war702

SoCalHoops High School & Prep Report

War On The Floor, Day Three & Four--(July 2, 1998)

The War on the Floor continues. Sort of like the movie "The Longest Day," this one seems to go on, and on, and on.

On Wednesday, the final round of pool play was played, and once again, for Dominguez didn't show, and they also didn't show today. We have no idea whether they played at the Carson Summer Finale, but really it doesn't matter. They weren't missed, at least not by those teams who were scheduled to play them. Here's what the LA Times had to say about Wednesday's games (with some of our comments from Thursday's games where appropriate):

10:30 a.m. Canoga Park 57, Crespi 55: Marcin Jagoda's layup on an inbounds pass from Tim McDonough pulled Crespi (1-2) to within 56-55 with 20 seconds to play. But the Celts turned the ball over on their next possession and fouled Mike Bell, who made one of two free throws to seal the Hunters' victory. Bell scored 21 points and Mike Gomes added 16 for Canoga Park (2-1). Jagoda scored 14 points for Crespi and Pat Casella and Blake Tibbetts each scored 10.

12:00 p.m Clovis West 2, Dominguez 0: forfeit. 'Nuff said. Clovis advance to the winner's bracket and played Harvard-Westlake on Thursday afternoon. On Wednesday, the LA Times published a not-so-flattering piece about Russell Lakey, with the blazing headline implying that as a point guard, Russell needed some work. Well, we checked out his game on Thursday, and the rumors of his early demise are greatly exaggerated. Clovis West ran one of the best full-court trapping presses we've seen in a long time, and while Russell was initially flustered, he eventually figured out that unlike most presses which are broken with passing, the Clovis press was best broken by dribbling through it, which Russell did with regularity by the second quarter. Chad Garson (6'-2" Jr. SG) hit some big threes late in the game and in the overtime, as did Alex Holmes, and H-W again won by three points.

1:10 p.m. Sylmar v. Buchanan--Sylmar beat them and yes, Gilbert Arenas (6'-3" Sr. SG/PG) did play for Sylmar. He hit for 10 points, not an overwhelming performance, but not bad either. George Wrighster (6'-6" Sr. F) and Jeremiah Turner also played very well.

2:15 p.m. Kennedy 64, Granada Hills 43: Anthony Cosby scored 22 points, including four three-point baskets, and the Golden Cougars (1-2) beat the Highlanders (0-3). These two teams advanced to the consolation bracket on Thursday, where Kennedy got beat up by Crespi, and we mean beat up. . . the score at the half was 32-12 Crespi, and Kennedy coach Tim Guy was just infuriated at his team and their lack of effort. Of course he could have been upset that Anthony Cosby failed to show for the game against Crespi, so there was a lot to be upset about. Granada Hills also advanced to the Consolation bracket, and on Thursday they played Burbank, and once again Granada got caught short, losing by 30 points. For Burbank on Thursday Eric Rowher (6'-8" Sr. F/C) and Damien Jordan (6'-0" So. G) were the big stories for Ron Quarterman's Bulldogs. Rowher has gotten bigger, stronger, and developed some hands and footwork, and looks like he'll be a good D-I prospect. Damien Jordan is just a bundle of energy. . . he's quick, speedy, fast, all the superlatives you want to describe a good, fundamentally sound player. While Burbank may not make much noise come this season, look for these two guys to make a definite impact.

3:20 p.m. Santa Monica 43, Taft 33: Nothing to write home about. In fact other than the box score, the Times had nothing about this game.

4:25 p.m. Cleveland 79, Compton Centennial 61: Kent Dennis had 25 points, including 19 in the second half, and Cleveland won its pool. The Cavaliers led, 42-33, at halftime, and Dennis scored 11 points during a 16-8 Cleveland run to start the second half. Kenny Mason added 17 points, Brian Smith had 15 and Demetrius Burrell had 12 for Cleveland.

5:30 p.m. Notre Dame v. Inglewood-- we didn't get the score or the details for this one, but we do know that Inglewood won, and was scheduled to play Cleveland on Thursday in the Championship bracket at 6:50 p.m. We keep hearing that Inglewood is big, fast and good. We'll try to get a look at them on Friday, assuming they won (and that may be a big assumption)

6:50 p.m. Valencia 55, Burbank 50: Howard Ingram made four free throws in the final 14 seconds for Valencia. Royce Minor scored all 12 of his points in the second half for the Vikings, who trailed, 22-14, at halftime. His driving layup with a minute to play tied the score, 50-50. Eskias McDaniels had 20 points for the Vikings, including five during a 10-2 run that tied the score, 39-39, with 6:00 to play. Eric Rowher scored 18 points for Burbank and Jack Holwahjian had 14.

7:55 p.m. Chatsworth 65, Montclair Prep 35: Chatsworth started with a 21-9 run against the young Mounties, who have struggled greatly in this tournament. Malik Morris had 20 points for Chatsworth. Bobby Bowlin added 12 and Richard Harrison had 10. Jason Anderson had 18 points for Montclair Prep.

9:00 p.m. Simi Valley 70, Harvard-Westlake 57: Branduinn Fullove had 25 points and Rafael Berumen added 14 for Simi Valley. Berumen's dunk and a three-pointer by Shaun Michel were part of a 22-7 run that gave Simi Valley a 42-24 halftime lead. Simi Valley extended the lead to 53-33 on a layup by Tony Ward with 12:49 to play. Harvard-Westlake made a run in the final 7:07 after Berumen became the first player in the tournament to foul out. Alex Holmes had 17 points, including five three-point baskets, for the Wolverines.

On Thursday, we also had a better chance to get a look at some of the Chatsworth guys as they played a mid-afternoon game, and two guys were impressive: Richard Harrison (6'-5" Sr. SF/PF) and Mark Cannon (6'-1" Sr. SG/PG). Harrison is a big wide-body type of guy with the look of guard, sort of a burly Jason Kidd-type. He posted up, drove the lane, and played impressive defense, and for colleges he's certainly worth a look. Likewise, Mark Cannon is a great outside-inside shooter, with a great release and good accuracy, he sees the floor well, distributes the ball and hit some very nice j's. This kid's got a great demeanor, is very coachable, and has a great work ethic. Between games, he told me about his summer job at a book bindery, which he described as "manual labor, the hardest thing I've ever done, it builds character." His father is the JV coach at Chatsworth, as well as a baseball coach there and at West Hills baseball, and he runs the Silver Bullets club basketball organization which is part of the Valley Conference. Mark Cannon is also definitely worth a look from some colleges, so come on out and see him, because you won't be disappointed.

The Championship round continues Friday, and we'll have more complete results tomorrow morning, with scores and boxes.

For now, here's what we know happened on Thursday (except as otherwise noted above:

In the Consolation Bracket, Santa Monica beat Granada Hills 69-40, and then GH got hammered again by Burbank. . . GH advanced because Dominguez, which placed last in its pool due to forfeits, again failed to show (big surprise) so GH got the W. We did have a nice talk with Granada's coach Lou Cicciari, who is a great guy, but he's instituted one of the wierdest team rules (at least for the game we saw) which he calls the "no-dribble" rule. If a player on his team puts the ball on the floor for anything other than a bounce pass to a teammate, the player gets pulled. The result was that Granada Hills lost by 30 points to Burbank, which did in fact dribble the ball. The "no-dribble" deal is a pretty good mechanism to teach players ball-movement and passing, but it doesn't do much against a press, particularly when a player's only option in the backcourt is to stand and look for an open teammate to pass to. In this case, it resulted in about 30 or so turnovers, and it seemed that Burbank scored off of every one of them. We'd probably re-think the "no-dribble" concept and save it for summer league games, but then again, Granada Hills was pretty much out of it anyway, so why not try to teach some team concepts in a game which really doesn't mean anything anyway.

Anyway, that's it for now; we'll have more tomorrow as the War on the Floor continues.