SoCalHoops High School News

Nike Extravaganza Game 7: Bishop O'Dowd
Almost Gets To Mater Dei--(Feb. 10, 1999)

We've watched this game at least five times now, and the funny thing is, every time it ends the same way. We watched this game in person on Saturday night, and then watched it again on Sunday on Fox Sports West 2. Since Sunday, we've watched it at least two more times, looking and looking, searching for the moment, that one particular moment, where Bishop O'Dowd let this one get away.

Mater Dei won 57-54, but it wasn't until the last 2.7 seconds had expired that Gary McKnight and the nationally ranked (No. 14) Monarchs knew for sure that they'd won. This was a game that came down to the wire, with an exciting last second play that was in part enabled by Mater Dei, which curiously called a timeout with 2.7 seconds remaining on the clock, which gave O'Dowd, which had no timeouts left, a chance to set up what might have been the winning play.And with the same 2.7 seconds remaining on the clock in the fourth quarter, Bishop O'Dowd, unranked nationally, but ranked 9th in California by Cal Hi Sports still had some life left in it and was still in a position to tie the game. But O'Dowd could win with only one play, a three pointer. And they almost got it as Tony Champion kicked the ball out to Justin Silva for the last second shot which just missed, barely.

There was a lot more to this game though than just the last 2.7 seconds: There was lots of good stuff happening in this game during the first 30 minutes, and this game was really pretty close throughout. We kept waiting for the blowout which some had anticipated, to happen, but it never did. In fact, jsut the opposite occurred. At the outset of this game, with Mater Dei leading by about 5, Louis Johnson kept telling us "Don't worry, this is a good time for us to go eat; it will be a blowout." But Louis and the rest of us stayed glued to our seats, waiting for that blowout to occur, but Bishop O'Dowd ended up leading at the end of the first quarter 15-14.

And the same thing happened in the second quarter. Just when it looked like Mater Dei would put them away, O'Dowd would come right back with a great play or a great block, or a great defensive play. And at the end of the second quarter, Mater Dei only led by one, with the score 30-29. So much for the blowout.

The most that Mater Dei was able to extend the lead was by 5 at the end of the third quarter, where they led 44-39. And in the fourth quarter, O'Dowd managed to make up most of the deficit behind some great scoring by Garry Hill-Thomas (6'-3" Jr.SG) who managed 17 points in the game, 10 in the first half. O'Dowd also had some tremendously athletic play from Derek Lambeth (6'-5" Sr. SG/SF) who grabbed 9 rebounds and scored 15 points mostly inside the paint with a few assists from big man Tony Champion (6'-8" Sr. F/C), who still looks like he would do better if he got that piano off his back.

But with all that extra weight (Tony was listed in the program at 300 lbs, but we'd put him at least 320 lbs) there was not much that Erik Soderberg or even Mike Bayer could do to keep him out of the key, and if he had a better shot, he would have scored a lot more because every time he backed into Bayer or Soderberg, or even Jamal Sampson, or stepped around them, he was getting clean looks at the basket. Anyway, Tony is pretty impressive for such a huge guy, because notwithstanding all that weight, he still runs the floor very well. He finished with 8 points and 2 rebounds, certainly not stellar in the defensive end but not bad offensively, considering he only played 11 minutes in the game.

There were a few other scorers for O'Dowd, but no one who really lit it up. Justin Silva had 6 points on 2 for 7 shoting from the field, and Jason Comte (6'-2" Sr. SG) only had 2 points, but did those little things that really matter, like boxing out, rebounding (5), and in general hustling for loose balls and diving on the floor and playing aggressive defense. Unfortunately for the O'Dowd Dragons, there just weren't enough of them to go around and Mater Dei was too deep. Steve Scoggin had a good, but not great game, but he did manage to hit for 5 for 7 three pointers (he took 3 other 2 point shots, hitting only 1) and he shot 2 for 3 from the line for a total of 19 points, a game high for Mater Dei, and if there is much doubt that he's one of the best junior shooters in SoCal, this game put that to rest. He's clearly one of the best, and there aren't many who can hit from what is clearly NBA range with the kind of consistency that he has shown.

Cedric Bozeman also managed to reel off a couple of points, 15 to be specific, and he played well, dishing out 7 assists and shooting 5 for 11 from the field and 5 for 7 from the line, and grabbing 9 rebounds, a pretty impressive performance. Mike Bayer played steadily, getting 8 points but only 2 boards, while Jamal Sampson played 16 minutes with his left hand wrapped in what looked like a pillow (he had hurt it in the prior game) and while he only scored 4 points, he also blocked 4 shots. Others scoring were Derrick Mansell with 3, Ricky Porter (5'-10" So. PG) who is certain to be a star in the next two years, scoring 4, Mike Strawberry (6'-4" Fr. F) with 4 and 2 rebounds in only 5 minutes of playing time, and Erik Soderberg with 2 points and 5 rebounds in 14 minutes.

The fourth quarter action was really the best, and the last 1:30 was really where O'Dowd lost it and Mater Dei won it if it was anywhere. With 1:23 to play the score was 49-51 Mater Dei. With Mater Dei bringing in the ball after forcing a turnover, and with 1:07 Cedric Bozeman hit a layup and was fouled, going to the line, where he hits the free throw to put Mater Dei up 54-49. O'Dowd then brought the ball up the court, and Derek Lambeth made a spinning layup with 48.5 seconds remaining to bring the score to 54-51, O'Dowd down by three. With Mater Dei bringing the ball up the court Derrick Mansell worked patiently for what seemed like it was the last shot (it wouldn';t have been, given the discrepancy on the shot and game clocks) but Gary McKnight wasn't happy with what he saw and called a timeout with 23.1 seconds on the game clock and 11 on the shot clock to set up a play.

On the very next play, in what could have been, might have been the moment which cost O'Dowd the game, Jeff Pon inadvertently fouled Bozeman who was cutting from right to left across the key. You could see the pain in Pon's face, because he knew what the foul meant, and he knew that it would also put Mater Dei up by more than three with just seconds to play if Bozeman made the foul shots since Mater Dei was in double bonus. So with 17.7 on the clock, Bozeman went to the line, shooting two.

Amazingly, Bozeman missed the first and there was still life left for O'Dowd after all. O'Dowd called a timeout, perhaps to freeze Bozeman, perhaps to set up a play, but with 17.7 on the clock, the score was still 54-51, Mater Dei ahead by three. After the timeout, Bozeman made the second one to bring the score to 51-55, and Mater Dei called its own timeout to set up the defense, and when they came out, Mater Dei went into a fullcourt press, not a trap, but just enough pressure to burn precious seconds off the clock. Jeff Pon managed to dribble through the pressure, passed the ball to Silva on the right wing, who passed to Jason Comte down on the right side baseline, and with time ticking away, Comte fed Silva at the top right hand side of the arc, where he managed to hit a beautiful arcing three-pointer off the dribble. Wow!. O'Dowd was still alive, but barely, trailing by one, 55-54 with only 4.5 seconds remaining.

O'Dowd called its last timeout, with only 4.5 seconds remaining, and Scoggins was immediately fouled on the inbounds with only 2.7 seconds remaining on the clock. If O'Dowd was going to win it outright, Scoggins would have to miss them both. But even if he made them both, O'Dowd could still tie it. With a miracle.

Scoggins was 0-1 on free throws going to the line. Prior to the Nike Dream Classic, Scoggin had a reputation for never missing free throws, much less clutch free throws in the waning seconds of a game. But at the Nike Dream Classic at Pauley, Scoggins managed to miss two important free throws which cost Mater Dei it's rematch game against Dominguez. We don't know what was going through Steve's mind on Saturday night as he went to the line to shoot those two shots, but we'd bet he wasn't thinking about the Dream Classic finish. Because on this night, in this arena, before about 3,500 fans in a standing room only crowd and a television audience, Scoggin wasn't going to miss an uncontested shot from the charity stripe. Scoggin made them both, bringing the score to 57-54 with 2.7 second remaining.

But it wasn't over. Not yet. There was still one more O'Dowd possession, and with these two teams, just about anything was possible. With 2.7 seconds, and Mater Dei (that's right, Mater Dei) calling the final timeout--something we wouldn't have thought Gary McKnight would do, because it just allowed O'Dowd, which was out of timeouts, to set up the final play--leading by three, O'Dowd still had one more play up it's sleeve.

Jeff Pon was designated to bring the ball in, standing just to the right of the Mater Dei basket facing upcourt towards the O'Dowd end of the court. O'Dowd coach Mike Phelps had Tony Champion set up right at the top of the key facing the Mater Dei basket. Pon let go with a long pass, which traveled almost the length of the court, and it hit Champion on the money, and big Tony, surrounded by three Mater Dei defenders, managed to tip the ball back out across the three point line to a waiting Jason Silva who launched a three pointer which hit the rim and almost, almost went in at the buzzer to tie it. All in 2.7 seconds. If it had dropped, it clearly would have been good. What a great play.

Except that the ball didn't go in, and Mater Dei won the game in an exciting finish, 57-54.

But it doesn't get much more exciting than this, and by the time Oak Hill and Dominguez came out for the final game of the evening, which by the way didn't get started until almost 10:30 p.m., about 1 and a half hours late, everyone in the house was pretty much emotionally spent. Great game, great crowd (and an almost huge crowd outside that was unable to get in due to the sellout). Huge fun.

Mater Dei finishes this game at 24-3 overall and O'Dowd is at 16-5. Mater Dei finishes the regular season with home games Tuesday (February 10) against Dana Hills and on Friday against Trabuco Hills. There's not much chance, in fact zero, that they won't win their league and make a deep run in the playoffs. Personally, we think Mater Dei is going to have a difficult road making it to the D-IA this year, but then again, they just might do it. Goodness knows, they've got the talent, and they've got the coaching. Whether they can continue to string the wins together against consistently tough competition during the playoffs is something only time will tell. And O'Dowd could very well knock off some of the bigger and more successful (to date) Division I opponents in the Bay Area if they get really lucky between now and the NorCal finals; do they have the talent to be State Champs or even NorCal champs, given teams like St. Ignatius? Maybe, but probably not. But then maybe they'll surprise us all. We'll be watching.

Here are some photos of game action. Not nearly as good as Larry Gray's stuff, but then it's what we've got.

Great game. Big time fun.