SoCal High School & Prep Report

Buenos Dias From Cabo: Limited Reporting This Week From SoCalHoops.com--(December 21,1997)

It's not our fault. They're making us do it. We're going to be away during the next week, and will have only sporadic telephone, modem, fax and computer access during the week.

But then you should really be out watching basketball, not glued to your computer anyway. Right.

Go spend the holidays with your family. That's what ours is making us do.

All right, so here's what's up. During the biggest tournament week of the year (other than playoffs and State Championships), sandwiched in between the Reebok Vegas Prep Classic, the Best in the West, and the New Nike National Prep Classic, which will be played in San Diego from December 26 through the 31st, we're going to be only sporadically available to post articles here at SoCalHoops. We're going to be out in the middle of the Mexican Pacific, and will only be able to e-mail and connect at selected ports. Bummer. We'll be thinking of you. We might even drop a post card through if we can get our scanner aboard the ship. :- )

Actually we will have several correspondents in Vegas, in Maui at the Iolani Classic and we will be back in time to go to both the BIW and portions of the Nike National Prep Classic in San Diego. But during the week, especially Monday and Tuesday of this week, the reporting may be sparse, or not at all. We're hoping to have a flood of reports on Wednesday and then again on December 25, Christmas Day, and again sporadically from Friday and Saturday. The pace will pick up again on Sunday December 28, 1997.

All our correspondents have laptops, and will be e-mailing in their reports, and we will put them up just as fast as we can. We're so jealous though of Jason Day, since he'll get to see the semifinals and finals of the Vegas tournament on Monday and Tuesday. Our own personal prediction: Rice (NY) will not be in the final, but Mt. Zion will and, if the bracketing permits it, Washington Union and/or Westchester will be there. If it turns out to be Rice and Mt. Zion, we predict a blowout for Mt. Zion. They're so much more physical, so much more active on the boards and, at least from what we saw yesterday, Rice is prone to playing pretty ugly basketball at times, and against Long Branch, which Rice finally defeated, the first half was one of the slowest, worst played halves of any game at the tournament, by both teams. Either Rice was just getting off to a slow start in that one (they did win eventually by more than 20 points--we'll have a full review later), but it looks like they will play "down" to the level of their competition (not that Long Branch is "down"--they just were really no match for Rice.) But Mt. Zion is so much more physically active and athletic, and besides, they're a whole lot more fun to watch. Kinda like watching Chris Jeffries of Fresno's Washington Union High, which last night just hammered Simi Valley (again, another full report on that later). Jeffries and Hightower. What a dream matchup. Hope it happens. And we're betting that a bunch of other folks are too, including Jason Day and our other correspondents at the tournament.

So, we hope you all understand, it's not that we don't want to report on stuff during the week. It's just that our phone access and our access to the server will be limited. We'll do our best, and hope that you understand. We know that Michael Miller's readers are going through the same drought now too, since he's at the Vegas tournament and hasn't been able to post up either. We know that he'll bring a torrent of good information as well upon his return on Tuesday night or Wednesday, and we hope that you can all hold out until we both have time to get our sites up to date again.

In the meantime, Happy Holidays, and Happy Basketball.

Peace.

SoCalHoops.com

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