Two years ago it was Northwestern University. Last season it was Loyola University. This year it’s Bradley University. They are the last three Illinois schools in the NCAA men’s Division I basketball tournament. Those teams’ coaches are Chicago area high school products!
Chris Collins, Porter Moser, and Brian Wardle all went out of state to play basketball in college after high school. Collins went to Duke University. Moser to Creighton University. Wardle to Marquette University.
All returned to Illinois to be successful coaches.
• In 2017, for the first time in school history, the Northwestern Wildcats reached the NCAA tournament, coached by Chris Collins, son of NBA great and former Chicago Bulls head coach Doug Collins. The Wildcats finished 24-12 and 10-8 in the Big Ten Conference. The record earned a berth in the NCAA tournament. The Wildcats edged Vandebilt before losing to highly-ranked Gonzaga. Collins is a Glenbrook North High School product.
• Loyola was the talk of the NCAA Tournament last season. The Ramblers ran away with the Missouri Valley Conference championship and snapped up the Conference tournament championship for an automatic NCAA berth. What Loyola did once the tournament got under way was the big story. The Ramblers reached the Final Four before Michigan wrote the end to the Ramblers’ run.
Loyola head coach is Porter Moser, who went to Benet Academy High School in Lisle.
• Bradley this season is the only Illinois school among 13 eligible for the NCAA tournament to earn a Division I birth.
The Braves, 20-14, were only 9-9 in the Missouri Valley Conference and were tied for fifth place. But, Bradley get hot at the right time to win a tournament berth.
Bradley head coach Brian Wardle, in his fourth season at the Peoria school, is a Hinsdale Central High School graduate.
Wardle, under fire at the moment for trying to tell a Peoria sports writer how to do his job, likely will have his hands full when the No. 15 seeded Braves face No. 2 Michigan State at 1:45 p.m. Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa.
• Northern Illinois, 17-17 and 8-10 Mid-American Conference (MAC), closed out its season last week with a 71-67 loss to Bowling Green in the semifinals of the MAC tournament. The loss to the Falcons ended a four-game winning streak for the Huskies.
Northern Illinois closed out the regular season with road victories at Central Michigan and Ball State which earned the team a first-round MAC Tournament game at home against Ohio.
A convincing 80-61 conquest of Ohio sent the Huskies to the MAC quarterfinals in Cleveland, where the Huskies shocked favored Toledo, 80-76, and put Northern Illinois in the semifinals against Bowling Green.
Northern Illinois trailed Bowling Green 46-23 at halftime. A furious rally allowed the Huskies to tie the score in the late going, but the Huskies never took the lead.