birmingham first round

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Birmingham Tourney: Saturday's First
Round Results--(December 29, 1997)

This one didn't get underway until Saturday, and for an 8 team tournament, the field is really pretty weak. Actually, it's about a 7 1/2 team tourney, but we don't want to be unkind to the Birmingham JV squad; they can't help it that they were shoved into this thing. If you plan on attending any of these games, be forewarned: Skip the JV games.

But this Tourney does have one thing going for it: It does have Van Nuys' Grant High Lancers, with Gil Arenas and a bunch of other fine players. In the first round, Gilbert Arenas of Grant, the City Section's current top player, who is averaging more than 30 points per game, did it again, scoring 30 points, 12 rebounds, and just missed out on a triple double with six assists, as the Grant Lancers defeated Granada Hills 72 to 52 in a first round game. Grant never trailed, breaking out to a 23-11 first quarter lead, and extending it to 34-24 at the half. Grant again outscored Granada Hills in the third quarter 18-12, and sealed the win with a 20-16 fourth quarter. Others scoring for Grant included LaRon Harris with 6, Daniel Tarr with 9, Asatyr Bagaryan withy 2 points, and Krishna Evans with 11.

For Granada, only Scott Neumann broke into double figures, hitting for 15 points.

But the big story here, in fact the only story in this "tournament" is Arenas, and not conicidentally in Saturday's Daily News, the new boys' basketball reporter Gerry Gittelson (can you say Eric who?) did a little feature on Gil, pointing out that he "has emerged as the City Section's best overall player, averaging almost 30 points, eight rebounds seven assits and six steals for the Lancers," who as of the time the piece was written were 5-4. By the time Saturday's game was done, the Lancers were 7-5 and rising quickly.

As quoted by Gittelson, Grant's coach, Howie Levine said of Arenas, "Right now he's dominating. Gilbert is a very gifted athlete who scorfed 22 points per game as a sophomore. He's got great quickness, speed and jumping ability. And at just 170 pounds, there's a lot of room for muscle growth." We at SoCalHoops would certainly agree with that assessment, and if you think we're being overly generous with our praise, then go see Gil for yourself. He's only a junior, so you'll have plenty of time to catch the show, but don't wait too long.

In other first round games in the Birmingham Tournament:

Birmingham 94, LA CES 63:

Stanley Fletcher scored 33 points and pulled down 13 rebounds while Emmanuel Evans added another 28 points and 13 boards himself as the Braves won by 31 points in this first round game. Birmingham improved its record to 7-4, and Fahim Hassankhail added another 5 points and 10 assists for host Birmingham. With the win, Birmingham will play Verdugo Hills tonight in the second round at 8:45 pm at Birmingham.

Birmingham JV 31, Monroe 68:

This is what happens when a tournament comes up short on teams-- send out the host schools younger kids to get killed by one of the invited guests' Varsity squads. Saturday, the Braves' JV were on the menu, and Monroe just carved them up. Eric Bush of Monroe scored 20 points, and Monroe had eight players scoring. Birmingham's high scorer was Mobares who only had 7. The next highest scorer for the JV's only had 4. This type of game should be outlawed, or it shouldn't be called a "tournament". More like a sacrifice. We realize that it's a great way for the younger kids to get some experience and practice, and to give them a reality check, but puhleeze, don't call it a tournament game. The score at the end of the first quarter was 17 to 2, and at the half it was 34 to 6. Monroe probably could have scored more, but they had to try hard to stay awake. In the third quarter, Monroe outscored the JV's 26 to 9. As we said, this one wasn't even funny, and in the fourth quarter, Monroe probably went to a "park-league-hands-in-the-air" defense, not contesting any shots or trying to make any, because in the last quarter Monroe only scored 4 points to the JV's 17. Ho hum.

Verdugo Hills 49, Sherman Oaks CES 36:

In yet another non-scoring (or seemingly so) game, Verdugo advanced to meet host Birmingham today by beating SOCES, which like the Birmingham JV, only had one player score higher than 10--Lorense Lowe who had 13. The next highest scorer for SOCES was Douglas with 7, Gray with 6, Calkins and Brown with 4 each, and Edwards with 2. Verdugo didn't do a whole lot better, and only Joe Moore and Joseph Dural with 13 and 12 respectively broke the double digit mark.