By Jack Lydon
The DePaul Prep Rams’ third quarter adjustments to the Crystal Lake South Gators high pressure 1-3-1 defense opened a lead for the Rams and propelled them to Champaign, again. They booked their 33rd win against two losses with the 51-31 win over the Crystal Lake Gators (31-5) in the IHSA 3A Super-sectional playoff at the Now Arena in Hoffman Estates Monday evening and a berth in this weekend’s IHSA State basketball championship tournament.
The Rams will need another great plan and the same flexibility when they on Peoria Richwoods in Friday’s IHSA 3A state semi-final.
Rams senior guard/forward PJ Chambers lead the Rams with 18 points but, as usual, it was the Rams’ defense and third quarter offensive adjustments that lifted DePaul Prep, the way actual rams might navigate through a pack of gators.
“[Crystal Lake’s] defense is a nightmare. We struggled in the first half. You saw it. They got a million deflections. They have length. They are good at it. They do [the 1-3-1] a little differently where they it push up. Once you get across half court, they are coming for you,” said Rams’ head coach and former Gordon Tech and DePaul University star Tom Kleinschmidt.
“Their length really bothered us. We took too many jumpers in the first half. We needed to drive the ball and get some gaps. They made it tough on us.”
Gator’s junior point guard AJ Demirov clearly was the stray that was also the drink for the Gators.
“We wanted to make sure that [Demirov] saw a player and a half. We tried to keep him away from the basket as best we could,” Kleinschidt said.
The Gators’ offence consisted of Demirov, 10 points, and small contributions each of the rest of the starting lineup. The problem was that Demirov was taking the bulk of the shots for Crystal Lake South and had only four field goals (of which only one was a three) and one free throw.
“We wanted to meet him at the elbow or the [free throw line] so he couldn’t get into the paint and had to take tougher shots. We didn’t do a great job in the first half but okay. In the second half, we did a much better job of showing him a man and a half or two men,” Kleinschmidt continued.
The first half was pretty even except for the end. With the clock ticking down to the half, Demirov drove the lane for an underhanded layup and the foul with 3.2 to play. He added the free throw to bring the Gators within seven.
Not to be outdone, Rams’ clutch, silky smooth junior point guard Makai Kvamme took the inbound pass down the length of the court and banked in a three off the glass.
“What a momentum builder to walk into the locker room,” Kleinshmidt said of Kvamme’s buzzer beater.
“It looked good but I was like, ‘this ain’t gonna happen.’ It caught glass and went in—a huge momentum builder going up ten into the locker room with the ball coming out in the third.”
In the second half, “we put three guards in a triangle. We wanted to reverse a couple times. The more times the ball goes side-to-side the gaps will get open. We got it to the middle to [PJ Chambers] or his brother [sophomore guard AJ Chambers] and we either got straight line drives or dump offs. Shaun had two dunks with dump offs,” Kleinschmidt said.
“You can watch all the film you want. Until you take the court and see it, the physicality, the athleticism, how they rally to the ball. It’s tough to prepare for,” said Crystal Lake head coach Matt LaPage said of DePaul Prep’s defense.
“In the third quarter, they came at us not only offensively but defensively—just stifling. It’s a special defense. It’s as good as advertised. That’s for sure.”
Of the defensive effort, DePaul Prep’s PJ Chambers said, “What we did really well was contain [Demirov]. That was the game plan. If we could take him out of the equation, it was very possible for us to win,” said PJ Chambers.
“We’ve got our defensive stoppers. We’ve got Jay, Rob, Makai, AJ, even me at times. All of us play our roles really well. It came down to guarding #4 [Demirov], especially Rob, Kai and Jay at times, they excelled greatly.”
If Demirov was the main ingredient in the drink for Crystal Lake South, Chambers was DePaul’s secret sauce on offense for DePaul Prep. Eighteen points including an early three that got him going.
“Right. That’s how I play. If I am hot early in the game, then I keep shooting. If it starts to die down, I know I have to switch my game up,” Chambers said.
It wasn’t all Chambers by any means. It was a total team victory. Senior center Jaylan McElroy finished with nine points including two steals with layups finishes late in the game. Junior guard Rob Walls had nine points and eight rebounds. Kvamme had eight points with the big three to close the first half. Sophomore forward Rashaun Porter had five. Sophomore AJ Chambers added a field goal.
Of his historic defense, Kleinschmidt offered this: “Our strength is our defense and it’s because we can switch 1 to 5. They can all guard somebody for a little while. Even our guards can front the post long enough so help can get there on the back side. And our bigs can move their feet well enough until the help comes. That is the strength of our team that we can switch one through five and everybody can guard.”
More than just the switching, the Rams had a plan for Demirov and his sharp-shooting mates.
“We know they’ve got shooters all over. We didn’t want to leave corners [in order to cover Demirov]. They are a great shooting team. So we wanted to help with the big instead of the guards in the corner. If I help off the corner, [Demirov] is going to drive [and] kick. We took away one of his options. We wanted to see them make tough twos instead of threes,” said Kleinschmidt.
This has been an historic season for the DePaul Prep Rams. 33-2 is most wins in school history. The Rams only losses this year are to two teams, Homewood-Flossmoor and Normal Community, who are both still alive in the 4A final four.
The Rams have put together quite a string of successes in recent years: a 2A state championship last year, third-place finish in 2A in 2022, #1 ranking with wins over Fenwick and Evanston to win the Chipotle tournament in the COVID year with no playoffs and a third place finish in 3A in 2019.
Crystal Lake South had themselves an historic year as well. The Gators were ranked at points this season. They entered the Sun-Times Super 25 on January 21, 2024, at 25th spot. 25th on January 28, 2024. February 4, 2024, at 24. They fell out on February 11th. Prior to this year, the Gators had not won a sectional in 41 years. Coach Matt LaPage is 172-138 in 11 years as head coach.
The Rams move on to play Richwoods from Peoria on Friday morning in the IHSA 3A semi-final in Champaign. Richwoods (29-4) is coming off an impressive 58-52 victory over third ranked Thornton on Monday.
Richwoods is for real. Of Richwoods’ senior center Latham Summerville, basketball analyst Scott Burgess wrote, “No doubt about it Lathan Sommerville was the best player on the floor in [the Thornton] game. He was dominant from the very beginning of the contest. Big and physically imposing post dropped 32 points and double-digit boards. He took out the #1 and #2 ranked players in his class in back-to-back games along with the defending state champs [Moline] to lead his team to Champaign.”
It only gets tougher for the Rams.
[Blogger’s note: My thanks to my friend James Janega, a former Tribune reporter, for looking at this piece and offering some suggestions. I have landed some blows in my fight with the English language but I will need many more sparing sessions to get where I need to be.]
