Second-seeded St. Patrick overcame seventh-seeded Vernon Hills to earn a 54-47 victory in. Friday night’s Class 3A Vernon Hills boys basketball regional final.

Thanks to strong second half start, Vernon Hills Cougars will get a chance at a boys basketball regional title as it held off St. Viator 44-43 Wednesday night.

Vernon Hills held off Maine West 46-43 in double overtime in a boys basketball game on Friday night in Des Plaines.

Who is on fire on the Lake County boys basketball scene, you ask? How about the Lakes Eagles, winners of six of their last eight games. Lakes is 6-2 in January and was 11-10 overall and a robust 7-1 in Northern Lake County Conference action as a result of its strong 2022 start.

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.

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.

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.

The Warren boys basketball team has proved it can take the heat. The Blue Devils were 6-2 through their eight games, including opening North Suburban Conference action with a pair of close wins over Zion-Benton (59-54) and at Lake Zurich (42-39).

Vernon Hills’ boys basketball team wanted to keep its unbeaten string of victories going. However, Deerfield had something else in mind in the opening game of Central Suburban League North Division play Friday night. Vernon Hills battled back from a 13-point fourth quarter deficit and got within 3 points three times, but the Cougars ended up with a 61-55 defeat in Vernon Hills.

Vernon Hills boys basketball coach Mike McCarty took a lot of positives out of his team’s winning the Northridge Prep Battle at the Ridge tournament with a 4-0 mark.

Here’s a look at the boys basketball season in the Central Suburban League