GLEN ELLYN, Ill. - Kendall Stephens sprained his ankle pretty bad last week, two days before I had it worked into the schedule to see his game on the way back from Purdue’s game at Iowa.
Knowing what ankle injuries tend to do to players - i.e. generally turn them into mush - I almost skipped the trip and just came right home from Iowa City, figuring one of those 10-minute, two-point ankle-injury specials a lot of players might have put up wasn’t worth the time.
I went anyway, though.
And while Stephens’ St. Charles East team lost a game to Timothy Christian it had no business losing, leaving its coach fuming and its players bleary-eyed afterward, it was no fault whatsoever of its star.
Stephens, on an ankle he later estimated to be 60 percent, scored 30 points, grabbed six rebounds and came with three steals. He made 4-of-10 from three-point range and shot 5-of-9 from inside the arc, 5-of-6 from the foul line.
Prior to this point, I’d only seen Stephens play in AAU, and with the well-balanced Illinois Wolves, Stephens is as much a part as he is a centerpiece.
So it was interesting to see the 6-foot-6 - he’s 6-5-and-a-half, he said, but I round up - guard play the leading role for the first time, bad ankle or not, and play every bit up to his billing.
Some quick thoughts/notes ...
Though he never got a good touch off of it, Stephens looked to aggressively post up against Timothy Christian, which didn’t have any guards - or players, for that matter - who could match his height.
There was a shot he hit, too, that was revealing.
In the first half, Stephens drove into the lane and got hit as he went up for a shot, getting bumped but still maintaining his balance to where he could knock down the mid-range J through contact.
Maybe he’s been doing that all along for his high school team, I don’t know. In AAU, I’ve just never seen him do all that much off the dribble. His Wolves team, and Wolves teams in general, tend to shoot a lot of threes and have lots of other ball-handlers.
But that strength and apparent mid-range ability sort of belied the thought that Stephens is just a shooter, albeit a damn good one.
In AAU, I’d mostly seen Stephens just spot up or otherwise shoot from a stand-still. In this high school game, he shot quickly off screens and simple quick catch-and-shoot situations.
Any shooter is going to have to learn to do those things in college and for Stephens especially he’s going to have to learn to use screens in college, move without the ball to get open, find gaps in defenses and launch quickly.
This was just one high school game against a team that didn’t have a peer to him physically or ability-wise, but he looked like a player becoming equipped to do those things.
With about two-and-a-half minutes to play and East down two, Stephens was ahead of everyone up the floor when East advanced the ball. Rather than waiting for everyone to join him and run a half-court offense, Stephens just caught it and launched in a quasi-transitional situation. It was a bold shot, but one no one should balk at players of his caliber taking in that situation. The triple took East from one down to two up.
Then, with 37.6 seconds remaining and the game tied, Stephens handled the ball up top before driving the lane for a runner. Before he could get his shot off, though, he was fouled. In a potential game-winning situation, he made both free throws to give East the two-point lead it would not be able to retain.
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Stephens wasn’t perfect in this game. There were a couple higher-percentage two-point looks he didn’t finish, a turnover or two and a couple moments where you just thought the best player on the floor should have just taken over.
It’s easy for me to say being the guy there only to watch one player and having no frame of reference of any other kid in the building, but in that back-and-forth a game with the game on the line, I’m not sure I’d have wanted anybody else but the 6-6 top-50 kid shooting the ball, bad ankle or not. But Stephens is very unselfish, certainly a good thing. But sometimes the best player in the building has to strike that balance between teammate and closer.
But St. Charles East didn’t lose because of anything Stephens didn’t do; it should have won because of everything he did do.
After three quarters, Stephens had 25 of East’s 39 points, playing on a bad ankle. He didn’t even start the game.
Stephens showed some toughness not only in playing as much as he did but in producing the way he did. He’s dealt with a couple injuries now, including the foot/toe issue that sidelined him last spring. I guess if you can draw any positives from that, you can say that it’s taught him to play through pain, and as dad Everette Stephens put it, “understand his body.”
Look, the long and short of it is that Stephens is really good, maybe an elite-level player with normal development.
Stephens isn’t a finished product, and that’s a big part of what’s so intriguing about him, as is the fact that by every account he understands he’s a work in progress and putting in the necessary effort to change that.
Next week: I should finally have this story on Stephens done.
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