So get this – last Monday morning I’m nursing my coffee, scrolling hoops forums when that 2025 Illinois HS rankings headline pops up everywhere. Fans are losing their minds guessing who’s top dog. Thought, “Heck, why not try figuring this myself?” Grabbed my worn laptop, opened Chrome, and dove straight into the chaos.
The Data Dump Disaster
First thing? Needed scores. Like, ALL the scores. Searched “Illinois high school basketball scores 2024-2025“. Let me tell ya, it was a jungle. Found a bunch of sites, started copying and pasting like mad into this massive Google Sheet. Names like Curie, Simeon, Glenbrook South… my fingers were cramping up after an hour. Forgot half the teams played tournaments in weird places! Had to cross-check three different sites just to get last week’s results.
My Spreadsheet Meltdown
Okay, now I had this crazy list of games. Who beat who? By how much? Made columns for “Home Team,” “Away Team,” “Points For,” “Points Against.” Simple, right? Wrong. Got mixed up immediately. Accidentally put Neuqua Valley’s score in Home Points when they were actually away. Twice! Took forever fixing those errors. Then tried adding strength of schedule – almost cried. How do you weight beating a bad team versus losing to a great one? Ended up using a dumb little “+2 for win against top 50 team, -1 for loss to bottom 50” system. Felt kinda useless.
Who Deserves #1? The Arguments Started
Finally sorted teams by wins. But nah, it wasn’t that easy. Looked at the top three:
- Simeon: Killer starting five, but bench? Paper thin.
- Curie: Smashed everyone mid-season, then lost their point guard.
- Glenbrook South: Quietly stomping teams by 20+ every game.
Sat there staring. Is one close loss to a powerhouse better than grinding out ugly wins? My gut said Glenbrook deserved a shot, but everyone online screams “Simeon!” all day. Got sucked into forum debates for like 90 minutes instead of actually ranking. Big mistake.
Putting My Hat in the Ring
After way too much coffee and self-doubt, just went for it. Pounded out a rough top 10 based on:
1. Who’d they actually beat?
2. How bad were the losses?
3. Recent form (sorry teams fading in February).
Struggled hard between #1 and #2. Flipped them three times. Final call? Put Glenbrook South #1. Yeah, fight me.
Posting the Mess
Copied my entire messy spreadsheet and reasoning into the blog editor. Grammar? Spelling? Who cares, just hit publish. Saw typos immediately after (“Curie” spelled “Curry” in paragraph two… oops). Too late! Traffic exploded faster than I expected. Comments full of angry Simeon parents and Glenbrook fans high-fiving. Excel crashed twice replying. But hey, lesson learned: ranking basketball teams? It’s mostly guessing and pissing people off. Fun though.