How the Auburn boys basketball program is building a winning culture
AUBURN — Not every team gets an escort back into town after winning a regional championship. But not every team has waited long enough between titles that most of the players on the team weren’t even alive during the last one.
The Auburn players and coaches were greeted with a caravan of joyous fans as they approached the town in southern Sangamon County following the Trojans’ 72-70 triple overtime win over Petersburg PORTA in the Class 2A Petersburg Regional championship game on Friday.
“It was really cool seeing all the cops and everyone behind us,” senior Spencer Rikas said. “There's like 20 cars behind us following, honking their horns, waking up the whole time going through it.
“I love playing at a small school. Everyone just knows everybody, everyone's behind everybody; we all support each other.”
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On Saturday, those same Auburn players woke up perhaps earlier than their bodies wanted to as Auburn holds a weekly youth basketball camp.
“And then you turn around the next morning, and you're working with the little kids,” Auburn coach Seth McCoy said on Saturday afternoon. “And they're superstars, man.
“I had a mom text me this morning. She's like, ‘Congratulations about to win, but for you and your kids to be here at eight o'clock in the morning, the next morning, giving back to the community, it makes me proud to live here in Auburn because it's a community thing.’”
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In the afternoon, the players were back at it as the Trojans (22-10) prepared to play Bloomington Central Catholic (18-15) in the 2A Stanford Olympia Sectional semifinals on at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Rikas, the team’s more prolific shooter, said some players were more sore than others.
“I actually don't feel that bad,” he said Saturday. “My back's a little sore, but I know some of my teammates are really sore today.”
Building a winning culture
Auburn’s last regional win came against a school — Divernon — which is now incorporated into the Auburn School District. It was a 60-49 win on Feb. 27, 2004. It was the seventh regional title in school history, according to records listed by the Illinois High School Association.
Auburn seniors like Rikas and Brock Burwitz were just months old.
But this success didn’t come about overnight. McCoy said it’s been a process in the making since he got to the school in 2017. The team was 17-12 that first season.
“We're putting in our system,” McCoy said, “trying to build a culture.”
The following season, the Trojans went 22-9. That was good enough to get recognized on a 20-win banner inside the Auburn gymnasium. In 2020, the team again had 22 wins and made it to a Class 2A regional title game but lost, 54-39, to host Pleasant Plains. But it was another sign of progress, McCoy said.
“And then you're thinking, ‘Alright, the next step is a regional title,” McCoy said. “And then the pandemic hit.”
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Auburn was 11-8 in the COVID-19-abbreviated 2021 spring season.
“Then you get back, and you almost felt like you almost had to reset it,” McCoy said of entering this season, “like you had to start over.
“But it wasn't, which told me that trying to build the culture and trying to try to build the mentality, and trying to build the expectations — even when you go through that, and you don't get a postseason, it's still lingering there.”
McCoy is 94-50 in his five seasons, including 22-10 this season.
Lifelong memories
Junior Nathan Barth, who finished with 10 points, said he will always remember the regional title.
“I just remember getting a lot of tough buckets, battling back and forth; we fought,” Barth said. “We missed some free throws down the stretch but we battled back. Every overtime was up and down up and down.
“Three overtimes in a regional championship game against a Sangamo (Conference) opponent is really something to remember. We knew it was going to be a battle but we knew we had to pull it off.”
Barth is the son of Jon Barth, who spent nine seasons as the New Berlin coach. Barth moved to Auburn at the start of his sixth-grade year. For Barth, though, he lives with a coach, so he gets a lot of advice. Jon Barth’s guidance paid off, he said.
“He just tells me to just keep fighting: if you have a bad play, forget about it and if you have a good play, forget about it,” the Trojans’ junior said. “Just constantly reminding myself that it's going to be OK, and we're going to pull through.”
Burwitz missed much of the season with a broken hand. He played in the Trojans’ first two games, including 64-61 win over Central State Eight Conference’s Springfield High on Dec. 3. He didn’t play again until Feb. 1, a 58-44 win at Litchfield. He missed Auburn’s third-place finishes in the Waverly Holiday Tournament and the Sangamon County Tournament in December and January, respectively.
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But being part of the regional championship helps ease the pain of the broken hand and the disappointment of missing a bulk of his senior season, he said, but it doesn’t eliminate it.
“I still wish I had those games back, but I'm really happy that I was there for (Friday),” Burwitz said.
It is Burwitz’ third season at Auburn after moving from Pawnee.
Like Burwitz, Jackson Kern was leaned heavily on following the foul-out disqualifications of sophomores Sawyer Smith and Grant Dobson.
Kern said trying to replace is a tough task.
“At the start of the first overtime, I was like, 'Oh, God, we don't have Grant. I'm not as big as him. I'm not as tall — I have no length compared to him,” Kern said. “He's stronger, he can just get around these guys. And I have to work 10 times harder.
“But after I got going, I'd say two minutes in, I started calming down a little bit. After that, I just was like, ‘We have a chance. We're going to win this and it happened.’ It took us a while but it happened.”
McCoy said Kern and Burwitz provide him starter-level production ability off the bench. Burwitz said that’s the goal in whatever minutes he gets.
“I mean, it just speaks for itself,” Burwitz said. “I love playing for this team. Whenever I'm on the court, I play as hard as I possibly can.”
Contact Ryan Mahan: 857-246-9756, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Class 2A boys basketball: Auburn growth leads to IHSA regional title
