Recently in Boys basketball Category

Plenty of mistakes are made in The Locker Room.

But the response made recently about former Niles West High hoops star Nik Garcia cannot go without comment.

Nik Garcia, one of the top prep basketball players in the state, is about to finish his junior year at Niles West High. He has ALREADY announced that he is transferring from Niles West because the hoops program is, in his words, "a shambles." That makes him a soon-to-be FORMER Niles West High hoops star.

The hope here is that he works his way up the shoreline and lands at Waukegan High. We can use him!

If you want to rank Brandon Paul of Warren as the No. 1 soon-to-be-senior boys basketball player in the state, go for it. After all, he is committed to the University of Illinois.

Brandon is not the problem.

Nor is ranking former Niles West star Nik Garcia No. 10.

However, when Web site ChicagoHoops.com lists the top 30 soon-to-be-senior boys basketball players in the state and does NOT include Zion-Benton High's Ronald Steward on it, the list is wrong.

That is as a bad an omission as you will see on any list of top players this season.

Terrible.

Can't think of a single reason why Zion-Benton High sophomore basketball star Lenzelle Smith needs to make a hasty decision about where he's going to play college basketball.

One of the top students in his class academically, the 6-3 guard/forward has already reportedly been offered scholarships by Illinois, Northwestern, Southern Illinois and Purdue.

That said, best he wait so that he can size up where he will best fit in at the next level.

There is no rush. As in just about everything in life, haste in recruiting makes for waste.

Good luck Lenzelle.

P.S. -- I luv the DePaul Blue Demons

At least that's how the report came across that aired during the semifinals of the NCAA men's hoops tournament. The so-called experts said that college coaches are now dealing with AAU coaches and that AAU ball is way more important than high school ball.

While there may be some truth to that, there is still no substitute for the enthusiasm and energy that comes from a high-school student-fan section when it has a winning team to support.

No AAU program can duplicate the noise that was made when Ronad Steward of Zion-Benton hit the halfcourt shot to beat Evanston in the semifinals of the IHSA playoffs.

That's why high school ball is important.

It needs a 6-foot-6 kid who is a rebounding fiend to somehow materialize in the school hallways.

With Mike Springs (point guard), Colin Nickerson (shooting guard) and Jereme Richmond (small forward), the pieces of the Bulldog puzzle that's missing is a big man in the middle who can defend opposing centers as well as get the ball off the glass to start the break.

Is there NOBODY in a school of 4,000 who's 6-6 and can play basketball?

You would think that the opportunity to play with Richmond would attract some big player to the Dog Pound. Here's hoping that happens.

Coming soon, The News-Sun is going to select its All-Lake County Boys Basketball Team for 2007-2008.

Here in The Locker Room, we're interested in finding out who YOU think should be on the five-man first team.

Remember, you need to pick 2 guards, 2 forwards and 1 center. Which means, you can't just pick the five best players in the area because this was a guard-rich area and you could easily have five guards on the first team.

Good luck.

In no particular order ...
1) Kentrall Wilson (North Chicago senior forward) -- the ultimate blue-collar player. The guy on the team willing to rebound without also needing to shoot. Every successful team has a guy like this ... and the Hawks certainly were successful.

2) Marc Grischeau (Grant senior center) -- on this team, the guards did the scoring. Still, he emerged during the season as a guy who could score inside and also did yeoman work on the boards.

3) Rashaan Melvin (Waukegan senior forward) -- where would Waukegan have been without him? In big trouble. He could score, rebound and run the floor.

It would be interesting to see just how far away people live who were ZBTHS grads and were following the team's success in the tournament. Like, were people in Arizona trying to get updates on the games? When something like this happens, it always seems like you discover there are alumni everywhere.

Kind of like Cubs fans ... they're everywhere.

In the Locker Room, we've maintained for the past year that one of the best sophomore basketball players in the state is playing in Lake County.

Turns out we were right.

A tip of the Zee-Bee cap to Lenzelle Smith for showing this year how effective an extraordinariliy talented player can be when he molds his game into a team concept.

We in the Locker Room were very impressed.

Back in 1972, North Chicago lost the super-sectional game to Evanston because they failed to block out on a missed free throw in the final seconds. Evanston got the rebound, scored on the put-back and won the game.

If we block out on the missed free throw at 65-63 with 16 seconds left, I know we go down and score either a deuce to tie or a 3-pointer to win.

The thing to remember though is this: These are 17-year--old kids and they're doing their best to block out. It's not any one or two or three players' fault. Losing this one was totally due to the great play of Richards.