I had the opportunity to watch the IBCA All-Star games in Pontiac on Saturday. There were quite a few CCIW recruits there. I wish I had done more research on who to watch!!

Connor Raridon was awarded the Leadership Award for the 3A/4A North squad. From what I could see, the All-Star game format might not be the best to show off his best basketball attributes. I was impressed with how well he moved the ball, played solid defense, and was active on the boards. I watched Colin Bonnett closely as I had been very impressed with his play in the Pontiac Holiday Tournament. He played well. The other CCIW recruit that stuck out was an Augie recruit, Pierson Wofford. He was awarded the MVP award for the 1A/2A South.

There were 2 other DIII players that I enjoyed watching. The Gallick brothers, Matt and Will, from Carterville. They will be at Wash U, and were very good, especially when on the court with each other.

As a former high school coach on the freshman and sophomore level I have noticed the same decline of back to the basket moves you describe. Many of the better 'bigs' are encouraged to work on the face up game, especially if they have their goals at the lower levels of college basketball (DI and DII). Another factor that I have seen is the fact that many of the offenses used at the high school level do not include a strong post presence, especially at the smaller schools. Those schools cannot guarantee having a 'big' year after year, due to the fluctuations in school populations (I work at a school of over 800 students and we haven't have a basketball player over 6'3" in 5 years, although we have a wrestler that's 6'6"). One more cause in the decline is the tendency for the better basketball players to spend time on the AAU circuit in the offseason. I have watched entire AAU games in which a post entry pass was not even attempted. It is a very drive and kick oriented offensive game in the summer. Many of these post players learn that it's wasted energy to post up when they aren't getting the ball and their 'coach' yells at them for clogging the lane! 

I disagree that playing a slowdown game in high school is disrespectful. The team that is on defense has the option of coming out and staying within 6 feet of the person with the ball for five continuous seconds and being awarded possession. If the team is unable to maintain a distance of 6 feet from the ball or is unable to force a turnover in another manner, they're not good enough defensively.

High school basketball, especially that played in small schools, causes coaches to vary their attack from year to year. If you don't have much talent, you had better adjust and find ways to win games or you'll get destroyed. Obviously in college if a coach doesn't have the talent, they need to hit the recruiting trail harder.   

Also being honored at the IBCA banquet is Mark Aubry's high school basketball coach, Doug Evans. He also coached former Millikin standout Adam Provance and current Millikin player Robert Rexroade. 

With respect to the posts about teams with 3 CCIW MOPs, I find it interesting that if you look up the coaches of Simich, Niebrugge, and Lipic you'll find some of the best coaches in the IHSA.

Cal Hubbard of UHigh (Lipic's coach) has 382 wins, Ron Nikcevich retired with 562 wins while Ken Crawford has 628 wins. As someone who has spent a few years around IHSA basketball, I know that those three names are respected througout the state (although not all liked, as you can imagine). I was not able to find much out about Coon's or Crabtree's coaches.

I believe that those three players (Simich, Crabtree, and Niebrugge) also played together in the '95-96 season. So that would make two teams that had three conference MOP's on them.

I might be mistaken, but I believe that the '93-94 Titan team had three CCIW MOPs with Lipic added to Simich and Crabtree.

I have now seen several references to Robert Rexroade from Seneca heading to Millikin. He is a very talented player who certainly has a chance to make an impact on the CCIW. I have seen very few CCIW games in the last ten years, but a player that Robert reminds me of is former Titan, John Lipic. I know it isn't fair to compare an incoming freshman to a CCIW MOP, but Robert shares many of the characteristics that made John such an outstanding player. He can play outside, guard several different positions, and he posts up stronger than he looks. He isn't as intense as John was, but that may come.