la watts summer games finals

socalogo.gif (8739 bytes)
SoCalHoops Tournament News

LA Watts Summer Games Championship
Game Report & Finals Results-- (June 28, 1999)

We didn't get to see the finals of the LA Watts Summer Games Boys' Basketball Tournament, which started out with 83 teams two weekends ago in single elimination format, and granted, the defending champs, Compton Dominguez got byes through the first two rounds of play due to a forfeit from Ramona of Riverside which couldn't make it a week ago Sunday, but still, Dominguez managed to crush its opponents in the quarterfinals, semis and the final yesterday at LA Southwest College. And yes, even though the Games have been running for 32 years, this was, as Louis Johnson in the Long Beach Press Telegram noted this morning, the sixth title in the last seven years for the Dons. Of course, they've only been holding the basketball component of the Games for something like 10 years, which when you think about it, makes Dominguez seem even more dominant.

We personally didn't go to the games (since we were in Palm Springs watching the 16 team tournament there this weekend) but our friend and sometime, long-lost correspondnet Jason Day did manage to get out to LASWC for the finals and he saw Dominugez just administer an old-fashioned butt-whipping of the Comets. Of course Westchester was without Lou Wright, and several other guards as well, and at least according to Jason, the Comet guards who did show might just as well not have gotten off the bench, and if they are going to make a serious run this fall, Ed Azzam will have to get more productive play from the guards. Jason McKinney (5'-10" So. PG), who we think has the potential to be the real deal, only had 5 points, but that's not all bad for a point guard, but the real problem was with the rest of the stats: 2 steals (pretty good) but only one assist. The Comets also had another guard Brandon (?), we don't have his last name, but he was wearing number 20 who had 1 board, 1 steal and 5 points, not overly impressive numbers, but from sources other than Jason Day, we've heard that this kid can really play and will be a big-time prospect. Kevin Brown (6'-1" Sr. SG) was called on to play the point for a while too, perhaps much more than he should have been since he's really a better two man than a point, but it didn't really seem to help much. So how did the young big men play for Westchester? Well, Chad Bell (7'-0" Jr. C) had only 4 points, and maybe a couple of rebounds, but not much else to write home about. But hey, this is summer, and these tournaments really mean nothing in the overall grand scheme of things, and while coaches (and fans) want to see players at their absolute peak performance, putting out 100% all the time, that's just not going to happen. Many of the players are trying hard too conserve their energy for the camps which will get started next week around July 7 (Nike, ABCD, West Coast All Stars, etc), school just let out for many of them, and this is the first chance at a real vacation time. Which is probably why Jason Breland didn't play at all, Terrance Lawson didn't play either, and Lou Wright also was MIA. Probably all at the beach. (Just kidding).

According to Jason Day, the lone bright spot (in his opinion) for Westchester yesterday in the final was Cedric Thompkins (6'-6" Sr. SG/SF) who has now transferred back to Westchester from Dominguez where he helped the the last year played with Westchester. Cedric had 10 rebounds, 2 blocks a steal and 10 points, and if he had made the 8 free throws he missed, and could have put the ball in more, he would have finished with more than 20 points. Call it a case of the jitters at playing his former teammates for the first time, call it summer time, call it what you will, we know that Cedric and the rest of the Westchester Comets are really capable of so much more than what we heard about from Jason, so we wouldn't put too much stock in the final score, which was a very lopsided 70-34. In the opinion of some others who saw Westchester throughout the weekend, their other new point, Brandon (whose last name we don't yet know) is supposed to be impressive too.

Steve Moore (6'-4" Sr. SG) was the man for Dominguez, and it looks like he'll be doing great things throughout next season. He finished with 20 points, two steals, one block, three rebounds. Bobby Jones (6'-3" So. SF/SG) came in off the bench, had 5 boards, two blocks, one steal and an assist. Keith Brooks (6'-6" Sr. PF) had a very big first half, and finished with 12 points overall, three boards, two assists, and two blocks. Sherman Gaye (6'-4" Sr. SF) had 6 boards, two assists and a steal, and 4 points, while and Darius Sanders (6'-5" So. F) was the other big scorer for the Dons with 10 points, 6 rebounds and one steal as well. Keilon Fortune (5'-11" Jr. PG) played point for most of the game, rotating in with some of the other guards, but didn't start, and the biggest challenge of the summer for Russell Otis will be to develop a big time point guard to replace the graduating Ron Jackson and Marcus Moore.

As for Tyson Chandler, well, he only played for the first quarter of the game (we understand it was something about him being lactose intolerant, and he supposedly consumed something milk-based before the game) so he missed the balance of the game, and finished with only 3 points, but it didn't matter since Dominguez led by 18 at the half and it only got worse for the Comets. Tyson was, of course, named the Tournament MVP, and he had some other big games, including a 19 point effort in an 81-38 semifinal win over Mayfair.

In any event, here are the rest of the scores from Saturday and Sunday:

Saturday Round IV Scores:

Long Beach Jordan 46, West Torrance 44
Manual Arts 48, Upland 57
Santa Monica v. Pasadena--Santa Monica won
Locke 57, Westchester 58
Centennial 46, Crossroads 44
Muir 54, Mayfair 60
Cajon v. Dominguez--Dominguez won
Valley View 36, Oxnard 46

Saturday Quarterfinal Scores

Long Beach Jordan 50, Upland 47
Santa Monica v. Westchester--Westchester won
Centennial 53, Mayfair 58
Dominguez 58, Valley View 35

Sunday Semifinal Scores:

Long Beach Jordan 57, Westchester 62
Mayfair 38, Dominguez 81

Championship Final:

Dominguez 70, Westchester 34