My friend Matt and I went to see Simeon H.S. play Oak Hill Academy at the UIC Pavilion in a game that matched the #5 and #1 high school boys basketball teams in the country. We were really going to see Derrick Rose, Simeon's star guard who's going to Memphis to play for Calipari next year. But both Matt and I are from the D.C. area and Oak Hill was invented as a basketball program when I was about 14 and they brought in the likes of Ron Mercer as a post graduate player, so I was interested in seeing them as the national power they are today...

We got there right in time to see the teams break into layup lines. The place was packed and the crowd was much more the type of crowd you'd see at a summer league game full of stars. The Black and the Beautiful. Devin Hester of the Chicago Bears was there in a white Kangol. A lot of ghettofab outfits. A lot of basketball junkies, gurus, AAU dons, etc. And then a bunch of awkward looking white high school kids in letter jackets on team pilgrimages to see the best practitioners of their trade. The P.A. announcer was in character, lending a kind of running hype commentary to the game and appropriately backing the hometown heroes, the Simeon Wolverines. Simeon won the state championship last year and brought most of their kids back, including Rose.

Watching layup lines was enough to tip you off that you were not about to watch your father's high school basketball. It wasn't just the size and bounce of the players, it was the array of release points on display. We were watching Oak Hill warm up and our trance was broken when their point guard, the skinniest kid on the court and one of the shortest, bounced a ball off the ground, bounced himself off the ground, and back rimmed a ferocious dunk. The row behind me erupted and I sat up in my seat because he'd been showing himself as a sleepy kid with the ball on a string up to that point. We were going to watch him close. Oak Hill had two kids who were bigger than anybody Simeon had. A couple behind me had a cousin on Simeon and I asked them to point out Rose and I watched him through the crowd, moving to the left elbow and shooting jump shots, then moving out to the right wing and shooting 3s from the same spot. He's a light skin kid with a basketball body you can see a mile away, wide shoulders, long arms, tennis balls for calves. His shot comes out of his hand with a lot of spin and a little flat and he shoots it from behind his head a little off of his right shoulder. He was on target in warm-ups.

The announcer called the teams in and then built the hype up as he introduced Oak Hill. Duke, Michigan, USC, Florida St.... the Oak Hill players were all headed to big programs. When they had all come out to the center of the court, the announcer let them stand there for a minute while he repeated over and over again, "The Number One Team in the Nation. The Number One Team in the Nation..." planting the seed of expectation in their minds as they looked across the court at their hometown rivals.

Simeon is an incredibly strong team. They look like boxers, every one of them has big arms and thick legs. And then there's Rose, a face as calm as Pale Rider. The announcer introduced Simeon he said, "The Number One Team in the Natio... the Number One Team in Chicago, the Number One Team in IlliNoize..." and the crowd, for such a big arena, really did give it up. People wanted to see their kids beat up on this national power. For their parts, the Oak Hill kids looked like they were used to it and they weren't going to sweat it. The first quarter was interesting. Oak Hill came out looking like they were going to outsize Simeon. Their two big kids showed impressive feet and hands, and their Duke shooting guard hit a couple of jumpshots. Simeon looked a little tight and they were feeling their way in but they got some good dirty buckets off of offensive rebounds. Rose hadn't really established himself or made an impact. The Oak Hill point guard we were watching had a flash of brilliance. His defender picked him up at halfcourt and I saw him sneak a peek at the big kid on the block. He took three dribbles towards the left time line and then rifled a one handed no look lazer to the big fella for a layup. It was a high class pass. I was still looking for something like that from Rose. Oak Hill looked comfortable and Simeon looked like the tough kids who were trying hard but were outclassed. That all changed when Rose came down the court. He glides with the ball and it's deceptive how fast he's moving. He'd been trying to get everyone involved in the game. This time he found a crease in the Oak Hill zone and drove into the lane, close to the right block, he jump stopped looking like he was going to elevate and zipped a chest past to a wide open teammate in the corner. The pass was on a rope, directly into the shooters palm, with perfect backspin. It was really just the speed of the movement and the precision of the execution I noticed, but I think everyone, including Oak Hill noticed, how easy it was. From that play on, it was the Oak Hill guys straining to prove they were as good as he was and they never did.

Simeon led most of the way, their big guys getting active on the boards and finishing from Rose set-ups and one of their guards drained a few threes off the bench. But it was always Rose setting the tone.

Three plays stand out for me. The first was in the third quarter, a steal and a lead pass to Rose all alone. The crowd stood up expecting a huge dunk and Rose bounced from the wing, rocked the ball around and sort of did a mini windmill. He was never high enough and the ball didn't even go off the back rim, it just sort of went out of bounds. It's embarrassing right? Rose's face didn't change at all. He turned around and set the press up. The crowd, recognizing that he had tried to give them a show started a polite applause, that grew in energy to a Go Wolverines applause, and Rose raised his arms to the roof encouraging it. Then Simeon stole the ball again and he came down, got fouled, and drained two. It was clear he owned the game.

The second was a fast break and he got a pass in the left lane and went up against one of Oak Hill's big guys. He went up with his left hand, adjusted andswitched the ball to his right. The big guy stayed over the ball with his outstretched paw so Rose stayed in the air, switched back to his left, and banked it in on his way down.

The third was on another break, Rose streaking down the court with swerve in the way your used to seeing Iverson do and then dropping a no-look bounce past right into the path of Kevin Johnson, who crammed it home. Rose made threes, mid-range shots, layups, and foul shots and controlled every part of the game en route to 28 points, 9 assists, 8 rebounds.

Oak Hill was on the verge of being blown out, down fourteen in the middle of the fourth quarter but they kept the score respectable because Brandon Jennings, the Oak Hill point guard who's headed to USC, scored all 19 of his points in a desperate tirade in the fourth quarter.

Oak Hill coach Steve Smith said after the game, "The only thing I don't like about coaching at Oak Hill is that you're expected to win every game. Simeon is going to beat most teams who come to Chicago."

While it's true that these are high school kids and it's very hard to play well in someone else's backyard, what was eminently clear in that crowd of big time Division I talent, was that there was one owner of the court last night and how many times at any level is that ever really clear?