2024 State Farm Intercity Basketball Tournament Champions - Normal Community High School Ironmen

Earlier this week the last 2 games of the 2024 inaugural State Farm Intercity Basketball Tournament at the Shirk Center in Bloomington IL wrapped up it's activities. The CEO and president of State Farm, Jon Farney was on hand to receive a complimentary ball in thanks for the company sponsoring the tournament. Jon had played in the tournaments predecessor as a student athlete at Normal Community High School when the tournament had no sponsor and was simply known as the Intercity Basketball Tournament. Both iterations of this tournament pit the high schools of Bloomington Normal against each other. Those teams being Bloomington High School Purple Raiders, Bloomington Central Catholic Saints, Normal Community Ironmen, Normal Community West Wildcats and the University High Pioneers. The tournament is coed and the addition of the State Farm sponsorship enabled the playing of both brackets to be played at the Shirk Center in the same week with as many as 4 games a day in some cases.

The NCHS Ironmen dominated this years tournament in both the boys and girls brackets adding a pair of trophies to the Normal Community trophy cases.

A good selection of world class sports images of many of the games played at this years tournament are available from Alan Look Photography online at his website. Be sure to check out the videos!

 The Normal Community Lady Ironmen basketball team took home the hardware last night for the State Farm Intercity Basketball Tournaments girls bracket after defeating the Saints of Bloomington Central Catholic.  The Lady Iron defeated the Normal West Lady Wildcats, University High School Lady Pioneers and the Bloomington Lady Purple Raiders on previous days play leaving them in sole possession of 1st place.

In other action on the late part of the bracket November 29th, 2024 were the Central Catholic Saints challenging the Normal Community Ironmen on the boys bracket.  Earlier play pitted the University High Pioneers against the Normal Community West Wildcats on both the girls and boys brackets.  

Play continues on Saturday November 30th.

Be sure to heck out all the photos and videos from the Intercity games that Alan Look Photography covered.

  Be sure to check out the photos from the State Farm Intercity Basketball Tournament from Alan Look Photography!  Here's a sample from the Wednesday night games between UHigh Pioneers and Normal Ironmen.  

Pioneers and Raiders top their opponents in Intercity play by a combined 7 points.

Boys Intercity always has a couple good rivalry games.  For years, the Central Catholic Saints and the University High Pioneers have had a pretty good one.  This years seems no different, maybe even a little moreso since they are now in different conferences.  The whole game was a back and forth affair that had the Saints trailing most of the night.  They closed the gap in the 4th quarter and nearly won it in the last minutes with a foul to get the ball back strategy.  In the end, the Pioneers remained on top by 4.

BHS and NCHS have had a rivalry for years, even before Normal West came to exist.  The game last night was between the West Wildcats and the Bloomington Raiders.  They also have a rivalry, but with 2 of the best players in the state - one on each team - the game took on a tone of its own.  The Shirk Center was 3 rows deep of standing room only during the 4th quarter of the earlier game.  At the start of this affair the SRO had dwindled to just one row.  Lots of fans stayed to watch this game.  The game didn't disappoint.  There were at least 4 dunks, 2 intentional fouls and one good discussion between an official and a coach.  It was maybe the best high school basketball game we have seen in 5 years.  In the end, the Raiders took it by 3 points.

Girls Intercity 2nd night posts wins by West and Community!

Normal West was impressive last night with a 57-18 win over the University Pioneers.  They pulled out to an early 10 or 12 point lead and never relinquished it.  The Wildcats played what has probably been the quickest up and down game of the 4 games we've seen in the early season.  Speed is certainly one of the weapons they have in their arsenal.

The Central Catholic v Normal Community game was all the Ironmen for the first quarter.  The Saints never felt out of it and pushed forward cutting the lead by halftime.  The final score at the buzzer was just a 2 point win 42-40 for the Iron.  Top scorers for each team were Saints Coffman and Iron Wong both with 12 each.

What's in the August 2016 issue of Best Look Magazine?

Best Look Magazine Volume 5 Issue 3 August 2016

By Alan Look in Best Look Magazine

32 pages, published 8/11/2016

Best Look Magazine, Volume 5 Issue 3, August 2016 - a sports and leisure publication featuring McLean County Illinois and beyond

Chili Bowl lives up to it's name

Yes, it was a chili night on Friday for the Chili Bowl between the Normal Community Ironmen and the Normal West Wildcats.  The temps were in the low 60's and there was a pretty good breeze blowing in from the north at Normal West High School's football field.  The effects were evidently felt more by the Wildcats than the Iron.  The Iron stormed ahead in the first half, but the Wildcats stayed in the game with a couple of pretty solid drives.  In the end, it wasn't enough for the hosts with the Iron taking the game and the Chili Bowl.

 - Chimper



20150911 Chili Bowl - NCHS at NCWHS football photos - Images by Alan Look