Feb. 19--It's the kind of weekend sometimes-weekly picks blogs were invented for, easily the best three-day stretch of games on your 2015-16 high school basketball calendar.
Most of the teams featured inside that hypothetical calendar are in action: No. 1 Morgan Park, No. 2 Fenwick, No. 3 Simeon, No. 4 Curie, No. 5 Kenwood, No. 6 Evanston, No. 9 St. Joseph and No. 11 Riverside-Brookfield.
Now I'm going to end the metaphor before saying which teams represent what months and instead focus on the most interesting piece of a weekend that will include two rubber matches between top-five teams in the Public League semifinals on Friday night, two marquee events on Saturday and what may feel like an almost anticlimactic city championship game on Sunday.
One team, either Morgan Park or Simeon, will be in action all three days.
The kings of Public League basketball will face off for the third time this season in Friday's semifinals, then represent against the suburbs' top two public-school teams in the annual City-Suburban Showdown on Saturday night at Lyons.
Each event will have a big-game feel to it, and you can talk all you want about how many games these guys play during AAU weekends, but playing three games with high stakes and exciting atmospheres is something different altogether.
In other words, both participants in Morgan Park-Simeon III are going to be ripe for an upset on Saturday, and the winner will really be up against it on Sunday.
Last year, Simeon came out with no energy against Bogan in the city final the night after beating No. 1 Stevenson in the City-Suburban, and even Bogan admitted that was a factor in the Bengals' city championship.
That was back-to-back big games. This one's back-to-back-to-back.
In other words, I'm picking the Curie-Kenwood semifinal winner to be crowned 2016 Public League champion. I'm going back-and-forth. I'll decide in a minute -- it's the first game of weekend.
Curie vs. Kenwood, 5:30 p.m. Friday at Quest Multisport: Kenwood has better bigs, though Curie's are solid. Curie has better guards, but Kenwood has a good one in Zion Morgan. They split two games that went down to the wire in Red-Central action, each winning on the other's home court. No reason to think this one won't as well. When in doubt, go with the guards. Curie 71, Kenwood 70.
Morgan Park vs. Simeon, 7 p.m. Friday at Quest Multisport: Injected with truth serum, I gotta believe both sides would say this game means more than the others -- even the city championship -- because it's a level playing field, these are archrivals and bragging rights are going to matter when they both go on to win state championships (not an official prediction, so we're double-not counting it). Simeon played a really smart game last time as the Wolverines got payback for their home loss by winning on Morgan Park's tiny court. They tailored their defense to the court, playing effective ball-denial defense on Charlie Moore. The court at Quest is bigger, and faceguarding Moore will be more difficult. Moore rarely has a bad game, and I just don't see him having two in a row against his team's biggest rival. Morgan Park 73, Simeon 68.
Fenwick vs. St. Joseph, 5 p.m. Saturday at McGrath-Phillips Arena: We've seen this one before, which I suppose is necessarily the case in the championship game of a conference tournament. Well, you've seen this one before. I wasn't there. But from what I gather, Fenwick was not at its best and still won by 12. Gotta believe the Friars will be much closer to their best this time. Fenwick 63, St. Joseph 54.
Riverside-Brookfield vs. Morgan Park, 6 p.m. Saturday at Lyons: R-B was a top-five team coming into the year on the strength of last year's sectional championship, the four returning starters and the deeper bench. The Bulldogs have a true post in 6-7 senior Mark Smith, but Morgan Park has three or four guys capable of checking him, and the Mustangs have more of pretty much everything R-B does well. That said, the Mustangs will be coming off an emotional 73-68 victory, and R-B has accumulated a decent amount of big-game experience at this point. Expect a good showing from R-B, but not quite that signature win this year's team lacks. Morgan Park 69, R-B 63.
Evanston vs. Simeon, 8 p.m. Saturday at Lyons: Maybe a loss Friday will leave Simeon with a bad taste and make it easier to come back and play the next day. Who would even try to predict such things. Any way you cut it, this is a bigger game for Evanston than it is for Simeon. If the Wildkits are a legitimate Class 4A contender, this would be the time to prove it. I'm not suggesting they're not, only that even with all these wins -- their winning streak is 13 -- they haven't beaten a team that is expected to compete for a state title. Evanston has a conference game against Maine South the night before, but the Wildkits have already clinched the CSL South and have a deep bench that should allow them to keep everybody fresh heading into this one. Simeon has more overall talent and seems to be peaking at the right time. Predicting an 0-2 weekend makes no sense, but who said everything has to make sense? Evanston 65, Simeon 63.
Mike Helfgot is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
