Southern Cook County has long history of great high school basketball players

The Sun-Times’ high school basketball Mount Rushmore project highlights the sport’s biggest names and greatest stars.

With the prep career as the criteria’s centerpiece — with a sprinkling of post-high school success and overall stature used as a separator — we’ve created a Mount Rushmore for 10 geographical regions throughout the Chicago area.

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Basketball in the south suburbs? It’s just different from any other suburban enclave in the Chicago area.

There’s a burning passion in the sport that is unsurpassed, fueled by a long, historic list of players, teams, coaches and tradition-rich programs. This area has been a basketball hotbed for not just a few decades, but a century.

So when you’re talking about 100 years of noteworthy basketball, it’s inevitable there will be debate as to which four players end up on this particular Mount Rushmore.

From athletic marvels like Rich Central’s Kendall Gill and Homewood-Flossmoor’s Julian Wright to complete point guards like Marian Catholic’s Tyler Ulis and Thornton’s Tracy Webster, the discussion is just beginning.

There was the shooting and scoring from dynamic guards Brandon Cole of Bloom and Townsend Orr of Thornridge, along with the complete game at both ends of the floor from Hillcrest’s Jerel McNeal.

From the oldies but goodies like Bloom’s Audie Matthews and Thornton’s Lou Boudreau to a pair of modern-day Sun-Times Players of the Year who popped in for just a season as transfers — Thornton’s Morez Johnson and Alonzo Verge.

Remarkably, those spellbinding players all fell short. The following four set themselves apart as the best from this distinguished area of high school basketball.

Lloyd Batts, Thornton

There are few programs across the state that can match the lengthy success Thornton basketball has had.

The winning began with a 1933 state championship, and it really hasn’t stopped. There have been state appearances and state trophies won in nearly every decade since.

Then there are the players who consistently lifted this program and propelled all that winning. The list of stars and trailblazers out of the Harvey school is a who’s who of athletes from this state.

But in basketball, even with all the great names, it’s still pretty much a slam dunk as to which player is the greatest: Lloyd Batts.

Batts was a trendsetter as a 6-5 player who operated in the post but ventured out of the paint and shined, even when that wasn’t the trend 50 years ago. He handled the ball and shot from the perimeter.

As a result, Batts was unstoppable. He averaged 29 points a game as a junior and 35 points his senior year. He was the Sun-Times Player of the Year as a senior and graduated as the school’s all-time leading scorer.

The blemish on the résumé was his Thornton teams never made it to state.

In Batts’ junior year, the 1968-69 Thornton team finished 30-2, losing both games at the buzzer, to Proviso East and Jim Brewer and then to Waukegan in the supersectional.

After leaving Thornton, Batts had an immense impact in college, scoring 1,585 points at Cincinnati — still good for 11th on the all-time list — and spent a decade playing in the ABA and overseas.

Quinn Buckner, Thornridge

No one will debate this one.

This is one of the few players in the history of the sport who has won championships at all levels — high school, college and the NBA — in addition to Olympic gold. Buckner’s winning pedigree has been well documented, locally and nationally. His extraordinary leadership qualities and mental toughness were the stuff of legend.

What’s also truly impressive is the winning he did at Thornridge in the 1970s that still resonates 40-plus years later. That’s because he was part of a historic run and revered teams.

He led Thornridge to back-to-back state championships and a 64-1 record in 1970-71 and 1971-72. In that time, Thornridge went on a historic 58-game winning streak.

In his senior year, Buckner led T-Ridge to a 33-0 record. That team is considered to be arguably the best high school team in state history.

Buckner was also an all-state football player and the only player ever named the Chicago-area Player of the Year in basketball and football. He even played football at Indiana as a freshman.

Buckner was the captain of the 1976 Indiana basketball team that went 32-0, the last NCAA champion to go undefeated. He was the seventh pick in the 1976 NBA Draft and enjoyed 10 years in the league with the Bucks, Mavericks and Celtics.

Eddy Curry, Thornwood

Curry led Thornwood to a state-title game appearance, where it was upset by Schaumburg, in March 2001. Just three months later, he was selected with the fourth pick in the NBA Draft by the Bulls, instantly becoming a centerpiece of his rebuilding hometown team.

That’s a whirlwind for any teenager. With his physical profile and vast potential at such a young age, Curry dealt with more outside pressure and expectations than almost any player before him. He was being talked about as a possible NBA lottery pick when he was a junior in high school.

Curry was an anomaly in so many ways.

First, you simply don’t see high school players at 6-11, 275-plus pounds. You definitely don’t see them as light on their feet at that size. You don’t often see high school players manhandle baskets and rims with the ferociousness he did on dunks.

You don’t see autograph-seekers lined up by the dozens, or a national cable documentary crew filming a high school player at home and at school.

But that was all part of the Eddy Curry experience.

Curry was Mr. Basketball runner-up as a junior, just behind Darius Miles of East St. Louis, after averaging 25 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks per game. He won the award as a senior while leading Thornwood to a school-record 32 wins and averaging 22 points, nine rebounds and six blocks.

As the top-ranked high school player in the country, Curry was the MVP of the McDonald’s All-American Game with 28 points, eight rebounds and four blocks, enhancing his draft stock.

Curry averaged double figures in scoring in six of his first seven years as a pro. But injuries, off-the-court battles, weight and conditioning issues led to minimal production and limited him to just 26 games in the final four years of his career.

Dwyane Wade, Richards

Unlike so many other Mount Rushmore choices, stardom didn’t come overnight for Wade. In fact, he never sniffed being a top-100 prospect in the country in high school. Imagine looking back now at those lists and not seeing his name?

But his rise to fame was a refreshing one to watch in the late 1990s and beyond.

An unknown early in his career, he grew 4 inches and blossomed as a junior, opening eyes with 20.7 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. He proved to be the rare dominant two-way player as a scorer and elite defender for a 26-3 team. Always in the passing lanes creating havoc, turning defense into offense, Wade also had a penchant for blocking shots as a 6-3 guard.

As a senior, Wade became a curiosity among fans as his reputation soared. He became a must-see attraction, exploding as a prospect and showing an ability to score every way imaginable.

Wade went from a driver and slasher to a complete offensive force with a newfound jumper. There were countless headline-grabbing performances that had people talking throughout the season.

In a rivalry win over Oak Lawn, Wade put up what was becoming a typical stat line: 27 points, 17 rebounds, seven assists and six blocks.

There was the day he scored 90 points in two games to win a holiday tournament at St. Xavier.

He led Richards to a 25-4 record as a senior while his numbers jumped to 27 points, 11 rebounds, 4.5 assists and over three steals per game. He was named the City/Suburban Hoops Report Player of the Year in 2000.

Wade’s ascent continued to surprise people even after high school. The idea that the kid from the south suburbs would become one of the greatest to ever play the game was unfathomable.

He led Marquette to the Final Four as a junior, then was the No. 5 pick in the 2003 NBA Draft. What followed was dominance. He was a 13-time All-Star, a scoring champ and a three-time NBA champion.

Wade was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023.