Wheaton College advanced the closest to a basketball championship of any of our teams in this 2018-2019 basketball season. There was no apparent Thunder to let us know at the start of the season that among high school and college/university teams that Wheaton College was most likely to capture our attention.
Bradley University is the only school from Illinois in the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament. No high school team from The Voice circulation area qualified for any of the four classes in the four-team State tournaments. There were many excellent teams who just did not qualify for the State tournament.
Wheaton College stands out. The men’s team qualified for the four-team finals last weekend in Fort Wayne, Ind. and women’s team from Wheaton qualified for the 64-team tournament, albeit bowed out in the first round.
Wheaton fell to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, in Friday’s national semifinal game, 104-85. Oshkosh went on the capture the national championship with Saturday’s victory over Swarthmore College, 96-82. Wheaton won four games along the way to the final four with victories over Hanover, Wooster, Augustana, 93-79, and Marietta.
Wheaton 6-1 senior guard Aston Francis (see photo on page 10) set four tournament records in five games: 44.8 points per game; 224 total points; 72 field goals; and 36 three-point baskets. He scored 62 points in one game to set the record and made the game-winning three-point field in the quarterfinal victory over Marietta, 91-87. Francis was in his second year on the team after transferring from Tyler (Texas) Junior College.
There are several players from Wheaton high schools on the Wheaton College team. Ironically, there are four recognizable high school players’ names on the Oshkosh team. All are guards and three are freshmen, Brandon Whiteside, Glenbard South; Zach Robinson, St. Charles East; Eric Peterson, Batavia; and sophomore Sam Ebersold, Downers Grove South.
The Wheaton situation is one of success through adversity. Wheaton head coach Mike Schauer: “I am really proud of my team. The five guys that were on the floor to finish the game for us were on our team when we won five games. We had a postseason meeting after that (season) and talked about getting back to the NCAA tournament and the things that needed to happen. The core and culture of our team was really formed by those five guys who refused to let us stay there.”
Francis ended the season with a Division III record 1,096 points and 173 three-point baskets, second highest for one season all-time in Division III.
• Loyola Chicago is the only Division I school from Illinois in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT). See the list on page 10.
• In the women’s NCAA bracket (see page 10) DePaul is the only school from Illinois. DePaul is seeded sixth and is set to play No. 11 Missouri State in the first round.
•Batavia High School alum, Hannah Frazier, and Wheaton College premier player, last weekend was named first-team all-America in Division III by D3hoops. She is Wheaton’s fourth player to receive all-America honors.
• To wrap up the high school basketball season we have the following analyses from two boys high school basketball coaches, Brian Johnson of West Aurora and Scott Hennig of Geneva:
‘I’m very pleased with this year’s season,” Johnson said. “We won 28 games, won our league outright for the third year in a row (in the final year of the Upstate Eight Conference), won the consolation championship at the Pontiac Holiday Tournament, which is very difficult to do, and won a regional championship and competed in the sectional semifinal game. As a coach you always want more, but this year’s team, especially the seniors, did an exceptional job of leading the team throughout the season.
“Next year we will have another competitive group. We have four returners who played solid varsity minutes. I’m looking forward to seeing who will step up in the junior class as seniors.”
Geneva’s Hennig: “We had a great year. I’m very proud of the guys and their hard work. I will remember that this group played very well together and won a lot of close games. I thought we played very hard against Rockford East (in the super-sectional). We didn’t make shots in the second half and (Rockford East) played very well.”