thousand oaks tourney

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SoCalHoops Tournament News

28th Annual Thousand Oaks Rotary
Tourney Starts Today--(Dec. 6, 1999)

At least we think it's the 28th Annual such event. . . This year's tournametn will feature almost the same group of teams from last year's 8-team event (well, there are a couple of different teams, and Dos Pueblos, which last year had Shantay Legans--now at Cal--isn't in it), and it will run from December 6-11. We don't have a bracket, and we don't have the schedule beyond today's first round games, but here's what we do know:

Monday Games--December 6

3:00 p.m.	Saugus v. Oak Park
4:30 p.m.	Grant v. Oxnard
6:00 p.m.	Harvard-Westlake v. Channel Islands
7:30 p.m.	Thousand Oaks v. Calabasas

This should be a fairly competitive tournament, and each team has some excellent players, and a lot of really good, quick guard play. Sure, Gilbert Arenas (Grant) won't be there, Shantay Legans (Dos Pueblos) is gone, and so are Michael Goldman (Calabasas) and Alex Holmes (Harvard-Westlake). But you'll still get to see Russell Lakey (H-W), and it's a good chance to find out who else will step up for each of these teams. Thousand Oaks has lately had Tim Chevalier and Ben Olson firing on all cylinders, Grant has Ryan "Flea" Logan and Michael Charleston, Saugus has Mike Grisanti, Tim Tampus and Marc Holmquist who've been playing well through this first week. Harvard has good guard play with Lakey, John Karravas and Craig Weinstein, and their sole big man Eric Geffner; Oak Park has a trio of scorers, Jason Adams, Scott Jones and Zach Smith, who each scored 11 against Agoura on Friday, and Channel Islands has Manny Verrelleca who made six three-pointers and scored 20 points for Channel Islands (2-1) during a third-place game at the Nordhoff tournament, and they've also got Steve Baier. And not to be forgotten, Oxnard has one of the best big men in SoCal this year in Nick Curtis (6'-7" Jr. PF), and they've also got Matthew Merricks who joined with Nick in scoring 17 each points for Oxnard in a loss to Ridgecrest Burroughs on Saturday in the Saugus Tournament.

Hopefully we'll have more on this tournament as the week progresses, including a couple of reports from one of our correspondents. . . Stay tuned.