SoCalHoops High School News

CIF State Finals Division I Game Preview:
Mater Dei v. Oakland Fremont--(March 17, 1999)

State Championship Game--Division I
8 p.m., Saturday, March 20 - Arco Arena
Sacramento California

By now, we all know how tough, how strong, and how deep Mater Dei of Santa Ana has been this year.   From last year's "most beatable Mater Dei team in a decade" according to Gary McKnight,  to this team, there have been quite a few pleasant surprises from this talented group, and some unpleasant surprises for many who thought they could be beaten.  Among the ranks of the defeated this year are Compton Dominguez, Glendora, Artesia, Bishop O'Dowd, and   at 30 other teams who have fallen.   Among the only teams to have beaten Mater Dei are two they defeated, Dominguez (which beat them in a rematch of their Reebok Prep Classic matchup in Vegas)  at the MLK Dream Classic,  and Glendora, (which beat in the first game of the season at the Wooden Classic).  The most surprising thing about Mater Dei is their smart play, their  tenacity and good coaching.   This is about as well-coached a team as you'll ever see and with that same good coaching, year in and year out, Mater Dei has won three state championships in four tries in the 1990's.   Whether they can win a fourth title in their fifth appearance is what we'll all find out at about 10:00 p.m. when Saturday's matchup against Oakland Fremont is over.

Man for man, size for size, Mater Dei's starters match up very well with Oakland Fremont's starters, but beyond the first five, that's probably where Mater Dei has the advantage.  But before we get to the matchups, a little history:  Fremont High and Mater Dei of Santa Ana will be playing what is, in essence for their coaches, a rematchup of the 1995 championship game.  That game was thought to be one of the best in CIF history. Mater Dei came into that game 35-1, ranked third in the country  led by Schea Cotton, who was already becoming a prep legend as a sophomore.  Cotton scored his team's first 11 points and finished with 29 for the game. The Monarchs led by 11 at halftime and seven after three quarters. But Fremont guard Frank Knight, (who recently completed his college eligibility at St. Mary's College) scored 17 of his team-high 23 points in the fourth quarter to rally the Tigers in front of 14,173 at the Coliseum. With 6.8 seconds left, Fremont's Jermaine Wilson missed the front end of an one-and-one. Mater Dei sank two free throws with 4.2 seconds left to give it a 65-62 lead. Knight responded, however, by dribbling up the court with Mater Dei defenders on both sides, and launching a 3-pointer from just beyond the top of the key. It banked home -- sending the game into overtime and the crowd into a frenzy. "When he banked that in, I about fell over," Mater Dei coach Gary McKnight said afterward. "We had one of our best defenders on him all game. He's a tough player." It was the third Division I final to go into overtime in the modern era and first since 1985. In overtime, Mater Dei outscored Fremont 6-2 to win the game -- but Knight's shot is one that won't be forgotten. "I was a senior and what did I have to lose?" Knight said afterward. "I like the ball in my hands at the end of the game. I like to make shots in the clutch."

Besides the 1995 Championship game with Mater Dei, Fremont's only other appearance in the state final was 1917, when coach Charles Blesse led the Tigers to a 36-12 win over Fresno. The Tigers are the fourth team from the Oakland Athletic League to make the state final in the "modern era", i.e., after 1981 (and even though the official CIF History of the games speaks of 1981 as the beginning of the "modern era" the first "north-south" game didn't occur until 1982. Mater Dei will be making its fifth appearance in the state final. The Monarchs won in 1987 and 1990, defeating Ygnacio Valley 69-51 and Riordan 62-20, respectively. They lost to Jason Kidd and St. Joseph 59-37 in 1992.

To get to this game,  Fremont beat previously unbeaten De La Salle of Concord, 55-50,  (which itself beat the USA Today No. 8 ranked St. Ignatius team), in the NorCal finals behind the play of Josh Shavies who had 20 points and played a key role inside with 10 rebounds. Mater Dei, as we all know, beat some of the best, including Artesia in the Southern California Regional finals in overtime, 68-55.   While Mater Dei was the No. 4 seed in the regionals, they still ended up traveling (because of the travel priorities) for their first game against Bonita Vista whom they beat 79-53, and Manual Arts, 66-64 who they played in the semifinal round at Loyola Marymount, and then Artesia. The Monarchs are now 34-3, a better record than most thought they would ever achieve this season.  Not bad: In one year Mater Dei went from "beatable" to almost unbeatable.  Smart coaching, smart playing, and skilled players who, for the most part have stayed injury free haven't hurt either. Fremont, the second seed in the North managed some really close wins against seventh seed Bishop O'Dowd, 66-61 (Bishop O'Dowd almost beat Mater Dei at the Nike Extravaganza in February), and No. 3 Seed Bellarmine Prep, 65-56, before beating De La Salle. Fremont is 28-4 on the season and is a very athletic squad which loves to run and looking at the matchups, these two teams are pretty comparable on paper, perhaps the closest matchup of any two teams in any of the divisions.

Here are the rosters:

As you can see, Mater Dei is taller and a shade deeper on the bench than Fremont.  Oakland has two big-time players, Josh Shavies, and Larry Guess. Guess averaged 23.0 ppg this season and 4.0 rebounds, while Shavies averaged 19.1 ppg,  and 10.1 rebounds per game.  Also leading the charge for the Tigers was Jermaine Turner who averaged 13.1 ppg and 7.1 rpg. The rest of the players, including Pitts averaged somewhere betwene 4 and 7 points per game and about 2-3 rebounds per game.  

But Guess and Shavies are the two most dangerous players for Mater Dei, and we'd expect that Gusss, the shooter in the group, will probably get the "Casey Jacobsen" treatment from guys like Christian McGuigan, Mikie Strawberry and even Steve Scoggin.  Look for Mike Bayer, Erik Soderberg and Jamal Sampson to take care of the inside against Shavies.  Guess is extremely dangerous, both from inside and outside, and he's been doing it all season long. In December, Guess, scored in double figures in each of five games as the Tigers went 3-2 in the Nike Prep Classic in San Diego. He had 28 points in a 74-67 win over Jesuit, then 18 more -- including four 3-pointers -- in a 71-54 loss to St. Augustine. He had 11 in a 58-43 loss to Juanita of Seattle, before bouncing back with 22 points in a 65-54 win over LaCosta Canyon and 18 in a 78-51 decision over Roosevelt. Fremont had a 35 game winning streak earlier this season, which was snapped by Castlemont High of Oakland, which pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the year in OAL basketball, beating the Tigers  78-76 at home.   Fremont center Josh Shavies was held to six points after three quarters in that game, finishing with 14 points. Even in the loss, Larry Guess led the Tigers with 21 points and Jermaine Turner had 19.

Shavies is a big guy, 240-pounds of big, so Mater Dei will probably need to double him with Soderberg and Bayer in order to stop him. He's big, mobile, and has the athleticism of a guard. Guess' flexibility -- he'll play point, anchors the press, posts up and takes people off the dribble -- creates major matchup trouble for opponents, and he's unselfish with the ball and doesn't really try to force things. Fremont, like Manual Arts, likes to run and press relentlessly, and by now, Mater Dei surely knows how to defend against that and how to exploit a running team's weaknesses with the half-court game. But this is an exceptionally tough press that the Tigers use. Earlier this year, point guard Marques Williams of Fremont summed it up best for the Alameda Times-Star when he said: "Thirty-two minutes of hell. Straight intensity." Williams and wing Jermaine Turner have also helped take the load off of   Shavies and Guess, and Lance Pitts (4.1 ppg) and Corey Patterson (6.8 ppg) are quick guards who can hit the outside shot and create turnovers in the press.

But no matter how good their press, we're going to go out on a limb and predict a SoCal win.  Ok, so the folks from NorCal won't like hearing that, but we're not called SoCalHoops for nothing.  With Steve Scoggin finally finding his shooting touch, and returning to form as one of the best pure three-point shooters on the West Coast, and Derrick Mansell, Bayer, Strawberry, Soderberg, Imran Sufi at the point,  and most of all Jamal Sampson, we think the Monarchs are going to make it No. 5 in this decade.

See you there.

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