watts report no. 1

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SoCalHoops Tournament News

LA Watts Summer Games: First Round
Report From Fairfax HS--(June 21, 1999)

Yeah, we know, this report is late too, but we were pretty busy this past weekend and just decided to take off again and not do any writing. Summer, at least June, is supposed to be a sort of slow time, but actually with all the high school team tournaments, things are about 2/3 the speed of the regular high school season. At least the weather has been great.

Saturday, we wandered over to Fairfax to catch the first round games of the LA Watts Summer Games. Remember, the way the seeding committee structured this tournament, there were several criteria: First, the goal was to actually seed the top teams, from 1-42, and then set these teams up to play the unseeded teams. Second, the committee looked at trying to have matchups that normally wouldn't occur during the regular season, which meant that most games were LA City Section teams playing Southern Section teams, and for the most part that meant that the much larger LA Section schools were frequently playing smaller D-IV or D-V schools, and in cases where these matchups weren't possible, at least the Southern Section teams were not very evenly matched in the first rounds. So with everybody going into this tournament, a single elimination deal, with their eyes wide open and realistic about the chances of an unseeded team knocking off a seeded team, there weren't many upsets on Saturday. Well, a few, but not many.

Because the games were played at 8 different locations and they were all scheduled at the same times, we had to make some choices. We chose to be at Fairfax, and first up was Fairfax v. Maranatha. This one was a wipeout from start to finish. First, let's get this out of the way: Maranatha was hopelessly outmanned in this one, a prime example of the seeding committee directives (hey, the seeded team is supposed to win) so with the exception of Maranatha's David Newkirtz (sp)? a 6'-5" SG/SF, who literally scored all of Maranatha's points in the first half of the game, Maranatha never had a chance. At the half, the score was 41-13, and as we said, Newkirtz had all of Maranatha's first half points. Fairfax eventually won by 50 points, 78-28, and it wasn't that close. Fairfax was led by Jason Morrissette, who looked stronger, faster and bigger than we had remembered him at the end of the season. Jason ran the break very well, and finished in traffic in a variety of ways, twisting, turning, nice leaners and a couple of outside shots as well. Craig Smith and Evan Burns, the twin towers looked impressive also, Craig with 12 points (all in the second half) and Evan with 4 but about a dozen offensive rebounds. Fairfax is one of those teams that will either be great this year, or will have trouble with their chemistry at times, as they did on Sunday when they lost in the third round to Santa Monica. But we're getting way ahead of ourselves here. Fairfax is very deep, perhaps deeper than they were last season. Marqui Jones, a senior who could be Tony Bland's twin brother, or at least he looks like his cousin, reminds us the way he plays a lot of Tony too: He's agile, lithe, has a deadly jumper, and by the end of this summer he should be getting some attention from at least Mid D-I schools. Fowzi Abdelsamad, back from a leg injury which kept him out of the CAV's tournament the previous weekend, looked very strong, and he's actually bulked up a bit. He and Anthony Davis (6'-1" So. SG), a transfer from Pacific Hills, or so we're told (yes, there's another Anthony Davis, also a soph, but 6'-3" who is at LA Locke and who plays for Rockfish) were effective inside and outside, and Fowzi showed good defensive pressure and excellent ball control, while Davis hit for 10 points with a nice pull up jumper. Fairfax's bench is pretty deep with Fernando Sampson running the point, Lovestar Adams at the shooting guard and small forward spot (he also plays with Ishmael and Fowzi on the Ultra Student Athletes varsity club team), and Tony Brown, a sophomore who we wanted too get a better look at this summer. Finally, Fairfax has a young man by the name of Alex Bausley (6'-9" Fr. F/C) who is just 13 years old. He didn't score a lot on Saturday, just two points, but he's already got some excellent skills, plays defense and can run the court. A very big prospect for someone so young. Where have they been hiding him?

The next game up was Santa Monica v. Burbank, and this too was really not much of a contest as Santa Monica cruised to a thirty point win, 63-33. Santa Monica was let by the twin guard combo of Jacoby Atako (6'-0" Sr. PG) and Martin Castro (5'-9" Sr. PG) in the backcourt, and a variety of guys inside, including Vincent Williams (6'-6" Sr. PF), who also plays for USA's club varsity team. Burbank really didn't have much to show for the trip, but we liked Frank Reed (5'-11" Jr. PG), Trent Cleveland (5'-11" So. SG), and Damien Jordan, a 6'-2" wing player. But in this game it was really Martin Castro who pushed the ball relentlessly, went to the rack at just the right times, and penetrated and dished. Martin is a bit on the smallish side, but he's got the court vision and skills to make a very nice college player. We didn't catch Santa Monica's games on Sunday, but they are a team on a roll, as they also beat Esperanza and Fairfax and will advance now to the quarterfinals (Round IV) next weekend.

The LA Marshall v. Esperanza game was pretty wild, at least for the first half and about halfway through the second as Marshall, a very undersized team gave the Orange County guys all they could handle. At first it looked like it would be a blowout as Esperanza went on a scoring spree holding Marshall scoreless for about the first 7 minutes of the game. But then Esperanza went absolutely cold, while Marshall got a bit hotter, and at the half, the score as 21-22, and Marshall actually trailed by just a point; and they managed to keep it close for the first part of the second half, but then their offense just collapsed and they only scored 8 points in the entire second half. Esperanza meanwhile was led by Patrick Leffler and his younger brother (we don't know his first name) and Jon Steven, who must have had about 18 or 19 in the game. Esperanza, which lost by 12 on Sunday to Santa Monica is going to be really tough this season.

The Venice v. Buckley game was a sort of interesting matchup, because it was interesting to see a D-V school actually compete against a City Section D-4A schools (the equivalent of Southern Section D-I-AA), at least for about two-thirds of the game until the younger and smaller team was basically out-run and out-shot. The biggest surprise of the game was Lyman Edwards (5'-10" Sr. PG), who transferred to Venice, his home school from Compton Dominguez, where he didn't get very much playing time. We reported Lyman's transfer during the spring, but hadn't really ever seen him play because he just never got in last season (at least not that we ever saw) at Dominguez playing behind Ron Jackson, Marcus Moore, and Keilon Fortune. Lyman looked excellent, not scoring a lot on Saturday (although we heard he scored well in the Sunday game against Pasadena, which Venice lost, 68-59), but he got a ton of assists, at least 11 we counted, and a couple of steals.

Lyman was defended by Buckley's David Gale (5'-11" So. PG) and Adam Pastor (6'-0" Sr. SG/PG) , who alternately switched on Edwards and Venice's other point guard (and Gale's Pump N Run II teammate) Kevin Elleby (5'-10" So. PG). Elleby is very quick, has a good handle, and usually scores well going to the basket or pulling up with the j. Gale in turn was mostly defended by Edwards, and his points all came off drives and free-throws, and he's showing a greater willingness to drive to the basket rather than simply dishing the ball off, although he had a couple of very deceptive passes in close under the hoop which Colin War-Henninger converted. Gale is showing more of a good quick first step, and also exhibited excellent ball-control, especially under pressure from Edwards, and came away with 10 assists and five steals.

Venice's Kyle Morrison (6'-2" Sr. SG) though was the difference in this game. Morrison was the stealth bomber, firing in 4 three-pointers, and he was definitely the star of this game and the reason that Venice was able to break out of what had been a tied game to virtually blow it wide open just before the half. The score was tied with about two minutes to go in the first half, and in those two minutes, before you could even blink, Morrison just exploded and scored a quick 10 points, while Steven Brown (6'-5" Jr. SG) scored another 6 unanswered points and at the half, Buckley trailed by 16. In the second half, Montel Duhon (6'-4" Sr. SG) turned it up another notch, and showed that even with one of the weirdest shot releases around, he can score from just about anywhere, in or out of the paint. For Buckley, Adam Pastor (6'-0" Sr. PG/SG) was effective, with some nice pull up j's and good defense, but we'd like to see him penetrate more for our tastes, and if he continues with his development over the summer he'll be a good prospect at the D-II to low D-I level, with an excellent handle and great penetration skills (who should, as we say, use them more). Colin Ward-Henninger also played well, scoring 16 points. This was a good run for Buckley, who were without their inside banger Simon Leonov (6'-4" Jr. PF) or one of their better three-point shooters, Steve Broukhim (6'-2" Jr. SG), but Alex Clancy (5'-11" Jr. SG) hit a few outside shots in the first half. Venice will be a very good team next year, and there's another player we almost forgot about, and that's Jed Hall (6'-6" Fr. F) who didn't show much on Saturday, but once he learns how to defend will be a big time player, probably by the time he's a junior. And don't forget that Venice was also without Greg Jones (6'-9" Jr. PF), a huge inside rebounder, who is the brother of LA Clipper Keith Closs.

As we said, because of the quirks in the scheduling of these games, all the first round games were scheduled at the same times, so it was pretty much impossible to see anything else on Saturday, so in the afternoon, we headed over to the Say No Classic college league, which was actually at LA Trade Tech, and not at West LA College this past weekend. We're told that the rest of the Say No games will now be at W.LA College, but to anyone who went over to WLA looking for games we apologize for any mixups.

We didn't get to see the rest of the Sunday games either due to committments we had to be in Santa Barbara, but the game of the day, at least from what our sources tell us, was the Palisades v. Cajon game, which came down to a last second shot as Steve McMaryion pulled up in the lane with a jumper but missed and Cajon won, 45-43.