Fremd’s boys basketball team received another shot in the arm from junior forward Ryan Sammons Saturday afternoon at the Lakes MLK tournament. Sammons hit for 6 3-pointers and scored 23 points in the Vikings’ 55-34 win over Highland Park in the semifinals.

When Mike Obsuszt became head basketball coach at Barrington in 1996, he wondered where all the school basketball records were. Obsuszt put thought to paper the past two years and produced a book that was recently released called “The Unofficial History of Barrington High School Boys’ Basketball”.

The Grant boys basketball team has been on a nice run of late, winners of three in a row and four of its last six. During that span, Grant downed North Chicago by 42 points (76-34), Round Lake by 30 (64-34) and beat Northern Lake County Conference leader Grayslake Central by 14 (56-42).

With neither team leading by more than four points until the final 11 seconds of the game, Monday night’s nonconference battle between host Buffalo Grove and Vernon Hills was a very close, back-and-forth basketball game the whole way.A rebound basket by Buffalo Grove’s Alex Beihoffer cut the Cougars’ lead to 62-60 with 25.2 seconds to play. But Vernon Hills hit 5-of-6 free throws in the final 22.4 seconds of the contest to pull away with a 67-60 victory.

Rolling Meadows went to Beast Mode for a big 82-46 nonconference boys basketball victory Saturday at Deerfield.

After a 2020 Christmas basketball season where teams were all given coal in their stockings, the presents were back in 2021 thanks to the return of holiday basketball tournaments.

The positives keep rolling in for the Wauconda boys basketball team. The Bulldogs were 10-2 heading into the new year after winning the Marengo E.C. Nichols tournament.

Tournament consolation games can be a time to determine what the character that your team has. Fremd showed it has plenty. After both Luke Schoffstalll and Chris Smyros fouled out, the Vikings battled through two overtimes before succumbing to Deerfield 77-70 in the fifht-place game of the Wheeling Hardwood Classic Thursday.

Metea Valley was short-handed, but that didn’t make a difference with the way the Mustangs played on Monday afternoon. The Mustangs had only seven players available for their game against Vernon Hills in the opener of the Maine East Christmas Tournament, but they defeated Vernon Hills 74-71 with a strong effort down the stretch.

Lake County area boys basketball teams are headed to places such as Collinsville, Pekin, Centralia and Pontiac next week— here, there and everywhere.