Winnebago has won 59 straight regular-season boys basketball games.

Now it’s time to beef up the schedule.

But that’s not easy, even for a program with three state tournament appearances in the last six years.

“People think you can just go out and get anybody you want to get,” Winnebago coach Joe Murphy said. “But those teams don’t want to play us.”

Winnebago added one NIC-10 team to its schedule this season — Belvidere. The Indians won 79-33 at Belvidere.

“We’d like to play all the NIC-10 teams,” Murphy said. “But they won’t play us, and they won’t move us into that conference. We can only play the teams in the area.”

Local basketball fans would love to see Winnebago face the top NIC-10 teams. And since Winnebago has one of the area’s largest fan followings, bigger schools would benefit financially, as well as competitively, by hosting the Indians.

But NIC-10 teams can have few, if any, nonconference games on their schedule, and most use them to play other strong large schools. Boylan doesn’t want to swap a Homewood-Flossmoor game for a Winnebago game, just as Auburn wouldn’t want to sacrifice games with Waukegan and Moline.

The large-school thinking is what would they have to gain? A good 4A team is expected to beat a good 2A team. And if the large schools lose, then they have to deal with the “embarrassment” of losing to a small school.

“Many bigger schools aren’t particularly interested in being beat by a much smaller program,” said South Beloit coach Mat Parker.

The Sobos (22-4) know that first hand. Parker also wants to toughen his Class 1A team’s schedule, but said schools have stopped playing South Beloit after the Sobos improved enough to beat them. “We have no control over that aspect of scheduling and then have to struggle to fill our schedule again,” Parker said.

The IHSA allows NIC-10 teams, which play 16 league games, to play in three tournaments, with no nonconference games, or schedule two tournaments with two nonconference games.

“Most schools try to schedule based on the needs of their own team and what it is trying to accomplish that year,” Hononegah coach Mike Miller said. “Some want the best competition, some want to bring in revenue, some want to schedule wins, etc.”

More teams would be open to playing Winnebago in a tournament. Hononegah plays host to the toughest tournament in the area every January with its Martin Luther King Classic and invited Winnebago this year.

“We would have loved to have them in the tournament because of their large fan following and excellent team,” Miller said.

But taking a jump from the E.C. Nichols Tournament in Marengo to make a two-year commitment to the MLK Classic is too big of a step for the Indians, Murphy said.

“It might have been nice this year, but next year we come back down to earth,” Murphy said. “We lose 11 seniors. It’s going to be much more difficult.”

After many years of playing 1A and 2A teams and winning tournaments in Forreston and Marengo, Winnebago did change its holiday tournament schedule for next season. The Indians will forego the E.C. Nichols tourney for the Chuck Dayton Tournament in DeKalb, which includes all 3A and 4A opponents, including established local programs from Rochelle and Jefferson.

“Hopefully we can pick up some more, bigger schools,” Murphy said, “but we’re going to pay a price for that.”

The thinking is the Indians would be better prepared to face top-notch teams when the playoffs start. They’d be more like some of the other 2A state powerhouses. Chicago Hales Franciscan, for example, played 14 Class 4A opponents this year. Peoria Manual has 14 3A and seven 4A teams on its schedule. Neither played a 1A team.

Winnebago played one 4A team, six 3A teams, 16 2A opponents, four 1A games — and won by 26 points per game.

But Winnebago isn’t completely out-of-touch with the NIC-10 teams. The Indians play most of them in the summer, where they beat teams like Auburn and Jefferson — both now 12-3 in the NIC-10 — to win the RVC Summer League.

“I know summer is different, but we played a lot of big schools all summer long,” Murphy said. “And that’s what gets you ready.

“After that, it just comes down to the determination of your kids and how bad they want to win. And these kids want to win.”

Winnebago plays a weaker schedule from some of the other powers in the state. And, yes, it would be great to see them play more NIC-10 schools. But don’t discredit the Indians because of their schedule. It hasn’t hurt them yet. The Indians have still reached the state tournament more times than any other team in the area.

And if it’s not broke ...

— Emily Tropp, rrstar.com