ESPN RISE

Deryl Cunningham is emphatic when he answers the question: How does Illinois prep basketball stack up across the nation?

Cunningham is in his first year as an assistant coach at Indiana State after coaching for two seasons at South Dakota State. Before that, Cunningham assisted Gene Pingatore at St. Joseph High in Westchester, Ill., where Cunningham won Parade and McDonald's All-American honors in 1989.

"When you're from Illinois, that's all you know," says Cunningham. "The more I travel, from top to bottom, inch for inch, pound for pound, I would put Illinois up against any state."

Cunningham thinks the state is as deep as it is wide, and Pingatore agrees with his former player. The 71-year-old became Illinois' all-time winningest prep coach on Jan. 16, with victory 827 in his 1,100th game. In his 40-year stint, all at St. Joe's, he has guided the Chargers to seven Elite Eights, won a state title in 1999 and claimed second-, third- and fourth-place trophies.

Pingatore cites the three centers of U.S. basketball -- New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles (followed by Detroit and Philadelphia) -- when addressing the question.

"I'd give the edge to Illinois, not just because of talent," he says. "[Other states] might have the edge in talent, and numbers, but the coaching in Illinois is unbelievable at the high school level. I get that [opinion] from the college coaches."

Pingatore isn't just covering for himself; he has hosted and visited with plenty of who's-who college coaches, and continues to. Currently, two of his former players are sophomore standouts in the Big Ten -- Ohio State's Evan Turner, a recent Big Ten Player of the Week, and Illinois guard Demetri McCamey. Another, Tony Freeman, was Iowa's leading scorer in 2007-08 before transferring to Southern Illinois, where he must sit out a year.

Cunningham says Pingatore has always treated the stars the same as the reserves: If you don't work, don't play defense, don't move the ball, you don't play.

"I've heard him tell people, 'You'll be the first All-America sitting,'" Cunningham says. "If you came late to practice, there was going to be some consequences. Every kid who came to St. Joe's took the paint off the stairs."

Pingatore is most famous nationally for coaching Isiah Thomas and being a central figure in the groundbreaking documentary "Hoop Dreams," the 1994 film that followed the on- and off-court stories of William Gates and Arthur Agee as they, like Isiah, commuted from Chicago to suburban St. Joe's. Daryl Thomas, a key member of the Hoosiers' 1987 NCAA title team, is the third and last All-American coached by Pingatore, and he now assists Pingatore.

Maria Cunningham

Gene Pingatore has coached generations of Illinois' top players.

The two Thomases and Cunningham, who played at Kansas State, along with Turner and McCamey and Freeman -- Pingatore says he hasn't earned his money with them.

"The blue-chippers are easy," says Pingatore. "It's the kids who don't get any attention, those are the kids you spend most of your time placing."

Cunningham says blue-chip or walk-on, one of Pingatore's gifts is preparing each player to maximize his chance for game action at the next level. Cunningham was a post scorer and a rebounder, but he says it was his stopping skills that raised his minutes.

"He teaches you how to play the game so you can get yourself on the court," says Cunningham. "Man-to-man defense got me on the court. [Pingatore's players] end up on the court, whether it's for defense or making good decisions."

A west-side-of-Chicago native, Pingatore played at Loyola University in Los Angeles (now Loyola Marymount). He may have been forever convinced of the power of defense in a game in Long Beach against San Francisco, which had a center named Bill Russell.

"I had the opportunity to have one of my shots knocked into the balcony," Pingatore chuckles.

Pingatore has suffered just four losing seasons, three of them in his first four seasons. He began subscribing to the Bobby Knight coaching philosophy -- three-quarter-court and full-court pressure, man-to-man defense, motion offense.

"When we became successful is when we kept it simple," he says.

Of course, talent like Pingatore has recruited gives any strategy a chance to succeed. But he says that the very coaching depth that he touts as an Illinois highlight has made it harder for him to get the city standouts. There are more good coaches in the Chicago Public League than there were a decade ago, Pingatore says, and hoops-minded city kids are staying put to take advantage.

Other changes over Pingatore's career include the rise of AAU ball, which has actually made Pingatore's life easier because his players are someone else's after July 1. He's not as thrilled with the emergence of nonstop and over-the-top publicity for the best kids, as well as folks making money under the guise of helping kids market themselves to colleges. Pingatore says he can trace the new ways to one source, and it's not the kids, who he says are basically the same as in 1968.

"Parents are different," says Pingatore. "There's a lot of pressure on kids -- everybody's Division I, everybody's going to the NBA. There are a lot of mistakes. I don't like it."

Come Friday nights, those concerns fade as the Chargers once again lead the pack in the East Suburban Catholic Conference, unbeaten in league play. An ESCC win was the record-breaker, and an ESCC win at home Jan. 30 led to a postgame celebration of the record. Dozens of Pingatore's former players attended, including Isiah Thomas and Cunningham, who left Terre Haute at 6:30 a.m. that morning to be there.

"He's built a family," Cunningham says. "We're his kids."

Joe Bush is a freelance writer in Illinois.