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SoCalHoops High School News

Reminder: adidas SoCal Basketball
Classic This Saturday--(Jan. 26, 1999)

Today's papers, including Frank Burlison's column in the Register and Louis Johnson's in the Press-Telegram (we're expecting that Gary Klein will pick it up on Thursday with the LA Times' weekly Prep Special, unless they get displaced by the Super Bowl. . . ) were full of news about the adidas SoCal Basketball Classic (formerly known simply as the "Artesia-Poly Classic"). In case you forgot, let us remind you again: This event will take place this Saturday at L.A. Southwest College. As Louis Johnson notes, "The event, like last week's Nike Dream Classic, is a must-see for basketball fans."

The event is still hosted officially by Long Beach Poly and Artesia High Schools. It's just got a new name (we sorta like the "So Cal" tag. . nice don't you think?) and is sponsored by adidas. The event will take place on Saturday, January 30, 1999, and will take place at Southwest LA College, located at Imperial Highway & Western Avenue.

Here's what you'll see:

3:00 p.m. Game 1: Mater Dei v. Anaheim Canyon

4:30 p.m. Game 2: Verbum Dei v. Pasadena

6:00 p.m. Game 3: Artesia v. Compton

7:30 p.m. Game 4: Long Beach Poly v. Compton Dominguez

USA Today has redone it's national rankings, and now Compton Dominguez is ranked No. 10 in the nation. Artesia is still No. 14, and Mater Dei is ranked No. 15. That's in the country (of course we realize it's just Dave Kreider's opinion, but it's still impressive that these teams have garnered this much attention). Every one of these teams (except Canyon and Pasadena) is a top 10 team either in Cal Hi or the SCIBCA poll. And even if you could care less about polls (we're in that group), you're going to see some great players matching up.

We've said it before, but we'll say it again. These are great matchups. In the first game, Mater Dei v. Canyon, you'll see the No. 15 ranked (USA Today) Monarchs' Mike Bayer, Steve Scoggin, Derek Mansell and Cedric Bozeman take on Canyon's Ryan Romberg, Neil Hammad, Roger Hogan and a host of other talented Orange County players.

Game 2 features Marlon Parmer, one of the top point guards in SoCal, Dalron Johnson who has signed with UNLV, Washum Dashiell, a big time scoring threat, and the rest of the David Greenwood-coached Verb guys matching up against players like George DeJohnette, and Jasun Ridley. Unfortunately, we hear that Clayton Coleman has left the Pasadena team, so don't expect to see him there; but they've got more than enough talent to give the Verbum guys a run for it, even if they did get hammered pretty badly by Muir last Friday. We'd expect Verb to win, but then you just never know; Tim Tucker is one heck of a coach, and he's probably got something up his sleeve.

Artesia, still ranked No. 14 by USA Today (as of January 26) against Compton will be a game study in contrasts both athletically and in style of play as Jason Kapono, Amaury Fernandez, Jack Martinez, Andre Hazel and the rest of the highly talented and skilled Pioneers match up against Tito Maddox, Ellis Myles, Leroy Dawson, Terry Hosendove and the rest of the quick and athletic Tarbabes.

Finally, in the last game of the day, you'll see SCIBCA's No. 3 team, Long Beach Poly, and Wesley Stokes, Tim Thomas, Marcus Sargent, Kenny Wright, Rahman Shotwell, Shea Anderson, Keyon Cooley, and Joe Travis of the Jackrabbits, among others, taking on the incredibly talented and deep Dominguez Dons, who are currently ranked as the No. 1 team in Division II in the State, No. 10 in the country according to USA Today (as of Jan. 26), featuring Tyson Chandler, Keith Brooks, Keith Kincade, Ronald Jackson, Keilon Fortune, Larry Johnson, Steve Moore, and many others.

Pretty amazing lineup: Four games, and at least three teams ranked in the top 15 in the country.

LA Southwest College in located at the corner of Imperial Highway and Western Avenue and there's lots of parking at the college (there's a $1 charge for parking). We've been asked also to advise everyone that if you have any questions about the event, to contact the event directors, Joe Kapono or B. Shotwell directly. They can be reached via e-mail at USHOTWELL@aol.com.

Tickets are $7 and will be on sale at the door.

See you there.

©Copyright 1998 All rights reserved
Questions? Comments? Need Information?
Contact: jegesq@SoCalHoops.com

be Gilbert Arenas. But there's no doubt about who this year's high-scorer is. It's Jason Kapono.

When we did our weekend update, we relied on the LA Times for the "high scorers" totals. Our bad. The Times said that Jason only had 50 points in the Friday night game against Glenn. ONLY.

Well, they were wrong.

As Louis Johnson points out in his great regular Tuesday column in the Long Beach Press Telegram, Jason scored 52 points. Not 50. 52. Fifty-two.

In doing so he became Artesia's all time leading single game scorer, eclipsing Ed O'Bannon's 1989 record of 50. Jason also racked up 18 rebounds and 9 assists in only 24 minutes of play. He shot 18 for 21 (.857) from the field. He shot 6 for 7 (.857) from three point range. He made 10 of 10 free throws (1.000 for you math majors). All in TWENTY FOUR MINUTES. That's 12 minutes short of a whole game, more than one and a half quarters he didn't play.

Johnson interviewed Jason yesterday for his article and Kapono told him:

"That's never happened to me before," said the senior forward, whose scoring outburst established new marks for his school and the Suburban League. "I really didn't shoot the ball that much. I just seemed to be making every shot. I didn't plan on going out and (scoring 52 points) . . . I just wanted to
play hard and win the game. It just happened."

So who's the best player in SoCal right now? We don't know. But we do know that Jason is certainly among the best if not the best right now.