Brother Rice wears the same uniforms as last season. They’re still called the Crusaders. The Crazies are still crazy. But otherwise, this gaggle of hard workers comprising the basketball team on Pulaski Road is pretty much all new.
It showed in the late stages of their 41-38 loss to Loyola on Jan. 16 in Mount Greenwood. Managing to score only one basket and six points in the final four minutes against a defense-first Ramblers squad came just short of being enough.
The rebuilding of the Class 3A runner-up team wasn’t unexpected. All of Conte Stamas’ starters graduated. The surprise was when Stamas announced he was out the door as well. Rice hired Rick Romeli away from Marian Catholic and he’s been duct-taping together a roster since.
There have been some early dividends, including a 64-47 rout of St. Laurence on Jan. 13, just a couple of weeks after the Vikings handed the Crusaders a 12-point loss in the title game of the Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic. But the Crusaders, 13-7 after the Loyola loss, are still a work in progress.
There were extenuating circumstances in the Loyola game — six offensive-foul calls, including a questionable one on guard Aiden Henderson with 29.4 seconds remaining, unleveled the court — but teams have to learn to play through that, and Rice is still learning. That the Crusaders came back from an eight-point deficit in the final 12 minutes of a low-scoring game to threaten augurs will for the future. Say, five weeks from now.
“There were plays we left out there, even the last play; if we’d secured a rebound we get a chance to come down and tie the game,” Romeli said. “We played extremely hard. We just blew some assignments. The controllables on our end were the scouting report and how we executed, and we weren’t quite there on all possessions.”
Rice, now 2-3 in the Catholic League Blue, had pulled within a point on Henderson’s two free throws with 16.4 seconds remaining. But everything misfired thereafter, the Ramblers added a free throw by Trey Williams and another by Luke Alvarez, and that was that. One more lesson in lieu of a win.
“There’s a lot of inexperience and it shows,” Romeli said.
Charlie Wizgird, who led Rice with 10 points against Loyola, watched from the bench last season. Now it’s his turn, as it is for Mount Carmel transfer Adam McBrearty and a host of others.
“It’s been tough, but we’ve been working out together since the summer,” Wizgird said. “We’ve gotten to know each other. The most important part of trying to rebuild a team is the chemistry we’ve got. Our intensity is definitely there now; every game we bring it.
“Consistency at this point, making sure we make the right play on defense, is what we need. I wouldn’t change anything (about the Loyola game) except the composure the team had. We were getting really (ticked) off at the refs. We’ve got to play through the fouls at the end of the game.”
Wizgird was Rice’s only double-figure scorer. McBrearty and Joe Niego each had seven points. Samuel Golden led Loyola (17-4, 2-2) with 14 points.