SoCal High School & Prep Report

Harvard-Westlake v. Bell-Jeff Scrimmage--(November 25, 1997)

What a great matchup: Harvard-Westlake's Victor Munoz, who's had home visits from lots of Ivy Schools (Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and a few non-Ivies), against Bell-Jeff's Ruben Douglas who'll be playing for Lute Olsen this time next year. Victor has got one of the quickest first steps on the West Coast, and he plays great defense; excellent passing, beautiful entry passing, and just a pleasure to watch run the court. Victor is a McDonald's All-American nominee, and it's easy to see why: He's a one-man full court press, and the only potential weakness with his game was that he seemed a bit tentative to take the long-range, but wide open shot; truly a pass-first player, he passed on about a dozen open looks at the basket in order to feed the ball on the entry to the post guys, including Pat Biggerstaff, Alex Holmes, Eric Geffner and the biggest well-kept secret for H-W, 6'-7" Dan Kinzer.

Kinzer was one of the most impressive players on the floor tonight. A surprisingly agile big man, he's very strong, and could be the answer this year for Coach Hilliard when he notices that he doesn't have the Collins twins to go to; Kinzer is not yet up to that caliber, but his nice footwork, his ability to play with his back to the basket, establishing position, and his nice 8' turn-around jumper, will certainly come in handy.

Ruben Douglas was a bit off during the first of the 5 quarters played, but by the second quarter, he had warmed up completely, and put on quite a show. Ruben is one of the most explosive players in the SoCal area, and he didn't disappoint the mostly partisan Harvard-Westlake crowd. He elevated, rebounded, slam-dunked about 5 times, and had some spectacular no look passes. Oh, and he shot about 4 threes and some other nice pull up J's.

Bell-Jeff is hurting, having just lost two players who would have been big starters: Kent Dennis, a 6'-3" forward, and Kenny Esteves (6'-7" Jr. C) who moved to Washington. Also missing from tonight's scrimmage was Lawrence Jenkins a 6'-4" forward who would have added some height and bulk in order to counteract the size of guys like Alex Holmes, who's really a huge young man, who looks like he's about 250 lbs or more. The big trick with Holmes will be to get him to remember that this is not football, and that he's supposed to go around guys and not through them.

But back to Bell-Jeff: So, with those three guys either gone or MIA, the Guards only had two big men, Ruben and Mike West, who's about 6'-5" or 6'-6" (he looked maybe about an inch shorter than Kinzer). As Eli Essa, Bell-Jeff's coach said though, "It's like being dealt two aces from the top of the deck." Ah, but while two aces might be enough to open, it doesn't beat three of a kind or two pairs, and doesn't come close to beating a straight. Bell-Jeff is going to have to work very hard this season to fill the gaps. Ruben is great, probably one of the finest players to come out of the San Fernando Valley, but he can't do it alone. This is a group which will have to learn together, develop a chemistry and get tough together.

Bell-Jeff did have some other fine players, including a young freshman Chris Jones, who's only a freshman, but who has the skills and fundamentals, not to mention the quickness and the handle, to develop into a fine point guard. He's got nice court vision, takes care of the ball well, and is smart enough to know that he needs to develop and learn. Mike West rebounded effectively, and shot decently from inside the paint, but did not have a great night; he looked either tired or a bit out of sync. Again, this is a group that is now playing with a bunch of freshman and JV players who never expected to be playing varsity this year. We'll do a full review on them later this or next week. Don't count them out in Division 4, but they will not be the dominant force they would have been if they had Esteves and Dennis to provide cover for Douglas and West. Peter Swing played well, as did Lou Casino, and Chris Ageuia, who backed up Jones and Douglas at the point.

For the H-W squad, Victor Munoz is the show. When he's in, it's electric, and other than his tentativeness from the perimeter, there's not much that he can't do, either offensively or defensively. Kinzer and Biggerstaff played well, rebounding, scoring and pounding it in down low; both Biggerstaff and Kinzer had major blocks on Douglas and West. Holmes played well also, but will need to develop his footwork down low; he had one finish on a fast break though which was pretty spectacular, both because he made it and because one of the smaller Bell-Jeff guys just got flattened trying to convince us all that a guy who weighs about 140 lbs. can take a charge from a 250 lb. man; and not surprisingly, the refs didn't give him the charge, but instead called a foul on the poor Bell-Jeff kid, who was hammered.

Another big player, in more ways than one was Eric Geffner, who played the game and was always in the right spot: Rebounding, shooting the three, and cutting through the lane on offense, Eric does, as Coach Hilliard says, have a nose for the ball. The only real mismatch of the evening was when Eric was matched up against a much smaller point guard. At about 6'-5" Eric is still very fast, but not quite fast enough to stay with some of the really small guards, but that's not his real job on this team anyway. He's going to be a very nice addition for Hilliard this season.

So is Russell Lakey, who is, we predict, going to be an All-League selection this year. He's got a great handle, a nice cross-over and a quick first step to the basket. He passes well, shoots the J, and plays very good defense. After tonight's scrimmage, now I'm really sorry that I didn't see that ARC matchup between Harvard-Westlake and Brea-Olinda where Russell matched up with Kyle Dodd. Must have been a great show.

Alex Minn started the game, and played good defense, hustling, and using his speed effectively to work the half-court trap on Chris Jones, forcing several turnovers. Alex Terzian also got his minutes at the point, and while he might be a starter on some teams, he's going to be coming off the bench a lot on this team with Victor at the point; but he's a very credible back-up, and has a nice handle, can push the ball, and uses his quarterback vision to make the long pass very effectively. And he's also got the flexibility to play the 2, with a nice perimeter shot, although he didn't really use it much tonight.

Ike Udeze played well also, slashing and cutting to the basket and more often than not, being the guy who would grab the offensive board for the put-back on a missed shot. He's kind of thin for the power forward spot, but in a three wing offense, will have no trouble, and can shoot inside and outside. He's also got a very smooth shot with a nice touch. Anthony Naylor also got some minutes tonight, and he's a very strong looking player, who will need to step up his defense to truly be effective; if he does he could see some quality time; he has the ability on offense to use his size and strength to back in to establish position, and rebounds well. Look for him to show improvement as the season progresses. Another player who will show improvement will be John Karravas, who played very nice defense but only shot 1 for 6 from the perimeter; he had a number of steals, and his real value will be as a defensive harrassment specialist it seems.

Unfortunately two H-W players didn't get much, or in the case of one, any, playing time. Chad Garson did not suit up for the game suffering from back spasms, which was a shame because it would have been nice to see his fine perimeter shooting and rebounding. Justin Logan got a few minutes, but was obviously unable to play and could hardly run, having suffered a football injury to one of his ankles; he was clearly not very mobile, but did manage to hit on one three-pointer where he had a completely open look at the basket.

Conclusions? H-W may end up surprising a few people; they are not going to be state champions, and may not even really challenge for their league title (Chaminade is a much bigger team, and has got to be the favorite), but they will be a lot of fun to watch, especially to see how All-American Victor Munoz mixes the chemistry. Bell-Jeff on the other hand, is a team which will need to do some emergency surgery, and then get a bit of therapy so that they can figure each other out. They'll struggle a bit, maybe not in league play, but in the playoffs unless they can learn to play together.

Oh, and when Ruben Douglas was informed by Paul Collins (Jason and Jarron's dad, who happened to come by the gym at H-W to watch this year's team, along with Bruce Smiley--Ryan's dad) at the end of the scrimmage that Arizona had won tonight's game with Kentucky 89-74 in the Maui Invitational, he had a big wide grin, from ear to ear.

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