Lockport basketball coach Bob Basarich was up at 6:30 a.m. Saturday to review film of the Porters` 58-41 victory over Lincoln-Way the previous night. His love affair with the game, undiminished after 28 years of coaching, would have him working on through the day and into the night.
The game has sustained his enthusiasm, undiluted after all these years, through 462 victories and 94 defeats. If there is a lasting feeling of distaste remaining from the tribulations of last season, it has not surfaced. Last season`s team was 10-2 when senior guard Brian Jackson was suspended from school for disciplinary reasons. The team finished 18-8 and was upset by Providence in the first game of the Class AA regional.
”Last year, I think our record would have been an outstanding one, but Brian Jackson ended up being dropped from school,” Basarich said. ”He was an all-state point guard, or at least as good as any guard in the state. As soon as we lost him, we went to almost a no-point-guard situation, and we struggled. But we survived it.”
Jackson had been charged the previous summer for burglary. He was convicted a few months after he was expelled from Lockport.
Jackson, a three-year starter, had once appeared destined for a scholarship at a Division I school. The tragedy in human terms was not lost on Basarich.
”I think the only lasting feeling I have is I hate to see any youngster go through what he went through and be guilty of it,” Basarich said. ”What bothered me was so many people, adult people, made him guilty before he went to court. There were so many people who wanted to see him guilty. I think that was a heavy thing hanging over him all the time.”
Lockport basketball and Basarich, a tandem for 20 years, survived.
”Everything is not as serious as it used to be because Bob Basarich can`t control it all,” Basarich said. ”I used to worry about everything.
”The 1980s especially have brought so many more variables to the game as to why people don`t perform as well the next year. It used to be if you had an outstanding sophomore on the varsity, he`d be outstanding as a senior. That`s not true today.”
This year`s team features juniors Dave Mitidiero, Jo Jo Jackson and Maurice Hamilton. It is 15-2, 7-0 in the South-Inter Conference Association West Division, and ranked No. 8 by The Tribune. Mitidiero and Jackson started the entire season last year. Hamilton came up to the varsity and started the final nine games of the season.
Basarich believes all three appear destined for Division I scholarships. Hamilton, a 6-foot-3-inch forward, is averaging 17.5 points a game. Mitidiero, a 6-5, 210-pound center, averages 13.4 points a game. Jackson, a 6-3 forward, averages 9.4.
Against Lincoln-Way, Mitidiero had 22 points, and Hamilton added 18.
Point guard Dave Mandrella is another starter who saw extensive time last season. He`s a senior who has missed much of this season because of a string of illnesses. In his absence, Basarich has used three other players. The other starting guard is senior Jeff Green.
Basarich downplays talk of next season being Lockport`s year.
”If you talk to old, experienced coaches, they`ll tell you there is no next year,” Basarich said. ”The reason for that is next year may never come, due to a lot of factors. I think this is our year.”
