University v. Lincoln

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Chuck Hicks: University of San
Diego High v. Lincoln--(January 13, 1998)

Chuck Hicks, basketball fan, critic, and one of the volunteer moderators over at West Coast Hoops had this report of Uni's game against Lincoln High last Friday night, and while he posted this as a message on the West Coast Hoops fan board, he gave us permission to reprint it here (and to edit it a bit if we chose. . . we choose not to). So here it is.

Uni opened league play last night [Friday, January 9, 1997] with a 62-51 victory over Lincoln. Lincoln is an inner city school with a very deep and athletic roster. This was their second league game following a 93-50 win over Mission Bay High. For obvious reasons, I was very interested in Luke Walton and he didn't disappoint. Early in the game he went down the lane and threw down a rim-shaking two hander in traffic.

This is the third year that I have watched Uni and the first time I've seen Luke dunk and it was an eye opener. Rather than score, he was putting on a passing clinic before he sprained his ankle late in the first half going for a rebound. I believe that he finished with 4 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 blocks. It seemed like he was blocking every shot Lincoln put up in the paint, but I could only specificially remember 4. When he went down, Uni was up 37-22 and Lincoln hit a three just before halftime to close to 37-25. The crowd was worried that Lincoln would make a run in the second half if Luke couldn't go.

Lincoln pressured Uni consistently in the second half and got some easy baskets, but Chris Walton stepped up and played much better in the second half subbing for his older brother to help hold Lincoln off. SDSU is going to be happy with Abramowitz who often did a good job of breaking Lincoln's press and hitting some key baskets. I was very impressed with Ron McMillan's improvement. He is a very athletic forward for Uni whose ball handling skills have improved a lot since last year. He could very likely help somebody at the next level.

There were a couple of players for Lincoln that did a good job as well, but I'm not as familiar with that team and didn't know any of their names. When Uni travels to Lincoln for the rematch, I'll make it a point to learn the names of their players that attracted my attention.

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Of course, if you want further information on Uni, the health of Walton, and more, then be sure to check over at Pat McKinney's site, the USDHS Basketball site. And as you'll find, Walton's ankle is still injured, and he did not play in Uni's second league game, and in fact did not suit up at all. But that's another story. And we'll have it for you shortly.