Illinois
Ms. Basketball of Illinois Kloe Froebe now in a league of her own for central Illinois’ best players
Since the Central State Eight Conference began play in 1993, it’s been the home of some of the best girls basketball players in Springfield-area history.
But Lincoln’s Kloe Froebe can boast something none of her predecessors could: A state championship.
Froebe, the Ms. Basketball of Illinois winner, according to the Chicago Tribune on Friday, and The State Journal-Register’s Large School Girls Basketball Player of the Year recipient for a second year in a row, led the Railsplitters to an undefeated record and a Class 3A state title with a win over Chatham Glenwood at Illinois State University’s CEFCU Arena last month.
Her efforts culminated in the awards mentioned above — as well as the Gatorade Illinois Girls Basketball Player of the Year award. To many of us, it seemed like destiny after Froebe and Lincoln suffered their only loss of the 2022-23 season in the season finale, a 63-52 setback to LaGrange Park Nazareth in the 3A title game. Froebe finished second in Ms. Basketball voting her junior year.
Perfection: Lincoln girls basketball romps to first state title over Chatham Glenwood
Along the way, her feats surpassed even the best of the area’s best, including Taylorville’s Allison Curtin, Southeast’s Alex Harden and Springfield High’s Zahna Medley. Just being among those CS8 legends is quite an accomplishment, but her state championship and an undefeated season put her on a pedestal all by herself.
Arguably, the best player in CS8 history is Taylorville’s Allison Curtin, who guided the Tornadoes to a second-place finish in the 1997 Class AA state tournament, losing to Wilmette Loyola back in the two-class system. Curtin was a junior and that loss — like Lincoln’s last year — was Taylorville’s only blemish on an otherwise dominant season. Curtin became the first Ms. Basketball of Illinois winner from the area in 1998. She played collegiately at Illinois and Tulsa before being drafted by the WNBA’s Detroit Shock, but she retired after sitting out her only season with an injury.
Zahna Medley led Springfield High to four consecutive Class 3A Final Fours from 2009-12. Though the Senators never broke through for a title game, Medley, a three-time winner of our Central State Eight Girls Basketball Player of the Year award, was the catalyst for an unprecedented four-year run. She went on to star at TCU, which named the women’s locker room in her honor.
Southeast’s Alex Harden had an amazing career, played at Wichita State and was drafted by the Phoenix Mercury, where she played for two seasons.
Angela Perry twice helped Rochester finish second in Class 3A, with losses to Morton in the state title game in 2015 and 2017. Perry was The State Journal-Register’s Large School Girls Player of the Year in 2017, then had a distinguished career at Bowling Green.
There are so many more stars that have emerged from the CS8 — including Lanphier’s Marke Freeman, Shatonia Levy of Springfield High and Lincoln’s Steph Reichle — but Froebe stands out from them all.
If it wasn’t impossible to stop her, no coach in Lincoln’s path found a way. She set scoring records at Lincoln and in the state tournament. She rebounded, defended and dished to her numerous capable teammates. She seemed effortless on the court and quickly displayed her dimpled smile in every postgame interview.
Even when she had to have her nostrils plugged after a bloody nose in February’s sectional semifinal, she was able to laugh it off while chatting with reporters after another win.
Her next stop is Colorado State University. The Rams are getting a winner and will undoubtedly provide Froebe with more curveballs and obstacles as the quality of competition and coaching grows.
But one thing in her favor is her relentlessness. She does it all and, despite being undersized at 5-foot-8, she wormed her way into the paint, tussled for every loose ball and defended bigger players to force turnovers or missed shots.
Women’s basketball has never been more popular. With Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark, the women’s collegiate game has more eyes on it than ever before. More and more talented players are getting the attention of first-time fans of the game. Viewership is through the roof.
We’ve had four years to catch just how special Kloe Froebe is. Now, the rest of the country might get a chance to learn what we already know.
Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.
Illinois
Illinois winter road conditions: Slippery roads, reduced visibility expected as snow moves in
Chicago-area roads were expected to get slick and slippery and travel impacts were likely for the Thursday morning commute as a winter weather advisory with bursts of “wind-whipped” snow moved into the region.
According to the NBC 5 Storm Team, all of Northeastern Illinois is expected to see waves of snow showers Thursday morning, beginning around 7 a.m., with two to four inches of accumulation possible. Slushy snow totals were expected to partially melt as temperatures rise above freezing, the NBC 5 Strom Team said.
Chicago weather radar: Track heavy ‘bursts’ of snow ahead of morning commute
Accompanying the snow will be wind chills in the teens and 20s, with gusts as high as 40 or 50 miles-per-hour at times. According to the National Weather Service, a wind advisory will go into effect at 10 a.m. for the entire area.
According to the NWS, sharply reduced visibility was expected for the morning commute, with accumulating snowfall “likely” to impact travel. Highest snowfall rates were expected to start around 8 a.m., the NWS said, lasting through Tuesday afternoon.
The heaviest snow was expected to fall first close to the Illinois-Wisconsin border as a band of heavy snow started to creep down from Green Bay.
A burst of accumulating snowfall is expected this morning into early afternoon, which will likely impact travel (including a portion of the morning commute) in some areas with wet, slushy accumulations. #ilwx #inwx pic.twitter.com/DlFcuvHZFV
— NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) November 21, 2024
As of 6 a.m., crashes and slide-offs were already reported in some parts. In Crown Point Indiana, two separate semi rollovers were reported on I-65, Sgt. Glen Fifield said. One of the crashes involved two semis and two cars, Fifield said, with some southbound lanes blocked.
In the northbound lanes, left lanes were blocked for a fuel tank spill after a trailer with 30,000 pounds of paper rolls overturned.
“This is going to be an extensive cleanup,” Fifield said.
Track Illinois winter road conditions
As of 6:30 a.m., Illinois Department of Transportation’s Illinois winter road conditions map showed areas of blowing snow or ice in counties to the west.
As the morning goes on, travel was expected to become more hazardous, with a winter weather advisory set to go into effect at 7 a.m.
Illinois
Illinois Basketball Coach Brad Underwood On Alabama Freshman ‘That’s a Bad Boy Right There’
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The No. 8 Alabama basketball program got back on track on Wednesday defeating the No. 25 Illinois Fighting Illini 100-87. The Crimson Tide program is still in the process of getting to know its personnel as Alabama welcomed eight new scholarship players for the 2024-25 season.
The Crimson Tide faithful knew it had a lot to be excited about with the talented players returning and a highly rated recruiting class that included two McDonalds All-Americans in Derrion Reid and Aiden Sherrell, however, the biggest surprise may be one of the team’s best players in freshman guard LaBaron Philon.
The freshman guard from Baker High School by way of Link Academy in Missouri logged his fourth college game with double digit scoring as he tied for third on the team in points against Illinois with 16. Additionally he chipped in nine assists with seven rebounds, two steals and a block.
“Philon showed why he’s a pro and moving up everybody’s draft board. That’s a bad boy right there,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said.”
Has the Alabama product surprised Oats in his ability to assimilate to the college game so quickly?
“Go back to last spring when he opened his recruitment up and we took him. Yes, I’m surprised from then, but if you’d have asked me after the summer after watching what he did in June, July, August. He came in an established himself as one of the best guards in the program right out of the gate in the month of June.” Oats said.
“I think he came in and competed. He had the right mindset coming in. When he opened up his recruitment he made the point, ‘If I’m not going to play much, because Kansas took a lot of transfer guards, that’s where he’d signed. ‘If i’m not going to play much I’d rather be home in Alabama at Alabama, if I’m not going to play much’. I just said ‘Look, just come in and work hard and we’ll see what you can earn’. So he kind of just came in expecting nothing, had to earn everything. When you feel like you’ve got to earn everything, that’s when I feel like you starting playing your best. That’s why we don’t ever promise anybody minutes, starting spots, really anything around here. I think you make everybody come in and earn it. All of the sudden you get guys like Labaron that blossom”
Oats said in his Tuesday press conference he’s already hearing from NBA scouts about his freshman sensation. Philon is third on the team in scoring through five games and added a hard hat award for his efforts against the Fighting Illini. He credited preparation and a calm mindset for his quick start tot the current year.
“Really just being in the moment. As a young guy you probably get nervous or a lot of butterflies. I just try to stay calm in every moment and confident. Once you get in the gym, once you get on the court it’s all confidence then.”
Illinois
New Dean Named At Illinois Tech’s Stuart School
Rich Klein will take over as the dean of the Stuart School of Business at Chicago’s Illinois Institute of Technology on January 1, 2025. Illinois Tech photo
Chicago’s Illinois Institute of Technology has a new business school dean — again.
Thirteen months after naming longtime economics professor Liad Wagman to the top job, and about five months after Wagman’s departure to take the deanship at another B-school, the Stuart School of Business this month announced the hiring of Rich Klein as its new dean. Klein’s deanship begins in the new year.
Unlike his predecessor, Klein does not have a deep connection to Illinois Tech, coming to Chicago from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he has been vice chancellor since January 2022. What he does have: significant experience in industry and as a consultant for major corporations.
BIG SHOES TO FILL
Klein’s predecessor Wagman joined the Stuart School in 2009 as an economics professor after earning his Ph.D. from Duke. He was a 2015 Best 40 Under 40 Poets&Quants honoree who assumed the interim deanship of the B-school in June 2022 — and proceeded to oversee a 140% surge in enrollment across all programs.
Under Wagman’s interim deanship, the Stuart School overhauled its curriculum, offering new programs in analytics, finance, economics, management, marketing, and more — including, notably, five new Tech+ majors, interdisciplinary degrees that blend core principles from fields such as business, engineering, psychology, information technology, policy, and cybersecurity. The curricular makeover helped to position Stuart as a destination of choice for students at a time when demand for graduate business education was fluctuating nationwide.
His interim deanship portended great things, but Wagman left Illinois Tech in June 2024 to take on the deanship at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lally School of Management.
A FORMER CONSULTANT FOR UPS & THE U.S. ARMY
Klein joins Illinois Tech from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he serves as vice chancellor of institutional effectiveness and student success. He also holds dual faculty appointments in UNO’s College of Business and College of Information Science and Technology. He will become the Stuart School’s dean on January 1, 2025.
Prior to UNO, Klein was the associate dean of the R. Kirk Landon Undergraduate School of Business at Florida International University’s College of Business, as well as interim director of the college’s School of Accounting. He also has more than a decade of industry experience with Automatic Data Processing and First Data Corporation, as well as consulting experience for Fiserv, General Electric Healthcare Systems, Sage Health Management Solutions, United Parcel Service, and the United States Army.
He earned his doctorate in computer information systems from Georgia State University, a Master of Science in Technology Management from Mercer University, and both a Master and Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Boston University.
STUART ‘A PIONEER IN MEETING STUDENTS WHERE THEY ARE’
Among his predecessor’s accomplishments, Klein applauds the Stuart School’s recent partnership with Coursera to offer a tech-focused MBA program that allows students to take core courses in finance, marketing, and digital transformation, as well as electives in artificial intelligence, data science, cybersecurity, and more. Since last year the Stuart School’s enrollment is up 73%.
“I am incredibly honored and excited to join Illinois Tech as the dean of Stuart School of Business,” Klein says in a report on Stuart’s website. “Higher education stands at a crossroads, facing unprecedented challenges that demand bold, innovative solutions. I’m eager to join Stuart, which is already a pioneer in meeting students where they are, ensuring the enduring value of their degrees, and providing a quality education that prepares them for the world today and in the future.
“I look forward to working with the faculty, staff, students, and alumni to lead the charge in redefining higher education.”
DON’T MISS AFTER 140% ENROLLMENT BOOM, THIS B-SCHOOL GAVE ITS INTERIM DEAN THE TOP JOB and THIS CHICAGO B-SCHOOL IS LAUNCHING 4 ONLINE PROGRAMS — WITH PERFORMANCE-BASED ADMISSION
The post New Dean Named At Illinois Tech’s Stuart School appeared first on Poets&Quants.
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