By Noah Poser

Uplift head coach Robert Wallace remembers what it was like in 2017 when the varsity boys basketball team last won a conference championship. It’s a time he looks back on fondly, especially knowing now what would follow.

He didn’t know it then, but the Titans program would soon fall on tough times. Wallace would be forced to watch his once proud program suffer through a stretch that included three consecutive seasons of one-win basketball, and all the while, look on as Uplift became an afterthought among Chicago’s top players.

But when the final buzzer sounded Friday on a 68-39 win over Intrinsic (8-8), all that went out the window, as just two years after their most recent one-win season, the Titans were conference champions once more.

“Two years ago, the starters on this team and the entire core group were freshmen,” Wallace said. “Two of them are still starting today as juniors. We’re finally starting to build around them and put the pieces in place where these three kids that saw a one-win season are now reaping the benefits of working hard and capitalizing on the experience of starting early.”

One of those freshman starters was now-junior Rodrick Winston, who paired with sophomore Tysean Davis to lead Uplift (11-1) to victory on its home court.

Winston scored 23 points, with 11 coming in the second half, while Davis finished with 26 points, including 16 after halftime. Their combined 27 points in the second half accounted for all but 10 of the team’s total points in the third and fourth quarters.

“We were killing it,” Davis said. “We (he and Winston) were just transitioning, transitioning, transitioning. We were killing it in transition. It’s good that we were in the zone, but everybody was in the zone on defense too, really. We all just piggybacked off each other.”

But ultimately it was the duo’s second-half outburst that proved to be the catalyst the Titans needed to extend their perfect start in conference play to 8-0 after Intrinsic proved to be a tougher matchup on the court than on paper. The Mustangs hung around for the entire first half, thanks in large part to the shooting of senior Brandon Loredo.

Loredo scored 12 first-half points and Intrinsic was only down six at the break, 31-25. He eventually finished the game with 17 points to lead the Mustangs.

Despite his team not having the start he hoped for, all it took was Wallace reminding them what was at stake for them to turn things around.

“I called on my juniors and seniors who have seen us at our worst,” Wallace said. “I let them know everything was right there. I told them the conference championship is at their doorstep and I asked them if they wanted it. They all said yeah, so I told them to go out there in the second half and show them this is our conference.

“And we won.”

It was just like that, that Wallace, with a single win, was able to finally wash away the bad that had been encompassing his team for years.

It’s a victory that will not only bring a promotion to a higher conference for the Titans next season, but with it a newfound hope for a program that previously had little cause for optimism.

But perhaps even more importantly, it’s a win that provides a bit of redemption for a coach, who piece-by-piece, has brought what was once a boys high school basketball powerhouse back to the precipice of big-time success.

Although this time, he intends for his school to stick around for a while.

Photos by Zoe Davis/OSA