With the Super Bowl behind us, fans around the country now shift their attention to basketball. According to Chicago’s very own Kanye West, our city is ” the basketball capital of the world.”  His statement rings true: four out of the last seven number one overall picks in the NBA draft have come from Chicago.

It’s not just the NBA and college basketball that captivate fans. High School basketball also continues to be one of the top sports attractions, and the Catholic League features some of the most competitive games in the state.

As the Caravan wraps up the regular season with a 17 – 6 record, they claimed another CCL title (8-1) against Seton Academy in the divisional championship game which they won 63 – 51. This showed tremendous improvement from last season when they finished with a record of 10 – 20 (including tournament, playoff, and JV games).

The Caravan then headed into the Chicago Catholic League Tournament as the third seed behind talented teams from Fenwick and St. Joseph.   However, in their first game against the Providence Celtics (the only team that defeated them in CCL) last Friday at 7:00 pm, MC lost by a final score of 53 – 50.  Despite the loss, the Caravan is currently playing in the CCL consolation bracket and will begin the IHSA playoffs in just a couple of weeks as the Class 3A brackets are being finalized.

This year, Mount Carmel basketball captains Christian Peevy and Jake Rhode, who recently have been named to the CCL South All League team, and Nick Chambers, who was also selected to the CCL South All Conference team, try to make names for themselves as potential college recruits in order to add to their resume.

Leading scorer Christian Peevy (18.5 ppg) is emphatic that “Our goal is to win State. Anything less is imperfection to us and that is what we are striving for.”

The Lawless Catholic League Player of the Year winner added, “If we continue to feel confident about ourselves and our team, we feel we can beat anyone. We are more hungry than ever.”

Not only have there been great accomplishments from the players this season, but also for head coach Mike Flaherty. Friday January 2, marked Flaherty’s 750th career win against divisional rival St. Rita Mustangs. As a result of that victory, Flaherty became only the ninth coach in Illinois high school basketball history to reach 750 wins.

Due to the team’s success, Flaherty unanimously won this year’s Lawless Award as Chicago Catholic League South Division Coach of the Year. With 40 years of high school basketball coaching experience, Flaherty, according to the IHSA, ranks second among active boys coaches (753), trailing only the St. Joseph Charger’s Gene Pingatore, the Illinois high school basketball legend who has 978 career wins in 46 seasons.