grant v. sylmar game report

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SoCalHoops High School News

Grant Loses To Sylmar At Home;
Arenas Stifled, Gets Only 21--(Feb 2, 1999)

We went out to watch the Grant v. Sylmar game expecting to see big things from Gilbert Arenas. Instead we saw a game which was, at best, perplexing and confusing. At the beginning of the game, we picked Sylmar to win by 15. If Gilbert Arenas had not made an uncontested layup with 1 second left on the clock, which should have been disallowed because he hung on the rim, we'd have been right. As it was, Grant lost by 13 points, 51-64.

This was one of the stranger Grant games we've seen. And one of th better Sylmar games. George Wrighster (6'-5" Sr. F) had an unbelievably good game, perhaps in honor of his signing a National Letter of Intent to play football next year at the University of Oregon. George turned down UCLA and Arizona, perhaps because neither of these schools had any interest in him playing basketball as well as football. We're pretty sure (although not completely certain) that some assurances were made that George can also shoot the rock after the end of the oblong spheroid season.

Today, it was George's turn to have a spectacular game, and he did, scoring 24 points in just about every way a player can score: From behind the three point arc, driving layups, free throws, fall away jumpers, tip-ins, and slams. And he also was called upon in the second quarter to defend Gilbert one-on-one, and did a fair job of keeping him away from the ball.

Not as good though as T.K. Reed did during the first half. Reed stuck to Arenas like glue. . . if Gilbert went left, Reed was there ahead of him; if he went right, there was Reed; if he went to the bathroom, well, Reed was already there too. We mean Reed was just on top of Gilbert, holding him to what must have been a career low 4 first half points.

And it wasn't like Sylmar was doubling Gil, or doing anything really special. Just solid man-to-man defense. And the weirdest part was that either Coach Levine at Grant wasn't going to run the offense through Gilbert, or Gilbert has got a good case of "senior-itis" because he just would go down to the block in the first half, and stand there. He made zero effort to get free from Reed, and rarely, if ever, moved without the ball.

We really can't explain what happened in the first half, especially with Gilbert. Nothing was working for Grant. In the first quarter, Grant only had 8 points and Arenas had only 2 of those, off a slashing layup. Sylmar led in the first quarter 17-8 as Branden Jacobs scored 6, T.K. Reed scored 4, and Wrighster had 7. The only scorers for Grant in the first quarter were Rashawd with 3, Gil with 2, and Daniel Tarr with 3.

The second quarter was not much better and at one point, Sylmar led by as many as 16 points. With a little more than 5 minutes to play the score was 20-8. Sheesh. Gilbert wasn't getting the ball, but instead was playing decoy for others, and he was picking up fouls like they were going out of style. With two minutes to play in the first half, he had his third foul.

While Grant made a couple of runs in the second half, there was no way it was going to happen for the Lancers. Sylmar was just too strong, too deep, and they weren't making the same mistakes like Grant was.

Now Gilbert didn't have such a bad game. . . if he were anyone else. But for Gilbert Arenas, a 21 point effort was certainly substandard. And the real problem was that Gil was the only Grant player in double figures. Ryan Logan finished with just 3, Tarr finished with 8, Edison finished with 4, Rashawd Winston had 7, Justin Buttikofer, who passed up just a bunch of open looks (shoot the ball, shoot the ball) only finished with 1, and Krishna Evans finished with 7.

Sylmar, on the other hand, played very well. Not the best we've ever seen them play, because they fouled Grant way too much and committed too many easy turnovers. And those charging fouls. . . three of them in the first half alone.

Anway, it really didn't matter as Branden Jacobs hit for 12 points, including a couple of really nice threes. Dallas Townsend had 3 points, Derrico Damien had 2, John Valdez had 3, T.K. Reed had 10, Jeremiah Turner had 6 and George Wrighster had 24.

So Grant drops to 5-2 in league play, and Sylmar improves to 6-1 and takes sole possession of first place.

These two teams will do it again a week from this Friday at Sylmar. Gee, we can't wait.