Le Journal

Please send scores and corrections to preps@suntimes.com. Schedule provided by Jack Gleason. Send schedule updates to hsbballjg@gmail.com.Thursday, January 22, 2026WHITE NORTHSteinmetz at Senn, 5:00WHITE WESTNorth Grand at Raby, 5:00CENTRAL SUBURBAN NORTHVernon Hills 55, Highland Park 42CENTRAL SUBURBAN SOUTHNew Trier 55, Deerfield 45CHICAGO CATHOLIC BLUEDePaul Prep 58, Mount Carmel 50CHICAGOLAND CHRISTIANWheaton Academy at St. Edward, 7:00LITTLE TENIMSA 77, Leland 51METRO PREPMCC Academy at Hinsdale Adventist, 6:30MID-SUBURBAN EASTBuffalo Grove 52, Elk Grove 40Schaumburg 64, Wheeling 37MID-SUBURBAN WESTBarrington 52, Rolling Meadows 47Fremd 59, Prospect 34Palatine 50, Hersey 37NOBLE BLUEMansueto 54, Pritzker 52NOBLE GOLDRauner 47, Hansberry 39Bulls Prep at Johnson, 7:00Comer at UIC Prep, 6:30NORTH SUBURBANWarren 74, Lake Forest 42NORTHEASTERNSchaumburg Christian 59, Alden-Hebron 47Christian Liberty at Westlake Christian, 7:30RIVER VALLEYSt. Anne 85, Grant Park 32SOUTH SUBURBAN BLUEOak Forest 61, Bremen 49SOUTH SUBURBAN REDRichards 71, Eisenhower 51Shepard 75, Argo 55SOUTHWEST PRAIRIE WESTBolingbrook 83, Oswego 60Yorkville 54, Minooka 30UPSTATE EIGHT EASTGlenbard East 49, West Chicago 15Ridgewood 49, Elmwood Park 41Riverside-Brookfield 53, Glenbard South 46UPSTATE EIGHT WESTBartlett 59, East Aurora 57Elgin at South Elgin, 7:00West Aurora at Streamwood, 7:00WEST SUBURBAN SILVERHinsdale Central at Proviso West, 7:00NONCONFERENCEClemente 70, Rickover 38DuSable 59, Woodlawn 36Hinckley-Big Rock 75, Parkview Christian 50Larkin 49, Fenton 39Nazareth 44, Proviso East 31Ottawa Marquette 56, Newark 41Reavis 47, Hancock 46Speer 49, Chicago Academy 44TF North 49, Ag. Science 47Chicago Richards at Clark, 6:30EPIC at Catalyst-Maria, 6:30Golder at Oak Park-River Forest, 7:00Hope Academy at Latin, 6:30Horizon-Southwest at Hirsch, 5:00Noble Academy at Urban Prep, 5:30Orr at Chicago Tech, 5:00Roosevelt at Morgan Park, 6:30Trinity Oaks at Chesterton-IH, 6:00

You can be sure of this: Illinois men’s basketball coach Brad Underwood isn’t wasting any time these days lamenting past losses.Why would the man think like that when his team is right on the cusp of the top 10 in the national polls and aiming for the school’s first Final Four in over two decades?“I don’t live in those moments too much,” he said Thursday.On the other hand, when a nudnik reporter corners Underwood on the phone and asks what’s the one thing he wishes he could have back — the one thing that still sticks in his craw — a negative thought is bound to come to mind.“If I had one game I would want to have over, it would probably be the Loyola game,” he said. “Our first NCAA game. We didn’t know how [not] to lose, the urgency of losing.”Just a killer for an Illini fan. They were a No. 1 tournament seed in 2021 when they ran into the eighth-seeded Ramblers in Indianapolis. Ayo Dosunmu, Kofi Cockburn, Trent Frazier — how did that 71-58 second-round upset go so wrong?“I should’ve done a much better job with that team because that team was maybe one of the two best teams in the country that year,” Underwood said. “That was maybe my biggest disappointment, that I couldn’t grow that team better.” Related Loyola upsets No. 1 seed Illinois 71-58 in second round of NCAA Tournament Ah, well, things seem to be as bright as ever at Illinois, at least measured against the rest of Underwood’s outstanding nine-season run at the school.After blowing out Maryland 89-70 Wednesday in Champaign, the Illini (16-3) are on an eight-game winning streak for the first time since the aforementioned Loyola game. At 7-1 in a Big Ten that’s in rare form, with Michigan, Purdue, Michigan State and unbeaten Nebraska also soaring, the deep Illini — the tallest team in the country — are among the biggest boppers. And they have been for years, underscored by the fact no one has won more Big Ten games — 88 — since the start of the 2019-20 season. Purdue and Illinois share that impressive number, 88. Saturday in West Lafayette, Indiana, either the fourth-ranked Boilermakers (17-1) or the 11th-ranked Illini are going to make it 89.And if Underwood’s team wins, he’ll have his 100th Big Ten win — all at Illinois — joining Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, Purdue’s Matt Painter and Wisconsin’s Greg Gard in the triple-digit club among current coaches.That’s got to be reason enough to do a little reflecting, right?“I’m so simple, it’s always kind of the next-game mentality,” Underwood said. “But, you know, I do reflect a little more now than maybe I used to. I don’t know the true significance of 100 wins, but I’m fortunate.”How fortunate?“I’m in basketball heaven,” he said.Underwood, 62, makes well above $4 million a year and has a lengthy contract that, if certain performance benchmarks are met, could keep him on the Illini sideline through 2035. Is he certain he’d like to do this that long?“No, but I know what I want,” he said. “I want good health and I want the enjoyment that I still feel on the first day of practice. It’s so exhilarating for me, the first day of practice. …“I’ve got a great contract that allows me to keep moving forward and progressing. We’re on a pretty good upswing. I don’t know who’d want to step away.”At his introductory press conference in 2017, he delivered at least a couple of memorable lines.“Losing’s not an option,” was one.“I dream big and I dream bigger,” was another.Has it all lived up to his dreams so far?“Not yet,” he said. “We haven’t won a national championship, haven’t made a Final Four. I’ve always said this job is that. It should be that. The day that anybody expects us and this program to not do that, they can look for a new ball coach.”That’s keeping it 100, as the youngsters say.At Illinois, only two of Underwood’s predecessors made it to triple digits in the Big Ten. Harry Combes was 174-104 (.626) in conference games from 1947 to 1967. Lou Henson was 214-164 (.566) from 1975 to 1996. Underwood sits at 99-67 (.596) with a…

Body-worn camera video released Thursday shows that a 20-year-old man "posed no threat" before he was fatally shot in the head last month by a Chicago police officer in West Ridge, according to lawyers for the man’s family.Two officers responded to the 5700 block of North Washtenaw Avenue late on Dec. 9 to investigate a call of a stolen vehicle and encountered Roberto Calvario Jr., who struggled with one of the officers while inside the driver’s seat of a dark sedan, according to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability and the video footage.Calvario was struck by a single gunshot, and the officer was briefly dragged by the sedan as it careened into a parked car, the video shows. Officers later found a gun in Calvario’s waistband, and COPA reported that a second weapon was recovered.It’s unclear from the chaotic bodycam videos when exactly the deadly shot was fired. But attorneys for Calvario’s family said they plan to file a lawsuit, arguing that the video contradicts the Chicago Police Department’s initial claim that the officer fired after being dragged. The attorneys from Loevy and Loevy, a civil rights law firm with a long history of suing over police misconduct, said the car only moved after Calvario was shot."Police are not permitted to summarily execute people on our streets," attorney David B. Owens said. "This was an egregious, unnecessary and unlawful shooting by a CPD officer."The bodycam video shows the two officers running toward the sedan as another person flees. A struggle ensues as Calvario fights to get into the driver’s seat, and the shooting officer appears to fall backward before there’s a loud bang and the car lurches forward."I shot him," the officer says in the video. "Oh, man. Oh, my God."The sedan travels a couple of yards before crashing into a parked vehicle, the video shows. The officers pull Calvario from the car and yell that he’s been shot in the head. The officer who shot Calvario then grabs a shrieking woman from the passenger seat of the sedan and places her next to him in the snowy roadway as the officers began performing lifesaving measures."Did you shoot him in the f------ head?" she says at one point. "Are you f------ kidding me? I seen that s---."It takes about 10 minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the scene, according to the video, which shows Calvario breathing but unresponsive. Calvario’s family viewed the video Thursday “in horror,” their attorneys said.The police department didn't respond to a request for comment.Owens said the video shows "no lawful justification for the shooting" and complained there has so far "been no accountability." He noted that the officer who fired the fatal shot hasn’t yet provided a statement to COPA.Calvario’s mother, Awilda Ramirez, said the officer "didn’t have to kill my son.""I want to ask that man why," Ramirez said in a statement. "I want to ask that man why. I want to know why he shot my boy for nothing." Roberto Calvario Jr.Loevy and Loevy

No injuries were reported when a school bus and two other vehicles collided Thursday morning at an intersection in the city's Humboldt Park neighborhood.It happened about 6:30 a.m. at the intersection of Chicago and Keeler avenues, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesperson Larry Merritt. Three people declined to be taken to hospitals, and no one was injured in the wreck, Merritt said. It was not clear if any children were on the bus at the time of the crash. The cause of the crash is being investigated.

Make Denmark angry. Make Norway angry. Make NATO’s leaders angry.President Donald Trump’s drive to acquire Greenland from Denmark, whose government — along with that of Greenland — emphatically rejects the idea, has unnerved, offended and outraged leaders of countries considered allies for decades.It’s the latest, and perhaps most significant, eruption of an attitude of disdain towards allies that has become a hallmark of the second Trump administration, which has espoused an America First approach to the world.As a former diplomat, I’m aware that how the U.S. treats its allies has been a crucial question in every presidency, since George Washington became the country’s first chief executive. On his way out of that job, Washington said something that Trump and his fellow America First advocates would probably embrace.In what’s known as his “Farewell Address,” Washington warned Americans against “entangling alliances.” Washington wanted America to treat all nations fairly, and warned against both permanent friendships and permanent enemies. Commentary bug Commentary The irony is that Washington would never have become president without the assistance of the not-yet-United-States’ first ally, France.In 1778, after two years of brilliant diplomacy by Benjamin Franklin, the not-yet-United States and the Kingdom of France signed a treaty of alliance as the American Colonies struggled to win their war for independence from Britain.France sent soldiers, money and ships to the American revolutionaries. Within three years, after a major intervention by the French fleet, the battle of Yorktown in 1781 effectively ended the war and America was independent.Isolationism, then warAmerican political leaders largely heeded Washington’s warning against alliances throughout the 1800s. The Atlantic Ocean shielded the young nation from Europe’s problems and many conflicts; America’s closest neighbors had smaller populations and less military might.Aside from the War of 1812, in which the U.S. fought the British, America largely found itself protected from the outside world’s problems.That began to change when Europe descended into the brutality of World War I.It was hard for the U.S. to maintain neutrality, and President Woodrow Wilson led the U.S. into the war in 1917 as an ally of the Western European nations. When he asked Congress for a declaration of war, Wilson asserted the value of like-minded allies: “A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations.”Immediately after the war, the Allies — led by the U.S., France and Britain — stayed together to craft the peace agreements, feed the war-ravaged parts of Europe and intervene in Russia after the Communist Revolution there.Prosperity came along with the peace, helping the U.S. quickly develop into a global economic power.However, within a few years, American politicians returned to traditional isolationism in political and military matters and continued this attitude well into the 1930s.After World War II began, it became clear to President Franklin Roosevelt that the U.S. would get caught up in it. The U.S. began sending arms and other assistance to Britain and quietly began military planning with London. When the Japanese attacked Hawaii in 1941 and Adolf Hitler declared war on the U.S., America quickly entered World War II in an alliance with Britain, the Free French and others. Throughout the war, the Allies worked together on matters large and small.As World War II ended, the wartime alliance produced two longer-term partnerships built on the understanding that working together had produced a powerful and effective counter to fascism.Post-World War II alliancesThe first of these alliances is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. The…