SoCalHoops High School News

Beverly Hills Tournament
Results From Wednesday--(Dec. 10, 1998)

The Beverly Hills Invitational Tournament is played at the Beverly Hills "Swim Gym." and features 16 teams, including Campbell Hall, Canyon (Canyon Country) Rolling Hills Peninsula, Buena, Hart, Hamilton, Venice, Culver City, Palisades, Canoga Park, Ventura, Agoura, Cleveland, Bishop Amat, Birmingham, and host Beverly Hills.  The tournament got underway on Tuesday, and while we don't have all the scores, we can tell you who advanced to the winner's bracket and who went to the consolation.  We've already posted the results from some of Tuesday's games, but here's a recap of the winnners and losers (without the scores):

In the top half of the bracket:

Campbell Hall beat Canyon
Peninsula lost to Buena
Hart lost to Hamilton
Venice beat Culver City

In the bottom half of the bracket:

Pali beat Canoga Park
Ventura lost to Agoura
Cleveland beat Bishop Amat
Beverly Hills beat Birmingham

We've got a couple of the details of these games, but not many, and we won't repeat the details of the Venice-Culver City game which we posted yesterday, but here are a couple of others:

Campbell Hall 57, Canyon 50--Brandon Woodard had 22 points and 13 rebounds, and Jesse Foster added nine points, 12 rebounds and six blocked shots for the Vikings in a first-round victory at the Beverly Hills tournament. 

Buena 65, Peninsula 59--Danny Thompson had 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Bulldogs in a first-round victory at the Beverly Hills tournament. Senior guard Josh Navon added 13 points for Buena (3-2).

These results set up the following matchups yesterday:

Campbell Hal played Buena at 3:30 in the winner's bracket
Hamilton played Venice at 5:00 p.m. in the winner's bracket
Palisades played Agoura at 6:30 p.m. in the winner's bracket
and Cleveland played Beverly Hills last night at 8:00 p.m. in the winner's bracket.

There was one loser's bracket game yesterday, but we don't have the score:  Bishop Amat beat Birmingham and will play Friday at 3:00 p.m. atainst the winer of the Canoga Park v. Ventura game which will be played today (Thursday).

Here's what we know happened yesterday:

Campbell Hall 55, Buena 53--Hassan Bassiri sank two free throws with 11 seconds, clinching Campbell Hall High's 55-53 victory over Buena on Wednesday in the second round of the Beverly Hills tournament.  Bassiri, whose free throws gave the Vikings (5-0) a 55-51 lead, scored his only other points on a three-point play in the second quarter.  Josh Levy scored 12 of his 15 points in the third quarter to help Campbell Hall (5-0) rally from a 10-point deficit to tie the game, 40-40, at the end of the quarter.  Peter Brown had 29 points for Buena.  

We also got a report on this game from our friend Ruben Sanchez, and here's what he had to say about it:

Campbell Hall won a thriller of a game against Buena in the quarterfinals of the Beverly Hills Tournament on Wednesday by a score of 55 to 52. Please excuse me if I leave out names or get some of the scoring wrong, because I was so busy watching I didn't get a chance to write down all the stats. In the first half, Campbell Hall seemed out of sync. They really couldn't get their defense or offense going. Buena had this big 6'-7" guys who seemed to drive at will right down the middle. In any case, he scored a ton of points, but Buena wasn't able to put the game away. They were winning by 8 points at the half. I don't know what Coach Haloosim said to his guys at half time, but a different team appeared for the second half. Josh Levy (6'4" Sr. SG) came out "on fire," driving to the basket and hitting threes. He also blocked several shots. This seemed to spark the Vikings. By the end of the third quarter, the Vikings were up by two. The fourth quarter was hard fought on both sides, but
the Vikings maintained their lead. Brandon Woodard (6'-3" Sr. F) from Campbell Hall scored and rebounded in double figures, Jesse Foster (6''7" Jr. C) got a bunch of rebounds and Josh Levy must've put in around 17 points (12 in the third quarter), not to mention his blocked shots. Buena's big guy must have had over 20, but almost all of his points were scored in the first half. Campbell Hall did a good job of shutting him down in the second half. Campbell Hall showed a lot of heart, and it looks like they are a team to watch.

We'll be watching as they take on Venice on Friday.   Here's the game that set up the other semifinal matchup:

Venice 75, Hamilton 71--Venice took it down to the wire.  After leading in the first half by as many as 15, the game came down to the final seconds as possession switched on turnovers in the last 30 seconds at least 5 times on bad passes and steals by both teams.  But Venice showed that they're ready to make a run for a City Title as Glen McGowan (6'-8" Sr. SG/SF) scored 31 points, grabbed 9 boards and had 4 three pointers.  Joe Dural (6'-8" Sr. PF/C) scored 21 points, but had more bobbled balls than we could count, and while he's an effective scorer, he needs to work on his hands.  Joe will be a big time prospect, and will definitely help Venice, which is deeper this year than in any year in recent memory. Others scoring for Venice were Eric Dilworth with 5,  Kyle Morrison with 6, and Montel Duhon with 9. Ronald Johnson didn't score but he did have 6 assists and 10 rebounds.  For Hamilton, Matt O'Conner (5'-11" ?? PG) had 17 points. Others scoring were Glass 11, Compton 5, Gonzalez 3, Fricks 6, Shabazz with 2, Foster 4, Brown 11, and Atkins 8.

Palisades 68, Agoura 46--We only saw the first quarter of this game because we had to go across town for another tournament, but it looked like a pretty big mismatch, not in terms of size or athleticsim, but in terms of depth.  Agoura only had 7 players on their roster available due to injuries and football (at least that's what we were told) and while they played pretty much even in the first quarter with Adam Allegro (6'-4" So. SG/SF) playing well, they couldn't keep up with guys like Steve McMaryion from Pali, which eventually turned it on late the first half.

Cleveland 70, Beverly Hills 49-- We didn't get a chance to stay for this one, but Kent Dennis managed 16 points and 6 steals and Simmagen Smith scored 11 points and grabbed 13 rebounds . Cleveland improves to 3-0 on the year, while B-H drops to 1-5.

So with these wins in the winner's bracket, the schedule for Friday is:

6:00 p.m.  Campbell Hall v. Venice
7:30 p.m. Palisades v. Cleveland

There are a few games today in the consolation bracket, so if you're near Beverly Hills or Century City, you might want to wander over to the gym. If you've never been there, it's on Moreno, between "Little" Santa Monica and Olympic, just east of Century City (in fact, the school backs up to the office buildings on Century Park East).  The "Swim Gym" is famous because that's where they filmed the dance scene in the Frank Capra classic "It's a Wonderful Life" starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, which by now everyone has seen.  Remember the high school dance, where the floor opens up and Stewart and Reed fall into the pool below the basketball court?  That's the place.  And yes, there's still a pool under the floor, and yes, the place still stinks of chlorine and has the most unsafe and steepest seating of any gym on the planet, and yes, the gym floor is surrouned by metal railings which have taken more than a few players out to injuries.  But if you've never seen the huge barrel shaped building, it's worth at least a visit.

Here's today's consolation bracket game schedule:

2:00 p.m. Canyon v. Peninsula
3:30 p.m. Hart v. Culver City
5:00 p.m. Canoga Park v. Ventura

And in the Winner's bracket here's what's up:

6:30 p.m. Buena v. Hamilton
8:00 p.m. Agoura v. Beverly Hills

The fifth place game will be played Saturday at 4:30, the third place will follow at 6;00 p.m. and the title game will follow at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.  See you  there.  Maybe.

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