SoCalHoops College League News

Say No College Classic College
Playoff Results: First Round--(July 31, 1999)

Went over to West LA College for the Say No Classic College Summer League playoffs, round 1, and it was a pretty packed house. Now if Rod Smith could only lose the idiotic and annoying "announcer" who felt compelled to do "play-by-play" to a live gym audience. . . Really, it was about the worst and most distracting experience we've seen in a long time, and a number of college coaches, out to watch for the last day of NCAA open evaluation couldn't take the guy for more than half a game and left in droves. . . well, at least a couple left.   One of the UCLA assistants (who will go nameless) told us that he thought the guy was just plain disrepectful of the players and on occasion, insulting. ("Ohhh, Spencer Gloger takes a crazy shot. . . bam. . . misses. . . he hasn't hit a shot in three weeks. . . " )   Really, swear to God, that's one of the things this guy was announcing during the game. Mostly it was just stupid stuff, like "Here comes [fill in the blank] with the rock, unh, oooh, baby. . . "      Absolutely the worst.

Of course, it didn't bother us enough to pack our bags, and in fact most of the assemble crowd of about 800 or so people decided to stick around, but the guy with the earplug concession made a bundle.  For those who could stand the "entertainment" they got to see some pretty good hoops action by some of the best college players currently in SoCal.

We only peripherally paid attention to who did what during the games.  After a month of really trying to pay close attention to two, three or four games all going on simultaneously, it was sort of a zen experience just watching one game at a time, and we didn't take notes or keep scores.  If you want the scoring, we're pretty sure that Rich Meyer of West Coast Hoops.com was keeping track, and he told us he'd post some stats later tonight on that site.  You might also try Mike Miller's site over at PacWestHoops.com, or Jim Downs' site.    Several guys who played especially well were:

James Wright. . . didn't do much against BWBA until the game was already out of control for Gottlieb's team, but then he just went nuts, pushing the ball, driving like crazy. . . he's still as fast, if not faster than last year.

Ricky Duff. . . dunked like a madman.   Looked bigger and stronger.

David Bluthenthal. . . . finally turning into the power player that we all knew he could be coming out of high school.  If Bibby doesn't play him a ton of minutes and start him, well, he should do a Greg Lakey. . .

Greg Lakey. . . how in the world did they let him get away.  He was hitting his shots from everywhere, driving, crossing guys over, rebounding, blocking shots, a maniac.   If only he'd played this well at USC. . . LMU is very lucky to have him.

Doug Gottlieb. . . pushed, drove, dished, generally played very smart ball, but was hampered by bad officiating.  Looking incredibly strong and fresh off a Maccabi Pan American Gold Medal (which he won with David Bluthenthal a week ago in Mexico City)

Ruben Douglas. . . singlehandedly killed BWBA with threes, driving frenetic layups, and his signature blindingly quick pull up jumper from 20' out. . . nothing but net.

Brian Scalabrine. . . . Are you sure he's not a shooting guard.  Last night hit a fall away jumper at the buzzer from three point range to win the game, and today he was just as spectacular.

Jason Kapono. . . Looked solid, left hand dribble driving spin moves to the hole, pull up j's for three, he can still do it all, but in this game today, with no one posting up or helping on the boards, his team got killed.

Moose Bailey. . . looking bigger, stronger and more cut and buffed than we remembered, but he seems to have forgotten where the backboard is and missed a number of wide open layups off the fast break, but still managed to find the hoop when pulling up in the lane, where he was especially accurate and deadly.

Spencer Gloger. . . very good passer, didn't shoot a lot.  Hey buddy, just ignore that idiot announcer, they don't have fools like that in the Pac-10. 

Sam Clancy. . . couldn't buy a basket. Missed just about everything he attempted.  He looked so good, but he just couldn't finish, whether it was from outside, or under the boards.  Amazing that a guy that good could have so much trouble scoring. . .

Noel Felix. . . . interesting. . . very interesting. . . didn't score a lot, and managed to take a couple of shots, repeatedly with some pretty hard elbows to Jason Collins of Stanford.  Good thing that Fresno State isn't playing Stanford this year, or Noel would wind up missing some teeth.

Marik Ondera. . . big, solid, runs the floor, crafty player, manages to just find a way somehow to get the ball in the hole.  Huge upside for Irvine.  We love his hustle and skills.

Earl Watson. . . struggled today from the scoring end, but there's no doubt that he's UCLA's pass-first point guard of the present.   Didn't seem to play with a lot of joy, and that's probably because his team was getting hammered by the opponent and some atrocious officiating.  . .

Sam Turks. . . very fast, lightning quick, great handle, pretty good decision-maker and playmaker, took over at the point from Earl a lot but couldn't carry the team alone.

Eric Chenowith. . . A man.  He's gotten huge, very powerful, and here, he could score almost at will.  He had a bad streak for about two minutes in the second half near the start of the half, and Bob Gottlieb, whose team was leading at the time, pulled Eric, and they somehow managed to go down by 14 points (the "somehow" was largely Ruben Douglas who was just murdering BWBA) in the span of about three minutes, and by the time Eric came back into the game it was all over. 

Jason Collins. . . Great drop step moves and an excellent post player, hands a little suspect today, but still a very nice fade away jumper off the turnaround move in the lane.   And he's 6'-11, so it's pretty hard to find fault with that. . . One of our favorite guys, he looked healthy and played alright.

Jarron Collins. . . Smooth, huge rebounder today, just found the ball and scored what to us seemed like a lot (hey, I'm sure Rich will tell us that he didn't score, or something equally weird, but to us, it seemed like he was in on most of the offensive plays, and if he didn't score a lot, he got a ton of assists).

A lot of guys weren't there.  Kyle Dodd, Rafael Berumen, Bo Segeberg, David Lalazarian, Antrone Lee, Milton Riley, Desmond Peniger, and many others.  But the guys who did show, came to play and it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours. 

There were also a number of college coaches in the stands, including Steve Lavin, accompanied by his beautiful girlfriend and Jim Saia, Bobby Brasswell, and a number of other local and not-so-local coaches.

But enough of the random ramblings. . . Here's who won and who lost today:

So based on these results, here's the schedule for tomorrow, August 1, 1999:

Here are the matchups, roster by roster:

Again, all the games are at West LA College located just off Jefferson in Culver City. Jim Downs posted a link to the WLA Website which has a nice map and directions, and here it is.

See you there.

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