2 Rockford basketball stars square off for major colleges for first time in 34 years

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Marcus Hill and AJ Storr grew up together in Rockford, even playing briefly on the same Rockford Ambassadors AAU team under Reggie Biffle.

They enrolled at rival high schools, but never squared off against each other in the Big Northern at Rockford Christian and Rockford Lutheran.

Apparently they had to wait for ESPN. The two will be against one another on the court for the first time at 2:15 p.m. Saturday, with Hill coming to Kansas as a starter for N.C. State and Storr playing for the No. 10-ranked Jayhawks.

“It’s nice,” Biffle said. “It’s nice for them. It’s nice for the city. It lets people know we have those caliber of players here. They just get overlooked a lot.

“I just hope it’s a good game and they play well. We can’t lose as long as they play well.”

More: Marcus Hill joins Final Four team; Sincere Parker, AJ Storr also have new basketball homes

More: How this Rockford native followed in his mom’s footsteps to become Big Ten basketball star

More: Former Rockford Christian star Marcus Hill has Bowling Green rolling into MAC tourney

Saturday will be an historic day in Rockford basketball. Rockford hasn’t seen the likes of this in 34 years. Not since Boylan’s Danny Jones took his epic NIC-10 battles against Hononegah’s Jim Shikenjanski to the Big Ten. The two four-year starters overlapped perfectly, with Jones becoming Wisconsin’s all-time leading scorer (he still ranks No. 5 in Badger history) and Shikenjanski averaging 7.5 points and 3.3 rebounds in 117 games for Minnesota.

Since then, a half-dozen Rockford players have started for a power-conference program ― Guilford’s Aaron Robinson (Minnesota, 2001-05), Freeport’s Jamal Meeks (Indiana, 1988-92), Jefferson’s Frank Richards (Kansas State, 2002-04), Boylan’s Damir Krupalija (Illinois, 1998-2002), Boylan’s Joe Tulley (DePaul, 1999-2003) and Hononegah’s Ryan Hoover (Notre Dame, 1992-96) ― but never against a second Rockford-area player.

Krupalija did have 11 points in 11 minutes…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/2-rockford-basketball-stars-square-100824948.html

Author : Rockford Register Star

Publish date : 2024-12-12 10:08:00

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