SoCalHoops Recruiting News

adidas Double Pump Fall Premier
Long Beach Poly Wins It All--(Sept. 26, 1999)

To get right to the point, Long Beach Poly beat BWBA in the final of the 1st Annual Double Pump Fall Premier Tournament by a single point, 50-49, in a game which was close throughout; neither team led by more than three points at any time, and there were 15 lead changes in the game.  Wesley Stokes  (5'-10" Sr. PG) was, in a word, astonishing, driving, crossing over anyone who got in his way, making seeming impossible shots, and using his great court sense to find the open man, deceive defenders, and pop the ball loose from guys he was defending.  He was simply amazing, and after watching this display, and his performance against Dominguez in one of two semifinals played today, we have to question the wisdom of any Pac-10 school that isn't recruitng him.  We don't care if people say he's too small. . . . he's not.  We don't care if people say he shoots the ball too much. . . he makes them, so it's hard to fault success.  Oregon State is hot on his trail, and if they get him, the only problem we'll have with that is that we'll only be able to see him live and in person twice during the season here in Los Angeles.  We are definitely on the Burlison bandwagon on this one, and we too believe that UCLA should have offered him, and should still reconsider it's position on not recruiting a point guard out of this year's senior class.   Just a personal opinion, but we think Cedric would understand and he'd still come to Westwood anyway even if Wesley is there. . . .

Wesley is the kind of guard who is about as selfless with the ball, as anyone in this year's class at the point. He has to be because Poly is loaded with guards, and all of them played great today, with Wesley working in tandem with A.J. Diggs (5'-9" Sr. PG/SG), Carlos Rivers (5'-10" So. PG/SG), Ramaan Shotwell (5'-10" Sr. PG/SG), Tim Thomas (5'-10" Sr. PG/SG), and Adrian Martin (5'-10" Sr. PG/SG). . . Poly subscribes to the theory that you can never have too many good point guards, and it really worked today.  Of course they also had some toughness and strength inside from Joe Travis (6'-8" Sr. PF), and some work out on the wings from several others.  Poly is going to be good this year and they'll definitely make a serious run at the D-I title challenging Artesia, and they've got to be considered among the top four teams in SoCal right now.

BWBA played well in the final, but just not well enough.   Of course it's hard to find fault with a one point loss, and this game could have gone either way.   Harrison Schaen (6'-8" Fr. PF) and Ben Jacobsen (6'-6" Sr. PF) were really the two stadnout frontcourt players for Gottlieb's team, with Harrison getting some huge blocks, about 15 points, and several steals, displaying his guard skills to, putting the ball on the floor, passing with great skill and showing ability well-beyond his years.  Martin Iti (6'-9" Fr. PF/C) from Florida played well, but only sparingly;  Martin Levinson (6'-3" Sr. SG) also didn't seem to get much play in the final game or in the earlier semifinal game, but when he was there, provided valuable scoring and great defense.  Tim Bowers (6'-3" Sr. G), the guy who can jump and get his head above the rim, played well, but seemed to kind of struggle against the quicker, swarming guard attack of the Jackrabbits.  Mike Stevenson (5'-11" Sr. PG) who also plays with IEBP and was one of their lead point guards this summer had a great game, showing excellent passing skills, and a terrific outside shot.   We'll have more on Mike and his recruiting later in a special profile.

Before the final, there were two big semifinal games today, Pump N Run I v. BWBA 1 which was followed by Long Beach Poly v. Compton Dominguez. In the first game, BWBA beat Pump N Run by about 10 points, but the game was a lot closer than that until the last two minutes, when BWBA went on a 10-0 run, and the Pump offense was basically stalled. Amazingly, the top player in the game was a guy who hasn't even played his first high school game yet, Harrison Schaen (6'-8" Fr. SG/SF/PF) of Mater Dei, who scored 25 points in the game in a variety of ways, including several threes, and some very impressive jams.  Ben Jacobsen (6'-5" Sr. SF/PF) from Omaha, Nebraska, also played very well in the low post, and he and Heath Bailey (6'-11" Sr. PF/C) put on quite a show battling for the blocks.  At the point, E.J. Harris (6'-3" Sr. PG) Crenshaw and David Gale (5'-11" So. PG) Buckley were both effective, and until Gale and Harris both got into foul trouble with 4 each late in the fourth, the game was close.   Torin Beeler (6'-6" Jr. SG/SF) was effective in the first half, but his shots were not falling, and he later confided that he was playing with a fever and was feeling very sick.  Jimmy Dadiotis (6'-3" Sr. SG) from Denver East also played well, hitting several threes but should have gotten the ball more than he did.  Branduinn Fullove (6'-5" Sr. SG/SF) played the way he usually does, tough, strong, and he shot well too, but just not well enough.  He had one monster block on Harrison, where he seemingly came out of nowhere, which had the crowd oohing and ahhing.  Hopefully it's in one of the many photos of the tournament we're posting up shortly.

The Dominguez v. Poly game was, also in a word, a blowout, one that Poly won by 20 points.  Again, Wesley was phenomenal, and we don't really understand what the coaches (not Russell Otis, who can't coach during this time of year) were thinking:  They had Tyson Chandler (who decided to show up for this game) matched up with Wesley.  Maybe they wanted to get Wesley to alter his shot when he drove to the hole, but the only problem was, Wesley was starting his drives so far out, that by the time Tyson saw the blur running past him, it was mostly too late to stop him.   Tyson was getting frustrated, extremely frustrated, so much so that it completely threw off his game.  He only managed on block in the game (it was a monster one), and maybe about 5 points.  Keilon Fortune didn't play either, having injured his hip initially in the game against BWBA II, and then again in the game against the Tim Thomas Players.  Steve Moore also needs to regain his composure a bit, and at least in our humble opinion, recognize that there are four other guys on the floor when he's out there. . . he didn't play a lot in the second half of this one, but when he did touch the ball, he shot it every time, and not many were dropping.   Hopefully Russell will get this team back in the gym, give them a good talking to and settle things down again, because right now they look like a team with a bit of a chemistry problem, with a lot of guys getting frustrated about the way in which they perceive each other and themselves.    Hey, it's early, and there's a lot of time before that first game.

There were a lot of other really good games today, including the Consolation Championship between CA/NY Rhinos and West Valley.  Both of these teams are from the Northern California coast area, with players mostly from Santa Cruz, Monterey and the San Jose area.   Josh Rhodes (6'-7" So. PF) from Santa Cruz didn't play in the final; he lost a contact lens in an earlier game and was suffering from migraines.  Farris Broussard (6'-6" Sr. F), Jason Moore (6'-0 Jr. G), Justin McDaniel (6'-7" Sr. F) from Berkeley, and Mica Weger (6'-0"  Sr. G) from Saratoga were impressive for West Valley, as was Mike Travis (6'-9" F) from Marshall (at least that's who we think we were watching because the roster we had didn't always match the uniform numbers out on the floor).  CA/NY had one guy we hadn't seen before, James Thomas (6'-8" Sr. SF/PF) from Luther HS, a tremendously talented blocker who runs the floor, can put the ball down and handle it, and shoot from the perimeter too.  We saw several coaches eyeing him, wondering who he was. . . big talent, but we didn't get to find out much about him because the CA/NY guys left shortly after the game. . .

We'll post up the rest of the scores from Sunday later.   In the meantime, we've got a lot of photos from the semifinal games from today that we'll be posting.

Oh, and if we had to pick an All-Tournament team,   here's who would be on it:

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