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SoCalHoops Tournament News

From The Mouths Of Fishes Spring. . .
More Fish Stories--(Sept 18, 1998)

We talked with Dave "Rockfish" Benezra two nights ago, and while Dave was somewhat hurried and a bit manic about putting together the rosters in time for the Pump's real staff (Jan & Phil Bryant) to get the schedules put to bed, he still managed to squeeze into a five minute conversation about 20 minutes worth of information about how the Rockfish team did last weekend at the EBO Sweet 16 Fall Classic, as the Rockfish won the championship game. The details were not particularly focused and they were pretty wide ranging. Sorry, if you are looking for a blow-by-blow account of what happened in each game, that's not what Dave talked about.

Instead we chatted about Rafael Berumen, Shantay Legans, Brian Wethers, Dalron Johnson, Russell Lakey and Eric Seiss within the context of their performances throughout the tournament.

Dave said that Shantay played perhaps his greatest series of games ever, what Dave described as "his guttiest performance ever." Shantay apparently had injured his tailbone when he took a very hard foul in one of the early games, and had to ice it repeatedly, he rolled an ankle in the second game, and then took a tremendous shot to the head with an elbow from Oakland Slam-N-Jam's Blandon Ferguson, who attempted to block a shot in Shantay's face, which he made anyway, but the head injury was at first thought to be a possible concussion (at least that's what Dave thought initially), and required that Shantay ice himself practically all over during the rest of the games.

Dave also complained about the general playing conditions, since apparently it was well over 90 degrees outside, and even hotter inside. Most of the players cramped up, some worse than others, and as Dave put it "we were feeding the guys bananas and other sources of potassium to try to stem the cramping." Oh, and here's the same suggestion that we gave to Dave about playing in heat and cramping: Take a few Tums if you start to cramp. This is an old long-distance cyclists trick and it really works: When your muscles cramp, in addition to perhaps having an electrolyte or potassium imbalance, your muscles are not getting enough calcium absorption (at least that's what we are told, and we're not doctors). Tums (perhaps unlike Rolaids, but we're not sure about this) are pretty much mostly calcium. Take a few and it will stop the cramps. Really. It works.

Anyway, Dave said that during the second day, Rafael, and Wethers more so, were cramping badly and it really affected their level of play, especially in the EBO and Oakland Slam-n-Jam games, both of which were won by Rockfish. About Rafael, Dave said that he was still very sore and very stiff from the beginnings of the conditioning and weightlifting that the Simi guys are doing now, and with the cramping, Rafael didn't play as well offensively as he might have if he had been in the best of shape. And Dave said that Rafael is still nursing (to a much lesser extent that in the summer) the achilles injury he suffered right before (or at, we're not sure) ABCD camp. Dave said, however, that Rafael played great, and he "sacrified his offensive game so that he could do the things defensively that we needed him to do."

Apparently in the EBO game, Rafael was given the job of guarding Boozer, and just as we all witnessed this summer, Boozer restricted most of his game to around the perimeter, and did not really post up or bang inside for rebounds. Just how much, if at all, this performance by Boozer will turn some schools off is an unknown, but if it does, UCLA probably won't be unhappy if Boozer is able to narrow his choices, since the feeling among the coaching staff (at least the ones we've spoken with) seem to think that even with Boozer's developing reputation as a "soft" inside player who prefers the perimeter, he will still be a major recruit, and is still the object of their desire and the No. 1 recruiting target.

We suspect that Dave's description of Rafael, i.e., that he "sacrificed his offense to do the things we wanted defensively" is another way of saying that if the coaches in attendance were looking for Berumen's "stock" (whatever that is) to rise following what were considered not terribly strong performances at the summer camps and tourneys, well, think again. And now that Cal has apparently accepted a verbal from Justin Davis, maybe he didn't really impress the Cal coaches or others in attendance. While there are still rumors circulating that Braun's recruiting might not yet be done, as we count it, with the NCAA scholarship restrictions still in place due to the Todd Bozeman indiscretions, Cal should be done now that Davis has verballed. But then again, if we take Dave's comment at face value, it may very well be that Rafael truly did sacrifice his own offensive game (which, like Berumen, he prefers to take outside the paint, shooting j's or 3's) to play solid defense, and this may yet impress some of the coaches who were in attendance. Rafael limited Boozer to only 12 points, not a stellar performance from the big guy from Alaska.

Dave also described the game against EBO as "surreal, like something from out of a Fellini movie. It was just the weirdest game I've ever coached," he told us. He said there were bodies and people lying around everywhere, guys with ice bags on their heads, their legs, their butts, and the heat was just oppressive. Guys were either injured, or suffering from near-heatstroke. We didn't ask him which Fellini film he had in mind, but several would be applicable to his description, and they're all wierd (if you've never seen a Felinni film, you reallly must). Dave told us that the game itself was "just weird." He told us that Rockfish was absolutely, positively dead and out of the out of the game in the first half, down 24-7 in the first half. Maybe it was Shantay's 50' half-court shot, maybe it was just sheer will and determination, but Rockfish ultimately took control in the second half, or actually what Dave said was "Brian Wethers took over in the second half." Dave said that Brian, played just the game of his life, scoring and shooting almost at will in the second half, and EBO never really came out to guard them; Dave's not sure why, but Mats' squad never really established any defense in the second half of the title game.

In the title game, Dave told us that Dalron blocked 5 of Andrew Gooden's shots, and played superb defense. Apparently Brian Wethers didn't play too much in the game against Oakland, since he was suffering from extreme cramping and heat exhaustion, but when he was in he played great.

We were also told that Russell Lakey (5'-11" Jr. PG) played about half the time in each game, having "his best games ever with the Rockfish", especially during the game against EBO where he scored 10 points against Shammell Stallworth, Deshawn Stevenson and Boozer.

In the final game, with Wethers out a lot, icing his entire body down, Eric Seiss came in and scored 17 points, shooting 10 for 10 from the field.

We also talked about some of the younger guys on the other Rockfish squad, and of them Dave said "Some of them had some difficulty playing against players of this caliber, but that's what our program is really all about." Dave further explained, saying "We spot guys with talent and half the battle with getting them ready to be the best players they can be, and going on to play in college, is getting them to believe that they can play against guys like Gooden, Davis, Boozer and the rest. The young guys need to believe that they can play against the best in order for them to actually be able to do it. Tournaments like this are really key to helping us help these younger players to develop."

Okay, so our conversation and the details above aren't exactly a chronology of the event or the full performances; hell, we don't even have the stats for the Rockfish guys. If you're really interested in hearing about Rockfish stuff, other than what you can find from the guys, like Shantay, who post here and over at WestCoastHoops, you might want to check out Dave's own narration on his Recruiting USA hotline. You may hear Rockfish news, but maybe you won't. We aren't especially recommending that you spend the money to call, but then again, Dave has some very unique insights and information that you really can't get anywhere else except on his hotlines, both about Rockfish and Southern California recruiting in general. If you're interested, the number is 1-900-896-2300. Remember, this is a "for-profit" telephone number, and the info Dave gives out does not come cheap, (it's $1.49 per minute) so just be aware that calling the number will get you a charge on your phone bill (no, it's not a Visa or Mastercard thingee, but the charge does show on your bill).