Best foot forward
Junior guard, whose father starred at Thornwood, sparks 17-2 Mount Carmel
He wants to be the best of the Best.
Mount Carmel’s Grant Best is aiming to be the best player in his family. His father Tom, who was a star at Thornwood and played in college for Toledo and Nebraska, is helping him in his effort to achieve that goal.
“He’s got a high standard for me,” Grant said of his dad. “It’s hard living up to him, but I’m trying. My goal is to get better than him, but he was pretty good.”
Grant isn’t bad himself. The junior guard is on a team with a ton of talent but led the way Saturday for the Caravan in a 50-36 win over Benet in the Steve Pappas Shootout at DePaul Prep.
Best scored 15 points as Mount Carmel (17-2) downed Benet (15-2). Northwestern recruit Angelo Ciaravino and Lee Marks added 10 points apiece.
Last season Best was on the varsity and played despite nursing two hamstring injuries suffered in football.
The 6-foot-3 Best, who also plays AAU for Breakaway Basketball, is healthy this season and helping a heralded group with its eyes on a Class 3A state championship.
“He wasn’t 100 percent last year
but still did a good job,” Mount Carmel coach Phil Segroves said of Best. “He put on 15 pounds and grew 2 inches.
“I knew good things were going to happen.”
Best, who lives in St. John, Indiana, has been no stranger to the Caravan.
“He’s been coming to Mount Carmel camps since he was a little guy, and I’ve known him for a long time,” Segroves said. “There are a lot of guys who get more press than he does, but no one works harder than Grant Best.
“He’s turning into a player that I always knew he would be.”
Big Mac attack
Homewood-Flossmoor’s Mac Hagemaster is averaging just three points a game, but the 6-8 senior forward came up big against previously unbeaten DePaul Prep.
The Lewis-bound Hagemaster scored eight points — including six in the fourth quarter — and had five rebounds Saturday in a 57-46 victory at the Steve Pappas Shootout.
“I was just looking to get position and the guards found me,” Hagemaster said. “It was one of those games where the guards will find you if you are hot.
“Usually, that’s not my role. I am that guy who gets the boards and blocks shots and just hustles all the time. But it was nice to score some points.”
H-F (14-1) trailed 22-12 at one point against DePaul Prep (16-1), the defending Class 2A champions. But the Vikings snapped the Rams’
23-game winning streak.
“Mac was impressive down the stretch,” H-F coach Jamere Dismuke said. “We got him the ball on some dump-downs, and he did a good job catching and focusing on finishing it.
“He battled through some contact and still finished and played strong for us. Mac is huge for us. He does his job, does all the dirty work and doesn’t complain at all.”
Big weekend for Wildcats
Thornton (13-2) also faced some strong competition Friday in LaPorte, Indiana, and beat two-time Ohio state champion
Richmond Heights 62-48 in a showcase game on ESPN2.
The next day the Wildcats traveled to the Highland Shootout and hung on for a 63-62 win over defending Class 3A champion Metamora (13-4).
Illinois recruit Morez Johnson, the star senior forward, garnered most of the attention in those games, but Isaiah Green’s blocked shot in the closing seconds against Metamora loomed large after Chase Abraham hit three throws late in the game.
That came one week after H-F beat Thornton 53-52 to win the Big Dipper Tournament. Those two area powers face off again Jan. 28 at Thornwood in the Chelby Frazier Memorial Shootout.