Grant v. Poly

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Valley Pac-8 Conference Game Report:
Grant v. Poly--(January 25, 1998)

This was a great game, featuring to of the top scoring leaders in the Valley, Ellis Richardon from Poly and Gilbert Arenas (6'-2" Jr. G) from Grant. Prior to this game, Gilbert was averaging 32.0 points per game (544 points in 17 games), and was rated (as of Tuesday, January 20) the number one scoring leader in the Valley Region of the City Section (Ruben Douglas was still the CIF and overall leader, averaging 34.3--617 points in 18 games). Gil was actually the second overall leader in the entire Valley region right behind Douglas. The next highest scoring leader, in any division, is Kerry Yates of Palmdale (Southern Section CIF) with 26.5 ppg--424 in 16 games. So Gil comes with great credentials and a pedigree.

So does Ellis Richardson. He is certainly Poly's leading scorer. He is also ranked 4th (again as of January 20) in scoring, averaging 24.5 points per game, and sixth overall in combined CIF/City Section scoring for the region.

Grant was 12-6 coming into the game, 3-0 in Conference play. Poly was 8-9 overall and 2-1 in Conference.

Grant was also the clear favorite, and they proved it in an exciting 48-45 win at Poly. And Arenas did it again: Even though he didn't break his record of 46 points in one game--which he did, interestingly enough in a game against Ruben Douglas and Bell-Jeff, he still managed to score more than half the Lancers points.

But the Parrots, despite only 13 points by Ellis Richardson, were able to rally from a double-digit deficit to nearly force overtime on Friday.

Grant came out smoking and so did Poly. At the close though of the first quarter, the score was Grant 13, Poly 11. But then Grant went on a 15-8 scoring run, and at the end of the first half, the score was 28-19. In the second half, things got interesting, as Grant was outscored in the third, 14-12, to give Grant a lead of 11, with the score 42-31. Then in the fourth, Poly again managed to outscore Grant 12-8, but came up short by three points.

Grant held that three point lead and the ball with less than 30 seconds remaining when Mike Yildiz was called for traveling after he grabbed a loose ball while lying down in the key. Interesting call, but it resulted in a turnover. Gabino Quiroz and Andres De La Hoya passed the ball back and forth before De La Hoya then decided to try a three-point attempt with five seconds left. But the ball hit the rim, bounced up and then off the rim. In pursuit of the rebound, Grant knocked the ball out of bounds, again giving Poly a chance to tie it up by shooting a three. There was just enough time on the clock for Poly to run a "touch and shoot", four-tenths of a second. The ball was, predictably inbounded to Poly's "go-to" guy, Richardson, who launched a three-point shot from the corner.

Only one problem. The ball never hit anything, and time expired on the clock. Grant wins, Poly loses. Grant remains undefeated in Conference at 4-0 and 13-6 for the season, while, as we noted above, Poly now drops to 2-2 in Conference and 8-10 overall. And remember, league play begins next week in most City Sections.

Just so you understand what that means, in most CIF leagues, "league" play began in January--for some it actually began before the December Holiday break, as in the Marmonte League (Simi, Newbury Park, etc). But most City Section Conferences are divided into 4-A and 3-A divisions (smaller enrollment schools are 3-A), and generally the "weaker" teams are found in the 3A division. 4-A features such teams as Westchester, Crenshaw, LA High, Manual Arts, Fairfax--you know, the traditional powers.

The City Section groups 4-A and 3-A teams into the same conference, as in the Valley Pac-8 Conference, but then breaks the conference into "Leagues". Each league consists only of teams in a single division. During the first part of January in "Conference Play", teams who do not play each other in league, will play one game against other Conference participants. Then, next week league play begins in earnest, and each team plays it's league opponents twice. The City Section playoffs result in two championships, one in each division.

Grant plays in 4-A. They made the decision to "move up" several years ago, after winning the City 3A Championship in search of better competition. Whether that was a wise move or not can be debated, but the addition of Arenas to the Grant program certainly makes them far more competitive in their Division than they would have been without him.

But even with Arenas, Grant's coach Howie Levine is still not content to let this be a one person show. "We still have a lot of things to work on," Levine told the LA Times after the game. "I thought we played really good defense on Ellis. But we generally didn't run our half-court well except for a couple of times," Levine said.

Richardson, who was averaging 25.1 points a game, sat out more than 10 minutes of the first half after picking up two quick fouls. He did play the entire second half, but never really got his game back in gear, hitting on only 3 of 12 from the field, and missing all five three-point attempts. Richardson finished six-of-20 overall.

And Richardson was pretty hard on himself after the loss, telling the Times, "I totally blame myself for this loss. We should have been more focused on wins, not how many points I score. My teammates want to take me to the NBA, but we have other things to worry about."

Indeed.

Poly struggled without Richardson in the lineup. But even so, Grant too struggled, and never really took advantage of the temporary sidelining of Poly's shooting star. With Richardson out, Poly hit only 1 of 19 shots, but Grant didn't take advantage until back-to-back steals and dunks by Arenas built a 26-17 lead. Arenas scored 21 of his 27 points in the first half, but made only three of 11 shots in the second half.

"I'm a streak shooter," he told the Times.

Indeed.

Poly finally made its run late in the third quarter, scoring 11 in a row to tie the score, 40-40, two minutes into the fourth quarter. With Richardson missing everything he threw up, Poly's Harold Berreondo tried to fill in, hitting for four points in the run and scoring another nine in the second half. Gilberto Ramos guarded Arenas during the entire fourth quarter, and it was pretty effective, and Arenas, as noted only scored 6 points in the second half. Krishna Evans stepped up big time though, getting two lay-ups, including one with a minute left that moved Grant's one point lead to three.

Arenas finished with 13 rebounds and Richardson with nine boards.

For Grant the others scoring were Mike Yildiz 5'11" So. G) with 4, Adir Levy (6'-0" Sr. G) with 4, LeRon Harris (6'-2" Sr. G) with 2, Krishna Evans (6'-4" So. F/C) with 9, and Justin Buttikofer (6'-1" Jr. F) with 2.

For Poly, the scorers other than Richardson were Gillard with 3, Ramos 4, Berreondo with 11, De La Hoya with 3, Rodriguez with 6, Marrouquin with 2, and Quiroz with 3.