64 things to know about the Holiday Classic

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Dec. 26--BLOOMINGTON -- 'Tis the season for 64 high school basketball teams to converge on Bloomington-Normal, providing a drumbeat of bouncing balls, the screech of screaming fans and the drama of stirring finishes.

The State Farm Holiday Classic tips off at 10 a.m. Monday and runs through Thursday night. It includes 128 games at four venues: Illinois Wesleyan's Shirk Center, Normal Community High School, Normal Community West and, for the first time, U.S. Cellular Coliseum.

Here are 64 things you may or may not know -- in random order -- as we plunge into the tournament's 32nd edition:

1. Fa la la la la, la la la la! The Tri-Valley boys recently completed a Christmas caroling tour of the school district, singing for three and a half hours and raising more than $300 for the high school's Adopt-A-Family program.

2. Central Catholic senior guard Allie Norton has a chance to join Galesburg's Joey Range as the only players in Classic history to be named all-tournament four times.

3. IVC's Jim Thornton is coaching in his 20th straight Classic, most in the field.

4. Brimfield girls head coach Jim Blane has never had a technical foul in his 19 seasons. Also, he's never had a player ineligible for academic reasons or athletic-code violations.

5. Former IWU and NBA star Jack Sikma is honored in a display case at Shirk Center. His cousin, Belinda Schaafsma, will play in the Classic for Kankakee Bishop McNamara.

6. Speaking of Sikma, the Rockridge boys have one in 6-4 senior Austin Sikma.

7. Oh brother, two are Classic head coaches in Kevin Long of the CPCI boys and Matt Long of the Camp Point Central/Augusta SE girls.

8. North Lawndale College Prep is No. 1 among all charter and traditional Chicago public high schools in percentage of graduates in college.

9. Don't challenge the Lake Forest assistant coaches to a pickup game. Joe Harmsen was a top 100 recruit out of high school and played at Northwestern. Chris Faggi played in the NBA and overseas for 10 years.

10. University High's boys' team has played the most games in Classic history (106).

11. Attenhut! Morton senior Caitlyn Vandermeer completed Army National Guard basic training over the summer and is active in the National Guard.

12. Culver (Ind.) Academy's 7-foot-1 Chier Ajou is mulling offers from New Mexico, Wisconsin, Indiana, Providence and Mississippi State.

13. Glenbard East guard Johnny Hill is headed to Illinois State and running mate Zach Miller to Northern Illinois.

14. Belvidere North's Brooke Berkenpas is the daughter of Todd Berkenpas, who played at the University of Iowa and was Iowa's first Mr. Basketball.

15. Normal West senior guard Brianna Jacobs was named to Parade Magazine's All-America Service Team in June for her work as a volunteer upperclassman mentor for freshmen and at-risk students.

16. Rock Island senior guard Chasson Randle, a Stanford recruit, is his school's all-time leading scorer and ranks No. 1 in his class academically.

17. Meridian head coach Jack Blickensderfer's son, Drew, is crew chief for Roush Racing's Matt Kenseth, the 2009 Daytona 500 winner.

18. Maine South's Alicia Gutierrez reached the quarterfinals of the 2009 USA Boxing Championships, narrowly missing a berth in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.

19. Sterling's Aleena Hammelman has been playing varsity high school basketball since the sixth grade, when she attended Sterling Christian.

20. Peoria Richwoods all-stater Mariah Smith is in the top five percent of her class and chose Princeton over Iowa, Illinois, etc. Her father, the late Mark Smith, starred at Richwoods and Illinois.

21. Hartsburg-Emden assistant coach Curtis Conrady played on the Stags' 2005 Classic championship team.

22. North Chicago's Aaron Simpson is ranked the No. 3 junior in Illinois by www.chicagohoops.com. He has a scholarship offer from Marquette and is receiving interest from DePaul, Illinois, Purdue, St. Louis and Florida.

23. Williamsville girls head coach Jon Hampton was the boys head coach at Riverton when Illinois 7-footer Mike Tisdale played there.

24. Morton sophomore Sarah Livingston is the sister of former Peoria Central All-American and NBA Lottery pick Shaun Livingston.

25. North Lawndale College Prep's Brandon Thorpe ranks No. 1 in his class academically.

26. Normal Community junior guard Anthony Beane is ranked among the top players in the state by www.chicagohoops.com and www.midstatehoops.com.

27. Former Maine South star Christina Solari has returned to the school as an assistant coach. Solari starred at Illinois Wesleyan, graduating last year, and is pursuing a teaching certificate and master's degree at DePaul.

28. Rock Falls' Jake Junis will play baseball at North Carolina State. He also received interest for basketball from Northern Iowa, Iowa State, Eastern Illinois and Akron.

29. Champaign St. Thomas More girls coach Chris Mennig is a former women's college assistant, including a stint at Illinois State.

30. Champaign Centennial 6-8 senior Josh Piper is receiving interest from Yale, Ball State, Illinois-Chicago, Northwestern, Princeton and the University of Chicago.

31. Peoria Notre Dame's Max Bielfeldt and Drew Blumenshine are referred to as Max-n-Shine.

32. St. Joseph-Ogden assistant coach Ashley Runck played on the Spartans' only state tournament team in 2007.

33. The Fieldcrest boys have won 42 straight regular-season games. The Knights captured the 2009 1A-2A Classic title by edging Central Catholic, 70-67.

34. Crazy like a ... Fred Fox is back as boys head coach at Peoria Christian. He coached there for 21 years before retiring in 2007.

35. Patience has been a virtue for first-year Thornwood boys head coach Paul Slavich, who coached sophomore and freshmen teams at the school the past 20 years.

36. The future is bright for the Rochester girls. The current freshmen won the IESA 7-4A state tournament in 2008 and the 8-4A crown in 2009.

37. Don't try to match wits with Tri-Valley. It was among three Illinois high schools to be named a National Blue Ribbon School for academic excellence, and received a bronze medal rating by US News and World report as one of the top public high schools among 21,000 surveyed.

38. Rockton Hononegah head coach Mike Miller's teams hold school records for wins at Hononegah, Galesburg and Rockford Guilford. His 1993 Guilford and 1998 Galesburg teams were state runners-up.

39. Springfield's Willie Wiley is ranked the No. 16 junior in Illinois by www.chicagohoops.com.

40. Sterling's Dan Robinson has a baseball scholarship to Murray State as a pitcher.

41. Too bad they don't let you kick the basketball. Peoria Notre Dame's Cody Gilfillan, Nate Bell and Brett Lane played for the Irish's state soccer champions.

42. First-year Annawan girls head coach Jason Burkiewicz played on the 1998 Spring Valley Hall team that went 32-1 and placed second in the Class A State Tournament.

43. Brimfield girls head coach Jim Blane will have a cheering section that includes his son, Ben, and daughter-in-law, Janice. Both are U.S. Army captains. Janice is a Black Hawk helicopter pilot and Ben is in command of Field Artillery. Both will be deployed again after the holidays.

44. Famous Culver Academy alums for a $100, Alex: The late George Steinbrenner; his sons, Hal and Hank; former Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley; late film critic Gene Siskel; actors Hal Holbrook and Jonathan Winters; and late Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt.

45. Champaign Centennial's girls were 22-8 last year after going 23-92 the previous five seasons. Head coach Susan Thomas is in her fourth year after a 68-52 five-year run at Fisher.

46. It's easy to get overlooked when your teammate is Chasson Randle, but Rock Island's Royce Muskeyvalley and Denzel McCauley are gaining Division I interest.

47. David Molinari, son of former Bradley and current Western Illinois coach Jim Molinari, starts for Peoria Notre Dame after transferring from Peoria Christian.

48. Camp Point Central/Augusta SE girls head coach Matt Long has won more than 300 games and assistant Ken Schuster led West Hancock to a state title, a runner-up finish and a sectional berth the last three seasons.

49. Springfield girls head coach Brad Scheffler last year became the third in his family to coach in a state tournament. His father, Bill Scheffler, led Chatham Glenwood to the Class A boys quarterfinals in 1975 and his late grandfather, Herb Scheffler, coached Springfield's boys to the 1954 single-class tourney.

50. Sterling's girls team includes the No. 1 student in the junior and senior classes. Also, 10 of the 11 players are two-sport athletes and six play three sports.

51. El Paso-Gridley senior star Codey Funk is receiving interest from multiple Division III schools for basketball and being recruited in football by the Illinois and Illinois State.

52. Not much down time for Jay Howell. The Sterling Newman girls head coach also is head volleyball coach at Sauk Valley Community College.

53. Corvon Butler transferred to Champaign Centennial this summer from Indianapolis Pike. He had 26 points and 15 rebounds in his debut against Danville.

54. Tolono Unity girls head coach Kelly Gallick is a former Normal Community assistant and has a 1,000-point scorer in senior Lauren Grubb.

55. Rochester girls head coach Troy Piper was an assistant on the Rockets' undefeated Class 4A state championship football team.

56. If North Lawndale heads to overtime, the game may last a while. The Phoenix ended last season with a state record-tying eight-overtime loss to Nazareth Academy, 59-55, in the regional semifinals.

57. North Lawndale has advanced to the state tournament four of the last five seasons, winning the Class 2A championship in 2008.

58. Metamora girls assistant coach Tara Toepke earned a female-record 12 varsity letters at the school. Ali Helton, Paige Garber and Cori Maloney were on Metamora's Class 3A state champion softball team.

59. Brimfield freshman Kerrigan Dura had 23 points and 12 assists in her varsity debut.

60. Chicago Hope alums in college basketball include LSU senior Latear Eason, Penn State junior Zhaque Gray and Mississippi State junior Ashley Brown.

61. Peoria Notre Dame center Max Bielfeldt set a tournament record with 40 points as the Irish won the season-opening Methodist Medical Center Invitation Tournament. He has offers from Illinois-Chicago, Dartmouth, Wright State, Ball State and Western Michigan.

62. Rockton Hononegah's Andrew Tapley won last year's Class 4A Country Financial Three-Point Showdown.

63. Travis Britt, who played at Culver Academy as a freshman and sophomore, has transferred back to Rantoul.

64. Matt Adams returns as czar of locker room key distribution and hospitality room food testing.

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