vegas 35-45

SoCal High School & Prep Report

21st Reebok Las Vegas Holiday
Prep Classic: Saturday's Games #35-#45--(January 3, 1998)

We last left off with our reviews of the games at Vegas, with an article last week, December 22 (which was actually uploaded the 28th when we returned from our self-inflicted exile) which concluded with game 34, played Saturday, December 20, 1997 between Rancho Bernardo (San Diego) and Centennial (British Columbia), in which Rancho just demolished the Canucks, 93 to 59.

So let's pick up the rest of the games, where we left off:

Game 35: Mountain View (Mesa, Arizona) v. Las Vegas Durango-- Mountain View handily beat the hosts, 81 to 59. Brady Richeson (5'-10" Jr. G) from Mountain View scored 22 points and was easily the game MVP, playing for only 22 minutes of the game (a point a minute--not bad). Durango had an off-day, and only two of it's players, Jason Burns and Charles Ashley managed to score more than 10 points, Burns with exactly 10 and Ashley with 11. Durango's usually explosive Steve Simister had only 8 points and no assists in 23 minutes. Ned James (7'-7" Sr. F) had 15 points and 13 rebounds, and just controlled the inside, freezing Durango's two tallest players, Burns and Jack Newark, both at 6'-4", out of the paint. Newark only had 4 points, and it was clear that Durango head coach Al La Rocque, who has an impressive 189-92 record, was going to go at Mountain View with speed, because Durango just couldn't match their height. Try again. Didn't work, and Durango dropped into the consolation bracket as Moutain View, which improved to 11-0 advanced.

Game 36: Westlake (Austin Texas) 73, Woodinville (Woodinville, WA) 69-- A close game, in which Westlake only led by 4 at the half, and the two teams played the second half dead even, at 36-36. Chris Marcus ( 6'-3" Jr. G) of Westlake was the game MVP with 23 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 assists in 26 minutes. he was assisted by Jon Orton (6'-5" Jr. F) who had 15 points, 3 assists, and 2 rebounds in the game. For Woodinville, standouts were Aaron Brown (6'-5" Sr. F/C) with 13 points, 8 rebounds, Jesse Barham (6'-2" Sr. SG/SF) with 19 points and 4 rebounds, and Jason Snyder ( 6'-4" Jr. F) with 16 points and 7 rebounds.

Game 37: Newbury Park 60, Upper St. Clair (Pittsburgh, Penn.) 54-- Newbury Park controlled this game early, but led at the half by only 5, 36-31. The teams played just about even in the second half, with NP outscoring Upper St. Clair 24-23 in the second half. Although UPSt.C's field goal and three-point shooting was far better than NP's (neither were great, .380 vs. .419 from the field, and .227 vs. .400 from three) the difference in the game was in free-throw shooting, and Upper St. Clair shot only .545 to NP's .773 shooting. Dan Bobik was named the game's MVP with 16 points. Only two other NP players scored in double figures, Mike Meru with 12, and Brian Bobik (Dan's brother) with 10. Dan also grabbed 11 boards. Newbury Park improved to 8-3 with the win, and with the win improved their tourney record to 1-1 (they lost their first game to Mountain View 67-48), and advanced to play Dunbar, the winner of Game 38 in the next round.

Game 38: Dunbar (Lexington, Ky) 84, Green Valley (Henderson, NV) 69. Dunbar is a very unusual team. They carry 20 players on their roster, and considering that only 5 can play at a time, that's a pretty big bench by anyone's standards. With the win in this game, Dunbar improved to 5-2. In the first round Dunbar lost to Compton 74-82, (see game 11), and this is a team which can either be really good, or really bad. In this game they were pretty good, and George Baker (6'-2" Jr. F) was the game's MVP with 24 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists. Since this report is written well after the tournament, we can also report that Dunbar was truly the surprise spoiler at the Slam Dunk to the Beach tournament, defeating Compton Dominguez in the first round, and making it all the way to the final where they gave St. Patricks of New Jersey, the eventual winners of the tournament, terrible fits all the way. Like we said, they can either be really good, or really bad. Dunbar was also led by Scott Hundley (6'-5" So. F) who collected 16 points and 10 rebounds, and Eric Bunton, a 5'-9" quick little guard (whose class was not listed in the roster), who drove and slashed his way to 18 points. Dunbar easily dominated the first half, outscoring Green Valley 41-28, and shot an impressive .574 from the field and an even better .692 from the line on 18 for 26 shooting. An exciting team to watch, you just never know what they're going to do.

Game 39: Mt. Zion v. Salmen (Slidell, Louisiana). Guess who won. 80-68, Mt. Zion. The MVP of this game was Travis Robinson (6'-7" Sr. F), who was just everywhere, hamming for the crowd, yukking it up with the refs, and with us at the press table during the middle of the game. At one point, he knocked the ball out of bounds in front of the press table, picked it up, winked at a reporter and tried to hand it to him. Lucky he didn't get a technical, but a really fun player to watch. Needs to work on his discipline a bit, but you can tell he's having a great time playing this game, and that he just enjoys being on the court. He scored 16 points and colleged 5 boards, which was not the game high for Mt. Zion--that would be Corey Hightower (6'-6" Sr. G) who had 21 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 assists in 28 minutes. And don't forget Eric Short (6'-10" Sr. C) who only had 6 points, but hammered down 12 rebounds, 5 offensive and 7 defensive. Another big-time scorer for Mt. Zion in this game was Gerald Raymond (who was eventually named to the All-Tournament team along with Hightower and Robinson) who had 16 points, to go along with his 6 rebounds.

This game was never really in doubt, and Mt. Zion just dominated in almost every aspect. They are much more athletic than Salmen, and proved it on the glass, outrebounding them 44-33. Mt. Zion's shooting was not a whole lot better from the field (.478 for MZ v. .456 for Salmen), and Salmen actually had a better percentage on free-throw shooting (.611 v. .583) The big differences were in three-point shooting (MZ was 9 for 21--.429, as against Salmen's dismal 5 for 18--.278). And certainly there's no way to convey with cold statistics the energy which Travis brought to this game, and what that did for the rest of MZ; Hightower slashing and driving to the hole at least a dozen times, spinning off defenders, laying the ball in, and Travis clowing one minute, and playing just great shadow defense the next. A great team, and very fun to watch, actually the most fun in the entire tournament.

Salmen was not all bad themselves, and even though the game was never in doubt (MZ led 39-29 at the half, and just pushed it up by another two, outscoring Salmen 41-39 in the final period), Salmen got just an outstanding performance from Troy Smith, who in our opinion should have been named to the All-Tournament team, but wasn't. In this game, he had 26 points, 12 boards, and 3 assists in 31 minutes. 5 of those boards were offensive, and 7 defensive. He hit on 10 for 17 from the field, and was 1 for 4 from three-point range. He's a very quick, explosive 6'-3" sophomore guard, and perhaps it was his youth which kept him from being nominated, but in this game, he was Salmen's offense. In fact, only 5 other players scored, and only two had more than 10-- Starters Tory Peters (6'-4" Jr. F) with 12, and Chris Duhon (6'-0" So. PG/SG) with 13. This Salmen team is young, and with some experience and grit they'll be back.

Game 40: Baldwin (Pittsburgh, PA) 43, Denver East (Denver, CO) 71. -- This was another game which turned into a lopsided win, and Baldwin clearly didn't have the horses to compete, with only two players taller than 6'-3". Baldwin started Brian Kresak (5'-11" Sr. G), Brandon Maravich (5'-9" Jr. G), Ryan Dedes (6'-0" Jr. G), Corey Barnes (6'-5" Sr. C) and Dean Atavilla (6'-0" Jr. G/F). Baldwin's coach George Mazur, with a 372-245 won-loss record, is no slouch, and so he figured he'd go with speed, cause he sure didn't have height. Or much of a bench to go to either. But even so, Baldwin had pretty balanced scoring, with 28 from the starters, and the rest from the bench. Only problem was it was too few points from both the starters and the bench, and 43 just wouldn't cut it against a not much taller--except for one player--and faster team like Denver East. In comparison to the compact lineup of Baldwin, Denver started one of their own with the exception of Ferron Morgan (6'-10" Sr. C); the rest were about evenly matched size-wise with Cleophus Morris (who was not listed but looked to be about 6'-5"), Jimmy Dadiotis (6'-1" So. G), Stan King (6'-3" So. F) and Ivan Jones (5'-10" Sr. G). This was another game never in doubt, and King was named MVP with 16 points. Morgan had 13, Dadiotis had 10, and Craig Martin (5'10 Jr. G), another speedy little guard coming in off the bench had 12. For Baldwin, only Kresak scored in double figures, with 14 points. With the win, Denver improved to 4-2 on the season, and Baldwin dropped to 4-6. In the tourney, Baldwin dropped to 0-2 after losing to Mt. Zion in game 13, by a score of 85-30, and they were left with meeting the loser of the Cimmaron-Memorial-Inglewood game (game 42) on Monday.

Game 41: Graves County (Mayfield, Kentucky) 62, Poway (Poway, CA) 40. A game which went from bad to worse for the boys from down in San Diego. Poway had earlier beaten Cimmaron-Memorial 56-48, and Graves had defeated Inglewood 66-59 (see games 15 and 16 respectively). In this one, only Mark Nolte (6'-6" Sr. C) made it to double figures for Poway, hitting for 15 points. And despite outrebounding Graves 26-22, Poway just shot terribly all around, and especially in the second half in which Poway just disappeared, hitting only 5 for 13 from the field (.385), 1 for 6 from three (.167), and only 8 of 15 free throws (.533). Poway's composite stats for the whole game weren't that much better, and they shot only .364 from three range and .526 from the line. Compare that to Graves' .923 shooting from the line (12 of 13), and you can see what happened. Poway trailed by 12 at the half, 33-21, and then Graves just blew them away in the second half, outscoring Poway 29-19. Wes Miller (6'-5" Sr. F) of Graves was named the MVP, but was nowhere near being the high scorer for Graves, with only 8 points. That honor went to Jamie Norsworthy (6'-5" Sr. G) who hit for 21 points and 5 rebounds. The loss put Poway out of contention and relegated them to play in Game 71 on Monday against Salmen, the loser of game 39 against Mt. Zion.

Game 42: Cimmaron-Memorial (Las Vegas, Nev.) 55, Inglewood 61: This was a great overtime win for Inglewood, and they really needed it after losing their first game (game 16) 66-59 to Graves County. Inglewood scored a comeback of sorts, and stayed alive in the consolation bracket, earning the right to play Denver East on Monday in game 72. Inglewoods' standout Bradley Jackson (5'-10 Sr. PG) who has signed to play at CSUN for Bobby Braswell next season, scored an amazing 26 points. Of course, though, he had no assists, and only 1 rebound, and 11 of his points came on free-throw shooting where he was 11 for 14. He had only 1 three (in three attempts), but was still named the game's MVP. Actually, Jackson, along with teammates John Youngblood (5'-11" So. G) with 11, and Gerrod Jenkins (6'-6" So. F) were largely responsible for the comeback made by Inglewood here. Losing 27-19 at the half, Inglewood came out and reversed that scoring, so that Inglewood outscored Cim-Mem 27-19 in the second period. But in the overtime, it was all Sentinels, and they outscored Cim-Mem 15-9 to hang on for the win. A great game, and really exciting if you like good point guards going at it, even if most of Cim's big scoring was done by their small forward/shooting guard types, notably Brian Lang (6'-3" Jr. SG/SF) with 18, and Jason Johnson (6'-5" Jr. F) with 15.

Game 43: Rice (New York, NY) 76, Long Branch (New Jersey) 51. : We don't care what anyone says about Rice. They may be exciting, they may be well coached, and they may be the best disciplined team we'll ever see. But in this game, they were about the ugliest, least exciting team we watched all of Saturday. This was a sloppy, sluggish game in the first half, and for Long Branch, a team which was almost (and should have been) beaten by Harvard-Westlake in the first game on Friday, it was all the more impressive that they managed to hang with Rice and at the half the score was 28-27. Most of the people in the Main Durango Gym left before the half to go over to the auxiliary gym to watch Harvard-Westlake hit Basic from Nevada (see game 44 below), even though it was only a 1 point game, principally because no one doubted for a minute that Rice would win. And in the second half, they just hammered Long Branch, outscoring them 48 to 24 mostly on the scoring of Anthony Glover who got 19 points and 11 boards, and from game MVP Dyree Wilson with 20 points. Not a great game. Nick Brown led the Long Branch Green Wave with 16 points, with 7 rebounds--five offensive and two defensive. Darnell Tyler scored 12 points, and assisted his team with six team rebounds--grabbing two offensive and four defensive boards. Chavez Covin scored 11 points, and had three defensive rebounds. Again, this was not a fun game to watch. Rice moved on to the championship rounds on Monday to play Westchester.

Game 44: Harvard-Westlake 61, Basic (Henderson, Nev.) 46. This was the game that H-W should have had against Long Branch. Well, almost. Everyone that is except Victor Munoz who just seemed spent after the loss in the first round to Long Branch and didn't score at all, going 0-7 from the field, and 0-4 from three-point range. He did have 3 steals and 1 rebound, but that was not much to show for 20 minutes of play. So Coach Greg Hilliar went to his other options, including Russell Lakey, who recovered from his turnoveritis in the Long Branch game, and was named the MVP of the Game with 16 points, 2 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 assists, and he had only one turnover in this game. The other big scorer for HW was Alex Holmes who hit for 12, and pulled down 9 boards in 17 minutes of play. Those who have seen Holmes play, know that he's just this great big bear of a guy, with great soft hands, nice touch, and even though he's about 255 lbs., he really can get it up and down the court. John Karavas hit for 6, both three pointers (he shot 2-5 from three range), and when 0-2 from the field. Alex Minn had 3, Ike Udeze getting his first minutes of the season also had 3 (a field goal and a free throw), and Eric Geffner had an unusually low scoring game, hitting only one field goal (out of three taken) and missing his only three point attempt. Anthony Naylor scored 4 points, Dan Kinzer had 5, Pat Biggerstaff had 4, and also getting his first minutes of the season was Chad Garson, who played for seven minutes, and hit 2 for 5 from three point range to collect 6 points in the game. Neither team really shot very well (.380 for Basic v. .365 for HW), and it was the three-point shooting which made the difference in this one, with Basic only shooting .125 (1 for 8), while HW shot .320 (8 for 25). Not a pretty game, but a much needed win for the HW Wolverines.

Game 45: Ponderosa (Parker, Colorado) 67, Bishop Gorman (Las Vegas, Nevada) 70: The standouts in this bame were Robbie Ballard of Ponderosa who hit for 23 points, had 4 rebounds and 6 assists, and Jason Van Meetren of Bishop Gorman who had 18 points, 6 boards, and 3 assists, and was named game MVP, and Mo Terry of BG who hit for 20 big points. Ponderosa had some great three point shooting from Ballard who hit 5 of 8 threes, A.J. Hrushka who went 3 for 5, and Wes Jones who made 3 of 4 of his three points attempts. BG went on to play Westchester in Game 57 (see Jason Day's report of this one in his Day Three Report.

Anyway, more of the games from Vegas, Games 46-55 later. Next up: The Conclusion of Saturday's Games:

Redemptorist v. Pacific, Las Vegas v. Westchester, Pittsburg v. South Mountain, Pleasure Ridge v. Western, Mercersburg v. Peninsula, Galena (Reno) v. Central (Arkansas), Rangeview v. Los Angeles, Archbishop Spaulding v. Long Beach Poly, Lithonia v. Clark, and Simi Valley v. Washington Union.