Top-ranked Benet primed for January showdown with Warren and Jaxson Davis

With too many lopsided scores and little drama, the recently concluded holiday tournaments didn’t provide quite the normal juice to the regular season they typically do.

As we recalibrate following the results of those tournaments, they have left us with some must-see matchups that should energize the regular season.

Go ahead and start the hype for the Warren-Benet clash in three weeks, which will be a rematch of last year’s Class 4A state championship game.

Benet, the top-ranked team, and Warren, led by the state’s best player, will meet in the annual When Sides Collide on Jan. 24 at Benet.

The two highly-ranked teams put together the most impressive holiday tournament runs.

Yes, Warren won the Big Dipper Holiday Tournament. But it’s how the Blue Devils won it — in complete and dominating fashion.

The results — lopsided semifinal and championship game victories by a combined 55 points over ranked teams — left you wondering just how good this Warren team can be in the second half of the season?

Superstar Jaxson Davis lit up the Big Dipper with a 51-point performance in the title game rout over Kenwood, but the supporting cast continues to morph into their roles. And veteran senior Braylon Walker is turning into the impressive running mate expected.

For Benet, it was a December to remember.

This team really came together and showed its exciting ceiling behind two experienced seniors, guard Jayden Wright and big man Colin Stack, who produce and impact in different ways, along with the emergence of 6-8 junior Ed Stasys.

Benet swept three games on a trip to Philadelphia in the middle of the month and followed that up by winning two separate holiday tournaments to end the month.

The real eye-opener, though, was the performance at Pontiac. Benet, which lost in the title game in each of the last three years, took down No. 1 ranked DePaul Prep. That came after dismantling the No. 2 ranked team, Curie, by 33 points in the semifinal.

Which leads us to another circle-the-calendar date: Feb. 17.

That’s when Benet and Marist collide in what will be the final East Suburban Catholic Conference game ever played. The conference will disband following the season with ESCC teams headed to the Chicago Catholic League in 2026-27.

The ESCC couldn’t have asked for a better final matchup for the conference, which will feature two teams with state title aspirations.

Marist, which captured its first Centralia Holiday Tournament title since 2016, enters the new year rolling.

Prior to its title game showdown with unbeaten and tournament host Centralia, the RedHawks dominated, beating its first three tournament opponents, including Evanston, by an average victory margin of over 30 points a game.

Behind tournament MVP Charles Barnes, who scored 31 in the semifinal win over Evanston and 14 in the title game victory, Marist knocked off previously unbeaten Centralia 50-42.

This is an improved defensive team and extremely balanced. Barnes, Stephen Brown, Kendall Meyers, Adoni Vassilakis, TJ Tate, Karson Thomas and Tyce Bullock all reached double figures in scoring at least once in the tournament.

Marist, which hasn’t lost to an in-state opponent, will get its biggest regular-season test to date in a marquee matchup against DePaul Prep, also at the Jan. 24 When Sides Collide event.