Boys Basketball: That Championship Season
The Scouts look ahead to the playoffs after a regular season to remember
Wednesday night, Feb. 14, the Lake Forest boys basketball team reached a milestone.
By beating Zion convincingly, 75-45, the Scouts clinched a tie––with Warren––for the North Suburban Conference championship.
Conference titles, solo or shared, don’t grow on trees. In his 19th season as head coach, Phil LaScala has won four. They’ve come in bunches––the Scouts winning back-to-back in 2008-09 & 2009-10 and now, twice in three years (2021-22 & 2023-24). There’s been seasons when his teams were really good but didn’t finish with conference hardware (2014-15). And there’s been years when the four month journey that encompasses every basketball season has been more of a slog and struggle than others.
But this team, this group of players, are an anomaly of sorts.
Not only do the current version of the Scouts (22-7 overall, 12-2 NSC) win a lot of games––blending defensive-minded, unselfish basketball with populist scoring distribution––but there’s not a diva amongst them.
They win, are fun to be around and don’t care who gets the credit.
“So many guys don’t care if they score. They just want to win,” LaScala said. “Having that attitude, that doesn’t happen very often.”
Every athletic team is a social experiment, it’s identity a product of many forms.
There’s nature: the out-of-our-hands, relational dynamic no one can engineer or predict. This year’s Scouts are in part a function of such cosmic influences.
But they also are a product of purpose, where intention meets execution.
On Feb. 9, Lake Forest played a road game against Mundelein. The outcome had no bearing on postseason seeding––earlier that day, the Scouts were awarded a No. 2 seed in the Class 3A St. Viator Sectional––but a loss would severely damage any NSC title aspirations.
In gaining a 10-point halftime lead, the Scouts showed all the characteristics of the 20-win team they were.
Senior Tommie Aberle dished out assists and muscled his way around the basket for lay ups. This is the first year in his four varsity seasons the 6-foot-2 Aberle has taken on full time point guard duties.
“He’s making that extra pass and he trusts his teammates to make shots. They have a good feel for each other,” LaScala said. “He’s played for a long time. That’s a huge thing.”
A frequent receiver of passes into the post is junior Hudson Scroggins. Not since Evan Boudreaux (2011-15) have the Scouts had a true interior post player as versatile as the 6-7 Scroggins (“he’s really aggressive, not afraid of contact and to finish plays,” LaScala said). Mundelein had no answer for him, and Scroggins scored and cleaned up around the rim with ease.
But in the second half, as often happens in conference games, the home team flipped momentum. Mundelein did not cave and roll over.
With six minutes left in the game, Mundelein took its first lead, 50-48.
Throughout a long season, these are the in-game tests, the tension created by adverse situations, that can define a team’s identity.
What are we about?
Are we who we say we are?
LaScala extended the defense to pressure the Mustangs. Senior guard Bolurin Taiwo, listed at 6-1 but with the wing span of an F-14 fighter jet, forced consecutive steals. Six-foot senior guard Efe Yardimci (“he’s grown up a ton,” LaScala said) banked in a shot after taking his defender off the bounce. A Scroggins lay up and two free throws by Yardimci sealed the 60-52 victory.
After the Mustangs took that brief lead early in the fourth quarter, the Scouts allowed just one basket the rest of the way.
The 27th contest of the season, the Mundelein game provided a snapshot of what the Scouts are in ‘23-’24: mentally and physically tough, not star-studded but with a clear lead alpha in Aberle, not unflawed but securely eight-deep (senior Campbell Allan, juniors Charlie Markee and Grant Mordini and sophomore Dom Mordini are also key contributors) and on most nights, play up to the best version of their collective selves.
“In the playoffs, that is going to happen, you are going to have games where you have to stay composed,” Aberle said. “We have a great group of seniors, I’m not the only one to lead.”
“We worked so hard and gave up everything we had,” Allan said. “That’s what it takes to win a championship.”
Blood, sweat and tears are important ingredients to success. So is Cow Day.
Assistant coach Tom Mocogni keeps a chart.
On it, he tracks charges taken by Scouts players.
There’s a basketball reason––charges taken are a symptom of smartly tactical basketball. But there’s another motive for his data collection, more practical in purpose.
“If they take a charge, they get a Fresh Market strip steak and baked potato for every one they take,” Mocogni said.
Several times a season Mocogni adds up the stats, fills up cart at Fresh Market and hauls in a box of steaks and potatoes and puts them on the scorer’s table inside Competition Gym for collection. “I call it ‘Cow Day,’” Mocogni said.
Saturday was a Day Of The Meat, with Mocogni delivering 30 strip steaks and 35 baked potatoes. That’s not all––there’s more meat for players who beef up the stat sheet.
“Double digit rebounds gets you a porterhouse or a bone-in rib eye, depending on what Fresh Market has,” Mocogni said, one of five Scouts assistants along with Adam Mocogni, Mike Patlovich, Rich Hanson and Greg Hanrahan.
The food is unprepared. Players take it home to cook and consume as they choose.
One year the coaches––with the help of parental support––did the cooking.
Never again.
“Phil (LaScala) told the players if they get seven charges (against St. Ignatius in 2021-22) we’re buying and grilling. We thought it was a safe bet. Sure enough they go out and do it,” Mocogni said. “It was a lot to feed everyone. I had to go to Costco. Mac and cheese, pies, cakes. The moms helped with salads.
“Gluttony at it’s best.”
Mocogni encourages his players to take the meat home and grill steaks with a parent.
“Whether it’s mom cooking for son or dad cooking for son, I want them to teach them how to BBQ,” Mocogni said. “Some guys have gotten enough charges where they can feed their whole family. It’s kind of nice. We’re creating a memory.”
Saturday, two porterhouses and three rib eyes were included amongst the dozens of strips and potatoes.
It’s been a delightfully expensive season for Mocogni.
(Update: Sunday night, Aberle’s dad, Scott, grilled the three ribeyes earned by Tommie for the latest Cow Day. “He had a red meat feast,” Mocogni said.)
The Scouts senior class numbers nine: Aberle, Taiwo, Yardimci, Allan, Tommy Elliott, Ryan Hippel, John Nikitas, Aiden Puthenveetil and Matthew Wilkinson.
They leave together as one of the more accomplished boys basketball classes in school history.
But to tell their complete story, we must remember how they started.
In August 2020, schools were closed to in-person learning. Classes were remote. The first experience incoming freshman had of high school was one of separation––from teachers, classmates, of being a student.
“It was different, the first half (of the year) was mostly online,” Allan said, a 6-foot guard.
Up until 2020, we took for granted the mission of public education: to educate young people through the integration of academics, athletics and socialization. For a period of time, that was taken away due to public health policies related to the Covid virus.
Allan said some of his peers have not fully recovered. And he sees lingering symptoms in underclassmen.
“I’m a social person and I didn’t have opportunities I was used to. Not being able to see the faces of the people I knew really well threw me off. It took me time to get out,” he said. “Middle school is a big time for social development and interacting and learning social norms. I look around and I see younger kids and I can tell they missed out on a crucial part of growing up.”
The now senior, with two years of varsity basketball experience, always had sports to fall back on.
“I play three sports (soccer, basketball, volleyball) so I was able to get out and build connections through my teams, that’s where most of my friendships come from,” Allan said.
Those shared experiences, and the friendships fostered along the way, has Allan in a forward-thinking place as his high school athletic career winds down.
Best to not dwell for too long on what was lost, but rather, be grateful for what’s left in front.
“It’s kind of like ‘damn it sucked’ but also a sense of like, ‘it’s awesome to be back (playing),” Allan said. “There’s a new appreciation for what we have.”
In the first half of the Feb. 14 Zion game, Tommie Aberle threw a pass that led to a Scouts basket. It’s an occurrence he’s duplicated hundreds of times over in his Lake Forest High School basketball career.
But this particular pass was notable in that it set a single season school record. Aberle surpassed Kevin Bernardini (2008-09) when he recorded assist number 234 (Aberle also has totaled well over 1,000 career points).
When asked about the record after the game, Aberle reminded the interviewer how he sees athletic competition, where team success outpaces individual accomplishments.
“Coming into the season, winning conference was our goal. We accomplished that and whatever it took to get to that, I was trying to do,” Aberle said. “I was happy about (the assists record). That’s really cool. I had no idea.”
The Zion game marked the final home game for the 2023-24 season. Lake Forest will play its postseason games first at North Chicago (regional) and advancement places them next at St. Viator (sectional).
Postgame, outside the coaches room, LaScala reflected again on the unselfish character of his senior leaders.
“Bolurin (Taiwo) has been up since sophomore year. He doesn’t care if he gets two points per game but he’ll work his tail off and get rebounds and do all of dirty stuff. Campbell doesn’t care if he scores, he just wants to win. Efe is the same way,” LaScala said. “It’s contagious for the other kids.”
Before walking into a room where a senior night meal with team parents awaited him, LaScala said the 2020-21 team, which never had a full season, might have been his most talented.
But never in his prior 18 seasons as Scouts coach has he enjoyed coaching a group more than this year. They are a true team, with milestones behind them and hopefully, more ahead.
“We told them (after a game) how our expectations have always been high and how they’ve put the time in, worked really hard and we have talent in this room,” LaScala said. “We get the best out of them and are they committed to what we want to get done. That matters, I think.”
The Scouts open up postseason play Wednesday night (Feb. 21) in the regional semifinals at North Chicago. Tip off is at 6 pm.