SoCalHoops Tournament News

Nike Summer National Championship:
Riverside Meltdown, Warriors Win--(July 30, 1999)

New York City Riverside Church v. Illinois Warriors.  Thursday night, July 29, 1999.

This game took place last night, but we got caught up in the excitment and dallied around the venue last night far too long after the games were finished talking with Rle (pronounced Arlee) Nichols, the executive director of host High Five, and then we went out to dinner with a pretty motley crew (Dana Pump, Frank Burlison of the OC Register, Tracy Pierson, and one of the assistant coaches from a school which shall go unnamed only because we don't want to sully their reputation by letting anyone think they regularly hang out with the likes of those listed above), so we didn't get a chance to write about this one last night, and it's probably a good thing, because now we've had a chance to really think about what happened and what, if anything it means.

This was billed as a great matchup:   This summer's undisputed "best" Nike team, Riverside Church,  going into the tournament undefeated and champions of four prior tournaments this summer, most recently the Slam N Jam NIT last week.  The Illinois Warriors, one of the best teams in the country, with perhaps one of the best players anywhere,  Darius Miles (6'-9" Jr. F/C)--pictured left-- who can play just about any position he wants, including running the point if he needs/wants to.   Two tremendous teams, and they were meeting in one of the two semifinals played yesterday in the Championship bracket.

Did the game really mean anything?   Probably not, except to the participants, who were playing for "Nike" pride, and the right to say that they won the "Nike National Championship."   Was it truly a "championship?"  Probably not, because in the continuing shoe wars, there were a whole slew of adidas-sponsored teams who weren't there who might have been better, and goodness knows how many Converse-sponsored, Reebok-sponsored, and unsponsored teams might also have been better.  Did this game "decide" anything?  No.  But it was still one of the most memorable games we've ever seen, both because it featured some of the best performances of the year, and some of the worst.

NYC Riverside (which didn't use the name "Church" in the official rosters this year, maybe Nike objected?) featured the following lineup:

Omar Cook (6'-1" Sr. PG) Christ the King
Jave meade (6'-0" Sr. PG) Northfield
Willie Shaw (6'-5" Sr. SF) Kennedy
Terrance Watkins (6'-5" Sr. F) Bishop Laughlin (pictured left)
Michael Boynton (6'-2" Sr. SG) Bishop Laughlin
Zachary Williams (6'-7" Sr. F) Christ the King
Kyle Cuffe (6'-9" Sr. F/C) rice
Tramayne Singletary (6'-8" Jr. F) Cheshire
Andre Sweet (6'-7" Sr. F) Rice
Frank Phifer (6'-7" Sr. F) Laruingbry

If you've checked our prior articles, then you know that Riverside lost.  But anyone who thought they would lose as badly as they did must have had a crystal ball, because this team was just devastated.

Illinois featured an equally impressive lineup, including:

Odartey Blankston (6'-6" Jr. SG/SF) Hillcrest
Steve Hankle (6'-3" Sr. G) Kernwood
Brett Melton (6'-5" Jr. F) Mahomet-Seymour
Dwayne Wade (6'-3" Jr. SG/SF) Richards
Brian Cuttica (6'-2" Jr. G) Hinsdale Central
Todd Townsend (6'-7" Jr. F) Chicago Morgan Park
Darius Miles (6'-9" Jr. F/C) East Saint Louis
TJ Cummings (6'-9" Jr. F) Homewood

We wish we'd snapped a picture of Brett Melton during the game, but we were really too much in awe to be taking pictures, and I guess we won't get any awards for photo-journalism, but this game turned out to be just too weird and Frank Burlison, Tracy and yours truly were sitting all three in a row at the table, with Clark Francis of the HoopScoop to our right, all located immediately next to the Illinois bench, and if the truth be told, we were just too dumbfounded to actually write or take any pictures during the game.  We did manage to get a couple of the rather loud scuffle that broke out after the game (hey, it's been a long time since we were at a basketball game which wasn't a regular high school varsity league contest where a fight broke out. . . and come to think of it, the weird thing about the summer recruiting season is that even though there are a ton of games played, it's mostly like the golf rules are in effect. . . none of the college coaches ever applauds, no one cheers, and besides the players on the bench, you might as well be in a musuem or a library. . ." clinical" is the word that best comes to mind when describing how some of these exposure events feel. . . .)  Well not for this game, and tempers and emotions ran high, both during and after the game.

The Illinois Warriors managed to get off to an early 11-5 lead against Riverside, and Cook was playing flat and couldn't buy a basket, and neither could Sweet or Watkins.  Since we were too mesmerized to take notes, and since we gave Clark Francis a couple of recruiting tidbits, we feel justified in using his scoring from the game:  Illinois jumped out to a 24-11 lead with about five minutes to play in the first half, and ultimately they led 35-16 at half-time. We're willing to bet that Riverside has never been held so few points in half.  Ever.   According to Clark, Riverside shot a miserable 6-27 from the field, but the Warriors weren't much better, just 11-33.  Both teams were playing tight, and sort of uptight.

In the second half, Illinois outscored Riverside 12-2 at the start, and when they led 47-18, with more than 11 minutes to play, you could tell that Riverside was giving up.  We were all waiting for Riverside to start their attack and it never happened.  All that did occur was the Riverside players got more and more frustrated, Cook started forcing drives into the middle, Watkins watched as shot after shot missed, they couldn't even buy a layup,and not to be too trite about it, it seemed like there was a lid on the basket.

And just the opposite was happening for Illinois.  The Warriors Brett Melton, who has reportedly committed to Illinois,   started dropping his shots, and by the time there was still 5 minutes left, he already had scored 39 points, and the bench, the coaches and all of us writers as a group were yelling for everyone on the Warriors to "Get Melton the ball!"    In fact it was pretty comical because whenever Miles or another of the Warriors would score, a chorus would go up "Nooooo, get the ball to Melton."     And Melton, a great young man who can stroke the ball with uncanny accuracy, was just in a "zone" and he almost seemed embarrassed by the attention his scoring frenzy was attracting.

In all fairness to Riverside, we didn't see their earlier game against High Five at noon, but we heard that with only about 5 minutes to play that was just a 5 point game, and they were said to have been emotionally spent, and no doubt they were if the scoring report we heard was true, because Riverside thus must have outscored High Five by 10 points in those last five minutes, and if so, they used up whatever they had left in the tank.

With 13:59 to play in the second half, the score was 44-18, and Dwayne Wade was just killing the Riverside team and Brett Melton had, at that point bombed in 5 three pointers, all using the quickest jumper we've seen this year.  This guys' got a great release and deadly accuracy and it was great fun watching him.  At least for us it was somewhat fun.  For the Riverside coaches and players, it was a disaster.  At 13:30 to play, the score had ballooned to 47-18 Illinois leading, and the Riverside team started lashing out, and within a span of three minutes there were 4 technicals called on Riverside players.  At 10:00 minutes to play precisely, the refs decided that they'd had enough of the Riverside assistant (not Ernest Lorch, the long-time coach of Riverside, but the other guy, who's name we didn't catch), and they ejected him from the game. . . or rather, they tried to get him ejected from the game. 

Play stopped for about 5 minutes, and while the refs held the ball, the Riverside assistant went even more and more ballistic.  It was, in a word, embarrasing.  For the players, for the coaches, and for all of us who had to see it.  Never mind that the officiating was atrocious or that the Riverside coach was, in our view, unjustly singled out, because the refs were calling some pretty strange stuff, in fact there was weird officiating throughout the games we saw all yesterday.   But that doesn't excuse or condone the behavior of the coach, and he was rightly ejected after completely losing it.

After watching the tirade, play resumed, and shortly thereafter, Omar Cook was then called for his second technical of the game and also ejected.  He walked back over to the bench disgustedly and about as downcast as we've ever seen him, and either he kicked a chair or it fell over (loudly), and yet another technical was assessed, making it a total of 9 t's in the game.

With 7:55 to play, after Cook got ejected, the score was 64-24.  Riverside has probably beaten a few other teams this badly before, but they sure didn't like getting beaten this badly themselves, and when with 6:33 to play Melton hit his 6th three, collecting his 32nd point you could see that it was over.  Heck, it had been over a long time before that, but at that point, the Riverside players weren't running back to defend or to play any offense, and the few times Riverside did manage to finally get the ball back into their own frontcourt, it was basically one or two on five, and inevitably there was a turnover or two and the Warriors would just get it back and score.

Finally, with about 1:30 to play, the Illinois coaches decided not to run up the score any more, and they told their players to just hold the ball.  Riverside wouldn't come out to defend on the four-corners spread, and so the refs stopped the game with 1:27 to play, the final score being the final insult to Riverside:  an 84-36 wipeout.

As noted above, Brad Melton had 7 threes for 39 points, and he went 10 for 11 from the line.  The Warriors also got, according to Clark Francis, 11 blocks, including 9 from Darius Miles.

This was not a very pretty game, but it was certainly nothing any of us would have predicted, and will be remembered for a long time to come.

Oh, and in case you thought all the fun ended with the game, the assistant coach for Riverside evidently came back into the building and a rather large scuffle between him and the three refs, who were sitting at courtside broke out only a minute or so after the game  concluded.  TheRiverside assistant involved is the guy in the middle of the picture below, the one wearing glasses, and again, he had to be physically escorted from the building and there was yet another delay so that the 8:30 p.m. game didn't get started until about 9:15 p.m.

As we said, it wasn't pretty, but it sure was a memorable experience.

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