but arguably are quite accurate. DePaul College Prep is his No. 1 team in Class 3A.

So will it be Quincy atop the state when the new polls drop?

The Blue Devils are 13-1, won their first holiday tournament championship since 1997 by capturing the crown at the Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Classic and suffered their first loss last Saturday to St. Louis Vashon, the four-time Missouri Class 4 defending state champion and current No. 1-ranked team. The Wolverines won 59-56.

Vashon played one of the other Illinois contenders earlier this season, beating Rich Township 72-49. Rich Township (8-4) has beaten both Chicago Kenwood and Homewood-Flossmoor, teams Britton had atop his poll at different junctures.

Gurren Warren (10-3), Kenwood (14-1) and Homewood-Flossmoor (13-2) have each been ranked No. 1 in one of the polls.

Waubonsie Valley is the only undefeated team remaining in Class 4A, sitting with a 14-0 record. However, the Warriors (14-0) have the weakest strength of schedule of the contenders.

DePaul College Prep (15-1) could make a case for being the state’s best team, having upended both Rich Township and Gurnee Warren and won the Pontiac Holiday Tournament championship. However, the Rams’ lone loss is to Kenwood.

Matchup in Springfield called off due to fight

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A fight between players from Springfield Lanphier and Springfield Southeast less than four minutes into Tuesday’s game at Lober-Nika Gymnasium forced school administrators to call off the game and immediately send everyone home.

According to the Springfield State Journal-Register, Lanphier guard JaiQuan Holman was fouled while scoring. A skirmish followed that spilled onto the sidelines and both benches emptied. The coaches — Southeast’s Wayne Hamilton and Lanphier’s Blake Turner — helped break up the altercation and sent their respective teams to the locker room.

Administrators from both schools convened and called off the game with 4 minutes, 44 seconds remaining in the first quarter. No information was available whether the game will be rescheduled. It was considered a non-conference game with the teams scheduled to meet in City Tournament, which will be played Jan. 22-25, 

Centralia freshman making MVP plays

CENTRALIA, Ill. — Centralia freshman Archie Goewey is doing things his dad once did in Pike County. Actually, he’s doing more.

Goewey made a runner in the lane off an inbounds pass just before the buzzer sounded, giving the Orphans a 54-53 victory over top-seeded Evanston in the championship game of the Centralia Holiday Tournament. Goewey finished with 25 points and became the first freshman in the history of the event to be named tournament MVP.

The Orphans are 11-3 and likely will be ranked in the Class 3A state poll when voting by the Associated Press panel of sportswriters and sportscasters next week.

Goewey is the son of Centralia’s Brad Goewey, who is an assistant basketball coach and the head football coach. Brad Goewey led Pittsfield to a sweet 16 appearance in the Class A state tournament in 1999, averaging 12.1 points and 5.8 assists per game game. He played in both the illinois Basketball Coaches Association all-star game and the McDonald’s/Herald-Whig Classic following that season.

Brad Goewey has been the Orphans football coach since 2020, leading the Orphans to the playoffs in three of the last five seasons.

Redbirds on worst-to-first trajectory

ALTON, Ill. — Heading into Tuesday’s game against Belleville West, Alton sat in first place in the Southwestern Conference with a 4-0 record and had been the only team this season to beat Edwardsville.

That’s quite a turnaround for the Redbirds.

A year ago, Alton went 3-9 and finished last in the SWC, losing six of its last seven league games. Semaj Stampley, a junior guard, has been at the forefront of the improvements as he is averaging 19 points per game and made 32 3-pointers in the Redbirds’ first nine games.

Stampley led the Redbirds (13-2) to a 3-1 record and fifth-place finish in the Centralia Holiday Tournament, averaging 17 points and making 9 of 24 3-pointers.

Should Alton, which will host a Class 4A regional, win the SWC title, it would be the league’s first “worst-to-first” champion since the Redbirds did the same thing in 1984.

Rockford Auburn guard lighting up scoreboard

ROCKFORD, Ill. — Amir Danforth had a December to remember.

First, on Dec. 6, the Rockford Auburn senior guard broke the program’s single-game scoring record when he amassed 44 points in a 105-59 victory over Freeport. Danforth eclipsed the previous mark on a made 3-pointer — his 10th trey of the game, which also set a single-game school record.

Auburn’s single-game scoring record had been 41 points, set last season by then-senior Rakim Chaney.

Danforth, who is the nephew of Houston Rockets guard Fred Vanvleet, set another record before the calendar rolled into 2025. In a 69-65 victory over Wheaton Academy in the first round of the Hinsdale Tournament, Danforth scored 42 points to break the tourney’s single-game scoring record.

“I wasn’t looking forward to breaking it. It was just a good night,” Danforth told the Rockford Register Star. “Everything was falling for me. So why not?”

Rubber match to determine kings of Peoria

PEORIA, Ill. — Peoria Manual evened its season series with Peoria Central last Friday night, earning a 47-43 victory and setting a true bragging rights showdown Feb. 7 at Central High School.

The Lions won the first meeting 55-54 in the championship game of the Decatur Thanksgiving Tournament.

This time, Manual scored the final eight points of the first half to trim its deficit to one and got a boost in the third quarter from Terrance Paige. The 6-foot-3 senior scored seven of his game-high 15 points in the third quarter, going 7 of 9 from the field overall and grabbing seven rebounds.

“He’s a tough kid,” Manual coach Marvin Jordan told the Peoria Journal Star about Paige. “He battles day in and day out. … He was clutch. When it wasn’t going right for anybody else, it was going right for him, and he stepped up in a big way.”