SoCalHoops Tournament News

Desert Heat: Palm Springs Wins First Of
Four Local Summer Tourneys--(June 28, 1999)

We spent most of the weekend at the first of four Palm Springs Boys' Tournaments, and we were actually pretty impressed by a lot of the play we saw. Maybe the heat got to us a bit (it was a mild 110 degrees in the shade) but it was very pleasant in the newly refurbished PS gym, which has great air-conditioning. In fact at times it was too cold inside, and we had to escape to the warmer temps outside.

On Saturday, we saw a great game between Dos Pueblos and La Habra, two teams that are pretty evenly matched, which may not necessarily be a good thing for DP, which is in what coach Phil Sherman called a "rebuilding" mode now that their star point guard Shantay Legans (5'-10" Fr. PG) has left for Cal.  Steven Graybill (6'-1" So. PG) attempted too fill Shantay's spot, and while he did a decent job, those are pretty tough shoes to fill.  Steven is young, still a bit shaky with his handle, doesn't have nearly Shantay's penetration skills, and at times makes some questionable decisions on the floor, but generally he takes pretty good care of the ball and he's a good shooter who can run the floor and bring the ball up against pressure.   The biggest problem we saw with the team was that DP seemed to be lacking any real scorers, notwithstanding that Brett Holbrook (6'-6" Sr. PF) managed to score 21 points in Dos Pueblos' game on Friday.  And the weirdest thing about the Saturday game was that we never saw Holbrook play, not for one minute, despite the fact that Coach Sherman specifically mentioned to us prior to the game that he was someone we should definitely check out, a potential college player.  Well, we would have liked to see him play but never got the chance.  Oh well.

We were impressed by DP's new little point guard, Duane Fortune (5'-10" Fr. PG/SG), who told us that he's not related at all to Keilon Fortune and actually he more resembles Jason McKinney (5'-10" So. PG) from Westchester, both physically and the way he runs and defends. During the second half of the La Habra game, Duane took over from Graybill at the point, and in the fourth quarter, basically led DP's defensive surge which resulted in an amazing comeback from 16 points down to win at the buzzer.  With 58 seconds to play, La Habra scored a go-ahead basket, and they led 38-37 (the low scoring was indicative of the lack of outside shooting).  With just a few seconds remaining on the clock, Graybill was fouled shooting at the top of the key, went to the line, hit the first of two to make it 38-38, and then he missed the second free throw, got his own rebound, and scored to put DP up by 2, as Dos Pueblos managed a 40-38 win.  La Habra had a couple of good players, including Jason Smallwood (6'-2" Sr. SG/SF) who managed to hit for 18 points on Friday, and they also have Carver Kennerson (6'-3" So. SG) and Tristan Gadber (5'-11" Jr. SG) a stocky but smallish two-guard who likes to shoot the three and can also drive to the hole. 

Next up on Saturday morning was Cathedral City v. Banning. Cathedral City had Paul Heredia (6'-5" Sr. PF), Thomas Shewmake (6'-8" So. F), Gerald De Vance (5'-8" So. PG),  Brandon Grey (6'-4" 240 lbs) and Aaron Smith. Banning started DeVance's double Darius Stewart (5'-8" Sr. PG), Marlon "Bubba" Harris (5'-11" So. SG), Mike Davis (6'-1" SG ), Tremaine Williams (6'-0" Jr. SG) and the player who we're nominating for most colorful name of the year in CIF Southern Section: Flamingo Malone (6'-4" So SF/SG),  a slender high post man who runs the floor well, doesn't shoot much, was a great rebounder, but is still very young.

DeVance played very well, hitting for 14 in the first half, and 5 more in the first two minutes of the third quarter. Gerald is small, some might say a little too small to play at the college level for someone who shoots three pointers as well as he does, but that's ok, because he's a great point guard who can score in bunches, and with his speed and quick release, he'd streak out ahead on the break and push out ahead so far that there was no way to really stop him in the open court.  He doesn't seem to really like layups and even on the break with no one near him, he'd be pulling up for 10' -15' shots. Amazing.  By the end of the third quarter he had 23 points.   Paul Heredia had a good game, scoring something like 18 points, and he's becoming very strong, someone who'd make a nice wing player at the college level.  Paul is now working with Bob Gottlieb at BWBA and you can see the improvement. He seems to have put on about 10 pounds on top and it's all muscle, which is really helping his rebounding.

Thomas Shewmake continues to puzzle us. He's a strong, young big man, who is very coordinated, has a strong frame which seems to indicate that he can really bulk up if he hits the weights, and he'd be a great player inside, but he continues to hang around the wings, running the outside lanes on fast breaks when he should be in the middle feeding the little speedy guards, and then trailing in for the dunk. Thomas, as we said earlier this spring must have had his growth spurt late, because he still plays like a 5'-10" guard, who wants to put the ball on the floor and dribble through traffic every chance he gets, which wouldn't be all bad if Thomas was still 5'-10", but he's not. Still and all, by the second half, Shewmake seemed to have it figured out that with no one even close to his size inside on Banning, he'd be better off playing the low post than drifting on the three point line.

As for Banning, Darius Stewart, a former SCA player really pushed the ball on the break, and he'll be a very nice college prospect for some low to mid-D I school and college coaches should definitely plan on taking a look at him. Lightning quick, he's a decent defender with great lateral quickness and mobility who can also score.  Cathedral City won this game, but then ended up losing to Lincoln Prep from San Diego. 

Following Banning's loss, they went directly to a game against a very strong Claremont team, and when we say "directly" we mean a back-to-back game, and Banning just didn't have enough gas to get past the twins, Tim and Thomas Taylor (6'-2" Sr. SG), Micha Lombard (6'-7" Jr. F), Sean Terrell (5'-10' Sr. G) and the rest of the very talented Claremont team. Banning actually got blown out by 40 points, 72-32, but it was not indicative at all of what the Banning team is capable of doing and they were probably just suffering from a letdown after the first loss of the day and the realization they wouldn't be playing for the title.

We watched almost all the games on Saturday, including one which had everyone scratching their heads at the end.  Calvary Chapel and Montebello had been going at it for the whole game, with the score switching back and forth.   Finally, Montebello seemed to have pulled out to what was going to be the win, and with just 20 seconds remaining, they led by two points.  Calvary Chapel's point guard, Issac Barney (5'-9" Sr. PG), managed to get the ball into the frontcourt, drove to the right, and managed to get off a shot with just four seconds showing on the clock, which missed, but unbelievably, he picked up the call and went to the line, shooting two with a chance to tie the game.  Now everyone in the house knew that Calvary, if Issac made both shots would be tied with Montebello and the game would go to overtime.  No mistaking that.  Montebello even called a timeout so that Issac (and presumably the Calvary coaches--and there were five of them) could think about it.   Issaac made both shots.  Tie game with only 4 seconds showing.  Now unless Montebello has a Tyus Edney-like player on their team (and they don't) there's no way they're getting a shot off, and this game is headed to overtime.

Well, it was, that is until one of the Calvary Chapel coaches instructs one of his players to foul the Montebello point guard with only 1.7 seconds showing on the clock.  Now maybe this coach thought he had a foul to give, maybe he thought Calvary was losing by one. Actually we don't know what he was thinking, except whatever it was, he should have kept it to himself, because it turned out to be the bonehead call of the day, perhaps the tournament, as the Montebello player went to the line and hit one of two shots to put Calvary down by one.  Calvary got the ball into it's own frontcourt in .7 seconds, and called timeout, but one second was not enough to get off a good shot, and Calvary lost a game that they might have been able to win in overtime.  Oh well, it's all good, and that's why summer tournaments are really more about working on new things. . . . like watching the scoreboard and keeping track of the foul situation. 

Here are the complete scores from Saturday:

Palm Desert 41, Calvary Chapel 44
So. Torrance 41, Palm Springs 46
La Sierra 28, Montebello (II) 30
La Habra 38, Dos Pueblos 40
Montebello (I) 36, La Habra 35
Cathedral City 61,Banning 60
Righetti 63, Buckley 50
Claremont 52, Lincoln 55
La Sierra 55, Palm Desert 44
Claremont 72, Banning 32
Buckley 55, Palm Desert 54
South Torrance 39, La Habra 37
Montebello 43, Calvary Chapel 42
Palm Springs 50, Dos Pueblos 43
Righetti 64, Montebello 28
Lincoln 75, Cathedral City 49

On Sunday, there were some very close games, including Buckley's one point loss to La Sierra of Riverside, a game which saw Ed Clayton (6'-4" Sr. F/C) from La Sierra foul out and Ivan Avila (5'-10" Sr. PG) score 23 points, 18 personally in the third quarter, including 4 threes in a row in La Sierra's   21 point third quarter.  Buckley had been leading by 10 at the half, largely on the great shooting of Alex Clancy who hit for 4 threes (all in the second quarter) but La Sierra just came blazing back with Avila's shooting and dribble penetration.   David Gale (5'-11" So. PG) managed 7 assists and two steals, really stepping up his defensive effort, but his shot was not dropping, and ultimately the game came down to the final shot as La Sierra won, 55-53 despite Colin Ward-Henninger (6'-3" Jr. SG/SF) hitting a three at the buzzer.

In the 1:00 p.m. Championship game, Palm Springs withstood the pressure of Lincoln Prep to win by the score of 60-49. Palm Springs was led by MVP   Bobby Caldwell who scored 19 points in the final. Lincoln was led by Shaun Davis with 12. Lincoln jumped on top 11-4, but Palm Springs came back to trail by 14-13 at the quarter. Palm Springs' went to a zone in the 2nd quarter, and the Indians managed to hold Lincoln to 3 points to take a 25-17 halftime lead.  The Indians were also to hold off a 4th quarter charge by Lincoln, aided by two clutch 3 pointers by Jaion Patrick. Amazingly, PS managed to win the tournament without a single player being in the top ten scorers for the tournament, which just goes to show you that a little bit of generous seeding (it was their tournament after all), and some really nice team play is probably better than one or two guys dominating the stats.

Cathedral City won 3rd place, beating Dos Pueblos 76-62 behind Gerald Devance's 21 points and Paul Heredia with 20. Righetti of Santa Maria won the consolation title, beating Montebello 57-28.

Here's the All-Tournament Selections:

MVP - Bobby Caldwell - Palm Springs
Jordi Higueras - Palm Springs
Shaun Davis - Lincoln
Gerald DeVance - Cathedral City
Brett Holbrook - Dos Pueblos
Robert Osorio - Righetti
Sal Gutierrez - Montebello
Jason Smallwood - LaHabra
Colin Ward-Henniger - Buckley
Ed Clayton - La Sierra
Clete Albitz - South Torrance
Tim Taylor - Claremont
Joshua Sherman - Calvary Chapel
Adam Haransansky - Palm Desert

High Scorers (4 Games)

Gerald DeVance (Cathedral City) - 92
Joshua Shermanb (Calvary Chapel) - 73
Jason Smallwood (La Habra) - 67
Ed Clayton (La Sierra) - 65
Clete Albitz (So. Torrance) - 65
Darius Stuart (Banning) - 61
Mike Davis (Banning) - 60
Shaun Davis (Lincoln) - 58
Colin Ward-Henninger (Buckley) - 57
Alex Clancy (Buckley) - 55
Tim Taylor (Claremont) - 53
Brett Holbrook (Dos Pueblos) - 53
Jordi Higueras (Palm Springs) - 46
Bobby Caldwell (Palm Springs) - 45
Paul Heredia (Cathedral City) - 45
Robert Osorio (Righetti) - 45

 
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