5 things we learned from this Rockford boys basketball summer league

Matthew Hoarde, shown dunking against Sycamore in Monday's first round, was East's leading scorer as the E-Rabs went 4-0 in the tournament to win the East Summer League title.
Matthew Hoarde, shown dunking against Sycamore in Monday's first round, was East's leading scorer as the E-Rabs went 4-0 in the tournament to win the East Summer League title.

ROCKFORD — It’s only summer. The Illinois High School Association boys basketball season is almost five months away, the playoffs almost eight. Hononegah was missing star center Brayden Savitski-Lynde, who was off playing in a volleyball tournament, and Boylan wasn’t entered.

Still, the East Summer League has been an accurate precursor for years.

“Looking at the past champions on the trophy, whoever won the league had a really, really good regular season,” East coach Roy Sackmaster said Tuesday night, after East edged Auburn 62-59 in the semifinals and then beat Guilford 59-51 in the finals.

“Last year, Lutheran won it and got to the (Class 2A) supersectional. This is only the second time we’ve won it and the last time is the time we went downstate. Winnebago won it the year they went to the (2A) state championship game. It’s a good measuring stick.

"I wasn’t sure we could do this. This shows we’ve got what it takes. Hopefully, we can take it in the regular season and run with it.”

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Here are the top five things we learned from this year’s 16-team summer league, which concluded with a two-day tournament of 40-minute games with a running clock:

East's Antonio Lewis, shown shooting against Sycamore in Monday's opening round, has emerged as an offensive and defensive standout for the E-Rabs during the East Summer League.
East's Antonio Lewis, shown shooting against Sycamore in Monday's opening round, has emerged as an offensive and defensive standout for the E-Rabs during the East Summer League.

Antonio Lewis is ready

Lewis had a quiet junior season, averaging 5.9 points and 3.2 rebounds. But the 6-3 senior was big inside this week, pairing with 6-5 senior Matthew Hoarde, who roamed everywhere on the court, to give East a dynamic duo. Against Auburn, Lewis and Hoarde scored 23 of East’s final 26 points. Lewis finished with 21 points against Auburn and 13 vs. Guilford and guarded both teams top scorers, playing center against Jones and defending Guilford all-conference forward/guard Mekhi Dolby.

“We have been playing with each other since our freshman year; our chemistry is there,” Hoarde said. “It’s fun playing with him. He provides defense, rebounding, scoring, assists. He provides energy for us.”

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Expect Lewis to play a much bigger role for the E-Rabs (24-10 last year) this winter.

“Last year we were almost too deep,” Sackmaster said. “We were trying to find nine and 10 guys playing time. I didn’t do a good job of finding that rhythm with everybody and Antonio got lost in the mix some of the time. I knew he had this capability. Now he has the opportunity to do it and he is seizing it. He is able to finish at the rim and he can guard any position.”

Auburn freshman Amir Danforth, shown shooting in a second-round win against Hononegah on Monday, is one of many talented 3-point shooters the Knights unveiled at the East Summer League.
Auburn freshman Amir Danforth, shown shooting in a second-round win against Hononegah on Monday, is one of many talented 3-point shooters the Knights unveiled at the East Summer League.

Auburn can be explosive

The defending NIC-10 champions have surrounded star 6-foot-6 junior center Mike Jones with a bunch of 3-point shooters, including freshman Amir Danforth, the nephew of NBA All-Star Fred VanVleet. The Knights made 11 3-pointers in a 37-point quarterfinal win over Hononegah.

“We have a lot of guys who can knock down a lot of shots,” returning all-conference guard Adrian Agee said. “We’ve got a lot of high flyers. We’ve got Mike Jones, We’ve got 3 balls. We’ve got guys who can take it to the rim. We’ve got people who can dunk the ball.”

And they’ve also still got a long ways to go. The Knights blew a 44-33 lead to East by making only six baskets in the last 17 minutes.

“It’s the shot selection,” Auburn coach Bryan Ott said. “It’s the guarded shots that we’re taking. We are settling instead of working to get a good one.”

It can be easy for Auburn to slip into bad habits, because Jones so often turns bad shots into good shots. Auburn didn’t get Jones the ball much in the second half, but he got it himself. Four of those six baskets in the last 17 minutes came off of Jones offensive rebounds, three in a row he put back himself and one he dished outside for Auburn’s only 3 of the second half.

“He just kills you,” Sackmaster said. “He’s such a load down there. Sometimes that is their best offense. It seems like they were just getting kick-out 3, kick-out 3 or offensive rebound layup. You have to keep him off the boards. He is their most dangerous unconventional offense. Throw up a shot. Sometimes they go in and other times Mike is cleaning it up.”

Guilford has a little big man

Led by returning all-conference guard/forwards Malachi Johnson and Mekhi Dolby, Guilford tied Boylan and East for second in the NIC-10 last year. That was the Vikings’ highest finish in 15 years. They had finished last in four of the previous 10 seasons, so it was a big leap for Guilford. But Guilford wasn’t big. The Vikings still aren’t. But 6-3 senior Cinco Gary played big Tuesday. He had a team-high 15 points against East, doing all of his damage in the paint.

“Cinco played well,” Guilford coach Chris Dixon said. “This is his third year playing varsity. It’s going to be nice once we get him involved a little more.

“We’re still battling trying to get some height, but it’s going to be a competitive conference. East and Auburn know we’re knocking on the door. They know we’re right there.”

And Cinco Gary knows he will also need to keep playing big on defense.

“We’ve got to keep guys out of the paint,” Gary said.

Defense matters

East was thrilled with its defense Tuesday. Auburn not so much.

“We preach defense,” East’s Hoarde said. “Defense mades for easy offense. We were led by the defense.”

Even though it was Auburn’s offense that came to a standstill in the second half against East, it was defense that bothered Ott the most.

“For a defensive team, we have our struggles guarding the ball and we don’t finish possessions with box-outs,” Ott said. “That hurt us. We had a double-digit lead for the majority of the game and we managed to fritter that away because we don’t stop the ball and they had second- and third-chance opportunities because we didn’t box out.

“We learned we still have work to do to be the team we think we can be.”

Who has championship mettle?

When East trailed Auburn 38-28 at halftime in the semifinals, Sackmaster had no special instructions for his team.

“I told them just to go out and play basketball. Just compete and see what happens,” Sackmaster said. “Being able to play in big games — you’ve either got it or you don’t. This shows we’ve got it.”

Maybe. This was June, after all, not March. Auburn and Guilford flashed potential, too, with Guilford edging Lutheran 53-51 in a taut semifinal and Auburn bouncing back to beat Lutheran 81-66 in the third-place game. They just didn’t cash in all the way. But the real chance for that is in March, not the summer.

“This,” said Hoarde, who had 19 points in East’s win over Auburn and 12 of the E-Rabs first 24 points against Guilford before running into issues with cramps, “is just us getting our chemistry going for the regular season so we can go win the NIC-10 and possibly go downstate. It was just a warmup.”

Matt Trowbridge is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at mtrowbridge@rrstar.com and follow him on Twitter at @MattTrowbridge. Sign up for the Rockford High School newsletter at rrstar.com. Matt has covered sports for the Register Star for more than 30 years after previously working for papers in North Dakota, Delaware, Vermont and Iowa City. He grew up on a farm in northwest Minnesota with six brothers and a sister. His four daughters all graduated from Rockford Public Schools.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Top 5 takeaways from East winning summer basketball league title