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SoCalHoops High School News

Vance, Dural, Duhon and Dilworth
All Transfer To Venice--(Sept. 9, 1998)

A year ago, Venice looked like it would be a pretty good team. But then LA City 4A Player of the Year David Bluthenthal (6'-7" Fr--USC PF) transferred to Westchester, and Venice suddenly became just a good team with relative newcomer Glen McGowan (6'-7" Sr. G/F) attempting to pick up the slack. Glen did a decent job, aided by some seniors and a couple of other then-juniors like Kevin Johnson (6'-5" Sr. F), but the team simply lacked that certain something needed to win a City title.

And recall again back in July of this year, specifically July 10 , we wrote about how good we thought Venice High was going to be? Well, in the last two months we'd almost forgotten about Venice. But then we heard some very impressive news from Coach Dave Goosen tonight, and we checked also with several other sources to get another angle on the story.

And it seems that as good as we thought Venice might be this season, it turns out they're going to be better. How much better? How's this for starters: Possibly one of the biggest starting lineups in City 3A (or 4A for that matter)--6'-8", 6'-8", 6'-7". Not bad.

Our sources told us early this summer that Venice was going to be a "big" team, and that they might be getting a big man to transfer in. We all just assumed we knew who the big man would be. Boy, were most of the wise guys out there (including us) wrong about his identity. . .

Venice will now have the services of not one, but two more big guys to go along with returning starter and all-City player Glen McGowan (6'-7" Sr. SG/F). Both of the new guys are transfers. First is David Vance (6'-8" Sr. F/C) who transferred from Crenshaw. Next up is Joseph Dural (6'-8" Sr. F/C) who played last year at Verdugo Hills.

And as if that wasn't good enough, Venice has also received two other transfers, one from the Valley, Montel Duhon (6'-4" Jr. SG) from Kennedy (isn't he related to Chris Duhon (6'-1" Sr. PG) from Salman, Louisiana??), and a point guard from LA Hamilton, Eric Dilworth (5'-10" Sr. PG).

Apparently Vance didn't play much (or really at all) last season because of some difficulties with the Crenshaw coaching staff, and if there are any truismsin City Section basketball this is one: When you've got difficulties with Willie West, well, you're going to get really familiar with the pine. But from what we do know about Vance, he's a very, very good player, perhaps as good, if not better, than Crenshaw's Shaun Hemsley (6'-9" Sr. C), and had it not been for the politics of the situation at Crenshaw, he would most certainly have been a star there. For a big guy, Vance is surprisingly agile, can run the floor, dunk with ease, rebounds like crazy, and blocks shots, all of which Venice was sorely lacking last season. And with the addition of Duval, who averaged about 20 points a game in summer league play, Venice is a true contender for a City 3A title, especially now that it looks like Gilbert Arenas won't be going to Sylmar, last year's 3A Champions. Dural is very strong, not a true wide-body, but also not someone to get pushed off the blocks either. If McGowan and Kevin Johnson (6'-5" Jr. F), and other returners Kyle Morrison (5'-11" Soph G), Trevor Oelrich (6'-1" Soph SG/F), and J.P. Losman (6'-3" Jr. F/PF) can get the ball inside to Dural or Vance, they'll be virtually unstoppable.