Lake County provides lesson in recent high school basketball history

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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The Lake County Mount Rushmore is a little different than the others, namely due to the fact that the heyday of basketball in this region truly has come only in the last 25 years.

Lake County had a nine-year run of a team playing in a state semifinal game from 2007-2015. The area was also consistently hammering out Division I talent at the turn of the 21st century.

As a result, the majority of the Mount Rushmore candidates played their basketball in the last couple of decades.

The other distinction with Lake County’s candidates and, ultimately, the selections chosen, are the astronomical offensive numbers the players put up. There are a handful of candidates who scored 2,000-plus points in their career, a statistical benchmark that is rare.

Whether it was players who just missed the cut — Lake Forest’s Evan Boudreaux, North Chicago’s Aaron Simpson or Zion-Benton’s Milik Yarbrough — or ones who made it, the number of points the players in this region scored were staggering.

Jalen Brunson, Stevenson

What Brunson has shown and proven over his career, beginning at Stevenson in 2011, is the 6-2 guard is obsessed with working on his craft and winning. He’s wired with overcompetitive DNA and a singular devotion to being the best player he can be.

With arguably the best footwork you will ever see in any high school guard, Brunson hit threes and pull-ups comfortably, toyed with weaker defenders at the rim and lived at the foul line. Few players in memory combined as much entertainment and intelligence in their games.

It’s all led to an inordinate amount of personal and team victories — and the highest level of individual production.

Brunson’s ridiculously gifted offensive game led him to average 21.5, 26.0 and 23.2 points while winning 29, 32 and 30 games over his final three years. He finished as one of the state’s all-time leading scorers with an enormous point total of 2,682 points.

With what Brunson has accomplished throughout his high school, college and now into the start of his NBA career, he’s building an argument as the most decorated player in state history.

The individual accolades are other-wordly when you consider he won more than 100 career games, led three teams to top-three finishes at state and captured a state title.

After falling to Jabari Parker and Simeon in the state championship in 2013 and losing to Jahlil Okafor and Young in the state semifinals in 2014, Brunson and Stevenson won it all in 2015. Brunson went for 30 points in the title-game win over Normal.

He won every individual award imaginable, including being a top-25 player in the country and a 2015 McDonald’s All-American.

In his junior year, Brunson scored 57 points in a win over Lake Forest and a state tournament-record 56 points in the state semifinal loss to Young.

Brunson went on to capture a pair of national titles at Villanova in 2016 and 2018. He was a consensus All-American as a junior when he was named the 2018 national college Player of the Year.

Even after being a second-round NBA Draft pick in 2018, he’s now arguably one of the top 15 players in the entire NBA as a member of the Knicks.

Ryan Hogan, Deerfield

Hogan was a star attraction and scoring machine in the north suburbs. He was a name, both locally and nationally, as a schoolboy star who poured in more than 2,400 points in his career. At the time, Hogan set the record for most points scored in Lake County history.

Hogan’s penchant for scoring was evident as a junior when he put up 24.9 points per game. He followed it up with 27.4 points per game as a senior, including 14 games of 30-plus points.

Hogan was a top-100 player in the country who committed to Rick Pitino and Kentucky.

Deerfield basketball has two sectional championships in program history. Both were fueled by its coach, the late great Steve Pappas, and Hogan, the best player in program history. The Warriors, however, couldn’t quite make it to the state’s biggest stage, losing in the supersectional in 1996 and 1997.

In two years at Kentucky, Hogan played very minimally and transferred to Iowa. While there, he mostly came off the bench as a role player.

Brandon Paul, Warren

It took some time for Paul to gain the attention and notoriety that came his way. He wasn’t an immediate sensation. Although Paul was a late-blooming player, the athletic 6-3 guard made the most of his smaller window of opportunity and flourished.

As a sophomore he was an undiscovered prospect in the north suburbs. A year later he was an all-state player averaging 20 points a game.

The following year as a senior he was a top-50 recruit nationally, the top prospect in the state and the Mr. Basketball winner in Illinois, averaging 19.8 points, 7.3 rebounds and three steals a game as a senior.

His senior year came to an end in heartbreaking fashion in a game that will go down in history as one of the best ever played in Lake County.

Down by two points in the sectional championship game, Paul was fouled on a three-point attempt with 4.7 seconds remaining. He stepped to the line and drilled all three pressure-packed free throws to give Warren a one-point lead. But Waukegan’s Jereme Richmond hit a halfcourt shot at the buzzer, ending the season for Paul and Warren.

Paul put together a stellar career at Illinois. He was an All-Big Ten selection and became the second player in Illinois history to record 1,500 points, 500 rebounds, 300 assists and 100 steals.

Although he only played in 64 career NBA games, he has put together a long, productive overseas career over the last 12 years.

Jereme Richmond, Waukegan

Richmond’s talents were fawned over at a very early age. Almost immediately in high school he was an inside/outside small-forward prototype with an unstoppable array of moves. His skill and smooth game were exquisite for such a young player at his size.

That led to high-major offers as a freshman — and a commitment to Illinois and coach Bruce Weber before he had played a high school game.

Following a freshman year at North Shore Country Day, the 6-7 Richmond transferred to Waukegan. The attention surrounding him skyrocketed.

As a junior and senior, Richmond averaged more than 20 points and led Waukegan to 53 wins, including a state runner-up and third-place finish. The accolades followed, from twice being named the Sun-Times Player of the Year to winning Mr. Basketball and McDonald’s All-American honors as a senior.

The most memorable highlight of Richmond’s career came in a sectional title-game win in 2009. Playing before a standing-room-only crowd in his home gym and down by a point, Richmond buried a shot from halfcourt at the buzzer to beat Warren 71-69. It’s a shot and game that will go down as one of the greatest in state history.

Richmond, however, is the quintessential player who went from “can’t miss” to “what if?” over the course of just a few years.

He left Illinois after one uneventful season on the court, declared for the 2011 NBA Draft and went undrafted. A cycle of legal trouble followed and Richmond’s career fizzled.