Well, I guess I kind of forgot about this blog. Not much use for a blog that doesn't get updated!
Last year's champion turned out to be Holy Cross, who defeated my pick for the championship, Christ the King, on the strength of solid team play and the star power of Sylvan Landesberg.
All of the 2oo8 grads have moved on, and it's time for the 2009 seniors to step up and earn their way into CHSAA history.
This off-season has seen the continued exodus of CHSAA star players to New Jersey and the various competitive national high schools and prep schools. Gone are Ashton Pankey from Molloy and Devon Collier from All Hallows to St. Anthony's in NJ. Gone is Doron Lamb to Oak Hill. Gone are Omari Lawrence and Kevin Parrom to South Kent Prep.
But returning to the CHSAA, in something of a shocker, is Lamont (MoMo) Jones of Rice HS, or at least he'll be back if the committee approves his participation.
It's early yet, and the kids have just gone back to school, and practice doesn't begin until November (yeah, right). But the changing landscape and the success of many of these kids during the summer make some observations almost obvious.
James Stukes has stepped up his perimeter game and will be a solid compliment to Durand Scott at Rice. If MoMo is cleared to play, Rice will be the team to beat.
Christ the King is right there with Rice, assuming Roland Brown has recovered from his early summer injury. Sean Johnson will take over the scoring load with Pearson and Walker graduated, but CK has size, depth, and experience on their side. Marion Smith will have to improve his outside shooting if he is to be effective at the point.
Xaverian will be much improved, as their small ball game gives others fits. In the tradition of Rice and St. Ray's, Xaverian can step up the pressure on the ball to a level that most backcourts become extremely uncomfortable. Rasheem King appears ready to step up to the next level, Joab Jerome is a workman in the paint and on the boards, and PG Jamel Fuentes is one of my favorite players to watch. If Derrick King is eligible, this team could contend for the championship.
St. Raymond's has lost a lot with the transfers of Parrom and Lawrence. Antigua is old enough now not to be getting into it with his players. The effect on the moral of the remaining Ravens has yet to be seen, but St. Raymond's has been competitive in summer play with their relentless pressure.
Molloy, Holy Cross and All Hallows are searching for their identities, with a lot of JV and bench players jockeying for the spots opened by graduation and transfer. All Hallows has the height, with developing big man Joey de la Rosa manning the post, Molloy has the shot machine in Russell Smith, Holy Cross has a few players that got state playoff minutes last season, but will need a consistent scorer.
Complementing Russ Smith at Molloy will be Jin Hong, who will probably have to move back inside to replace Pankey at center. Often injured Ryan Dillon will have to stay healthy and pick up a piece of the scoring load to keep Smith from being overwhelmed by opposing defenses.
St. Francis Prep was winless in the league last season, so their graduation losses will not hurt as badly. They'll need Bobby Blazecevic to pick up the scoring load early, Roger Franklin to continue his development into an elite PG, Bob Nacer to continue to hit the boards, score on the block, rebound and flop like Vlade Divac, and some of the role players from last season to step up. They have only one player over 6'4", namely 6'7", 225 lbs. Patrick Walsh, who doesn't see too much PT. Brian Caffrey has a chance to be a solid player, but he's undersized for the 4 and doesn't have a good enough J for the 3. Still the best athlete on the team when healthy.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Friday, November 30, 2007
NYC CHSAA AA Predictions
I'll follow this up with profiles of each team once I see them in action.
Christ the King, Middle Village
Rice, Manhattan
Holy Cross, Flushing
St. Raymond's, The Bronx
Molloy, Briarwood
Loughlin, Brooklyn
All Hallows, The Bronx
Xaverian, Brooklyn
St. Francis Prep, Fresh Meadows
Christ the King is deep, has strong guards, good outside shooting, and size. That's a recipe for winning at any level. They feature Florida commit Erving Walker and George Mason commit Ryan Pearson.
Rice is the defending State Catholic champion, and they feature Connecticut commit Kemba Walker and Drexel commit Chris Fouch. Their inside game is suspect, but they have terrific perimeter skills and relentless pressure defense. The loss of Momo Jones to prep school could impact that perimeter game siginificantly, but Coach Hicks has a knack with developing guard play. The road to the CHSAA title must pass through Harlem.
Holy Cross has the best player in the league in Sylven Landesberg and a strong supporting cast in Blaise Ffrench, Kayvon Roberts, Ernest Freeman and Tim Beinart. It remains to be seen if they have the guard play to compete with CK and Rice in what is traditionally a guard-oriented league.
St. Raymond's features West Virginia commit Truck Bryant in the backcourt, as well as high major recruits Omari Lawrence and Kevin Parrom on the wing. This team is a little height challenged, but with their own brand of pressure defense, slashing offense, and outside shooting, they are never out of a game, as Holy Cross found out last year in the playoffs.
Molloy has big man Ashton Pankey, who must improve on his strong showing as a freshman last season, as well as ultra quick Russ Smith, who flashes signs of brilliance on occasion. Matt Grogan and Mark Wnukowski are senior front court players that will make Molloy strong on the boards. Ryan Dillon and Jin Hong are up from the JV and may have an impact this season. The loss of transfer Reynaldo Walters may cut into this team's backcourt depth, but they have the personnel to beat any CHSAA team, particularly at home where long time coach Jack Curran often seems to work some kind of magic.
Loughlin has Quinnipiac commit James Johnson, Kevin Phillips, and wunderkind Jayvaughn Pinkston, who has been ranked among the top 10 for his age group since at least the 6th grade. It remains to be seen if they can get off to a quicker start this year than last season, when they finally began to put it all together and throw a scare into the teams at the top of the standings. Dan Jennings left school last spring and will not be around to help this year.
Xaverian has been devastated by the transfer of five of it's key players since the end of last season. James Padgett, Vincent Council, Reggie Davis, Brandon Romain will be vying for the city championship, but on behalf of Lincoln and Boys & Girls, not for Xaverian. Rasheem King may have to carry the load of the scoring, but Jamel Fuentes looks like he has some potential as a PG. Phillippi Bochkov also looks like he'll develop into a fine player, but Xaverian will be hard pressed to succeed in this league. Don't count out Coach Alesi, though.
Christ the King, Middle Village
Rice, Manhattan
Holy Cross, Flushing
St. Raymond's, The Bronx
Molloy, Briarwood
Loughlin, Brooklyn
All Hallows, The Bronx
Xaverian, Brooklyn
St. Francis Prep, Fresh Meadows
Christ the King is deep, has strong guards, good outside shooting, and size. That's a recipe for winning at any level. They feature Florida commit Erving Walker and George Mason commit Ryan Pearson.
Rice is the defending State Catholic champion, and they feature Connecticut commit Kemba Walker and Drexel commit Chris Fouch. Their inside game is suspect, but they have terrific perimeter skills and relentless pressure defense. The loss of Momo Jones to prep school could impact that perimeter game siginificantly, but Coach Hicks has a knack with developing guard play. The road to the CHSAA title must pass through Harlem.
Holy Cross has the best player in the league in Sylven Landesberg and a strong supporting cast in Blaise Ffrench, Kayvon Roberts, Ernest Freeman and Tim Beinart. It remains to be seen if they have the guard play to compete with CK and Rice in what is traditionally a guard-oriented league.
St. Raymond's features West Virginia commit Truck Bryant in the backcourt, as well as high major recruits Omari Lawrence and Kevin Parrom on the wing. This team is a little height challenged, but with their own brand of pressure defense, slashing offense, and outside shooting, they are never out of a game, as Holy Cross found out last year in the playoffs.
Molloy has big man Ashton Pankey, who must improve on his strong showing as a freshman last season, as well as ultra quick Russ Smith, who flashes signs of brilliance on occasion. Matt Grogan and Mark Wnukowski are senior front court players that will make Molloy strong on the boards. Ryan Dillon and Jin Hong are up from the JV and may have an impact this season. The loss of transfer Reynaldo Walters may cut into this team's backcourt depth, but they have the personnel to beat any CHSAA team, particularly at home where long time coach Jack Curran often seems to work some kind of magic.
Loughlin has Quinnipiac commit James Johnson, Kevin Phillips, and wunderkind Jayvaughn Pinkston, who has been ranked among the top 10 for his age group since at least the 6th grade. It remains to be seen if they can get off to a quicker start this year than last season, when they finally began to put it all together and throw a scare into the teams at the top of the standings. Dan Jennings left school last spring and will not be around to help this year.
Xaverian has been devastated by the transfer of five of it's key players since the end of last season. James Padgett, Vincent Council, Reggie Davis, Brandon Romain will be vying for the city championship, but on behalf of Lincoln and Boys & Girls, not for Xaverian. Rasheem King may have to carry the load of the scoring, but Jamel Fuentes looks like he has some potential as a PG. Phillippi Bochkov also looks like he'll develop into a fine player, but Xaverian will be hard pressed to succeed in this league. Don't count out Coach Alesi, though.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Three Games from IS 8
I caught the last 3 games yesterday, and all of them were exciting and the last two were close enough to make free throws a deciding factor.
The 6th game of the day featured the Panthers against the Shooting Stars. The game was close at the half, but Erving Walker had one of those breakout quarters that Section1 has apparently never witnessed, but the rest of us have watched since long before high school. Little Erv put up 18 of his game high 30 in the third quarter, including 5 threes and an unbelievable drive to the hoop that had the crowd cheering and Gary Charles of the Panthers shaking his head in wonder.
Samardo Samuels was too big for the Panthers, scoring 27 on a variety of inside moves and putbacks, and Big Ed Davis had a monster dunk putback that showed his hops and length. For the Panthers, DJ Jones was not as impressive against the much taller Shooting Stars, but still had some highlight plays, finishing with 16, while William Harrison led the Panthers with 21.
Final - Shooting Stars 102 - Panthers 88.
The Mt. Vernon two point victory over Metro Hawks (who looked an awful lot like JR's All-Stars to me, LOL) was a back and forth battle that somewhat anti-climatically ended on a missed pair of free throws. After Mt. Vernon struggled at the line in the last two minutes and allowed Josh Spivey unfettered access to the lane, Spivey got fouled with 2 seconds on the clock and a chance to send the game into overtime (which just about everyone expected). After Josh missed the first shot, the game was essentially over, but Metro Hawks called timeout to set up a last minute play. During the timeout, Spivey went to the line to practice foul shooting until the refs noticed and chased him off the line. Pete Edwards commented, "You shoulda done that before the first shot."
Mt. Vernon was led by the usual suspects, Kevin Jones with 21 and Sherrod Wright with 20. Metro Hawks had the formula for beating Mt. Vernon, i.e., try to lock those two down, but struggled with their jump shooting. Momo Jones led the MetroHawks with 21, but if a few of his early Js had gone in it might have been a different ball game. Josh Spivey finished with 20, most of which seemed to come in the last 2 or 3 minutes.
Mt. Vernon is very physical (a lot of pushing off and holding) and could have trouble if a game is called closely, since they don't seem to have much depth other than at the PG. It seemed to me that Kev never sat in this game, but I might have missed a rest.
Final - Mt. Vernon 66 MetroHawks 64
The last game of the evening saw a mostly young St. Raymond's team come from behind to defeat Juice (basically Lincoln Railsplitters). Truck Bryant scored 36, but you hardly noticed it. That's because he scored 22 from the charity stripe, as the officials in this game really got their money's worth out of their "Fox 40" whistles. Seemed like everyone on the floor had 4 or 5 fouls when this one ended.
The game was a barn burner from the start, as both teams played like they had a plane to catch, running the court and attacking the lane with reckless abandon. Lance Stephenson was off on his jump shot early, or Juice would have built an insurmountable lead. As it was, the lead in the 4th quarter had some of the Lincoln faithful ready to light up their victory cigars, but the Ravens pressure and Justin Greene's foul trouble turned things around. Kevin Parrom brought the ball up against the Juice pressure D and finished with 18, while Omari Lawrence scored 22 on some great offensive rebounding (although truth be told, half his buckets seemed to be from putting back his own misses - still, 2 point is 2 points).
Juice was led by Justin's 23, Lance's 22, and 21 from Buddha Ellis, whose shot was "Buttah" last night. Juice tried to put St. Ray's on the line to get back in the game after falling behind in the fourth quarter, but the Ravens proved up to the task.
Final - St. Raymond 95 - Juice All-Stars 91.
The High School teams have acquitted themselves well in this Fall IS 8 Classic, as St. Raymond's, Mt. Vernon and Boys and Girls still are alive in the playoffs. While these teams may not have the stars that the other teams feature, they all have good coaching and solid teamwork in common, as well as the familiarity with each other that only daily practices over 2 or 3 years can bring. Mt. Vernon and St. Raymond's each revealed their Achilles Heels to the scouts, but they have more than a month to fix those problems before their HS seasons start. B&G doesn't seem to have an Achilles Heel.
Check out the main site for NYHoop's more accurate coverage if you're looking for more details on these games. I spend too much time applauding to keep track of the play-by-play. As always, the Fall IS8 features great players, great plays, and a lot of fun.
The 6th game of the day featured the Panthers against the Shooting Stars. The game was close at the half, but Erving Walker had one of those breakout quarters that Section1 has apparently never witnessed, but the rest of us have watched since long before high school. Little Erv put up 18 of his game high 30 in the third quarter, including 5 threes and an unbelievable drive to the hoop that had the crowd cheering and Gary Charles of the Panthers shaking his head in wonder.
Samardo Samuels was too big for the Panthers, scoring 27 on a variety of inside moves and putbacks, and Big Ed Davis had a monster dunk putback that showed his hops and length. For the Panthers, DJ Jones was not as impressive against the much taller Shooting Stars, but still had some highlight plays, finishing with 16, while William Harrison led the Panthers with 21.
Final - Shooting Stars 102 - Panthers 88.
The Mt. Vernon two point victory over Metro Hawks (who looked an awful lot like JR's All-Stars to me, LOL) was a back and forth battle that somewhat anti-climatically ended on a missed pair of free throws. After Mt. Vernon struggled at the line in the last two minutes and allowed Josh Spivey unfettered access to the lane, Spivey got fouled with 2 seconds on the clock and a chance to send the game into overtime (which just about everyone expected). After Josh missed the first shot, the game was essentially over, but Metro Hawks called timeout to set up a last minute play. During the timeout, Spivey went to the line to practice foul shooting until the refs noticed and chased him off the line. Pete Edwards commented, "You shoulda done that before the first shot."
Mt. Vernon was led by the usual suspects, Kevin Jones with 21 and Sherrod Wright with 20. Metro Hawks had the formula for beating Mt. Vernon, i.e., try to lock those two down, but struggled with their jump shooting. Momo Jones led the MetroHawks with 21, but if a few of his early Js had gone in it might have been a different ball game. Josh Spivey finished with 20, most of which seemed to come in the last 2 or 3 minutes.
Mt. Vernon is very physical (a lot of pushing off and holding) and could have trouble if a game is called closely, since they don't seem to have much depth other than at the PG. It seemed to me that Kev never sat in this game, but I might have missed a rest.
Final - Mt. Vernon 66 MetroHawks 64
The last game of the evening saw a mostly young St. Raymond's team come from behind to defeat Juice (basically Lincoln Railsplitters). Truck Bryant scored 36, but you hardly noticed it. That's because he scored 22 from the charity stripe, as the officials in this game really got their money's worth out of their "Fox 40" whistles. Seemed like everyone on the floor had 4 or 5 fouls when this one ended.
The game was a barn burner from the start, as both teams played like they had a plane to catch, running the court and attacking the lane with reckless abandon. Lance Stephenson was off on his jump shot early, or Juice would have built an insurmountable lead. As it was, the lead in the 4th quarter had some of the Lincoln faithful ready to light up their victory cigars, but the Ravens pressure and Justin Greene's foul trouble turned things around. Kevin Parrom brought the ball up against the Juice pressure D and finished with 18, while Omari Lawrence scored 22 on some great offensive rebounding (although truth be told, half his buckets seemed to be from putting back his own misses - still, 2 point is 2 points).
Juice was led by Justin's 23, Lance's 22, and 21 from Buddha Ellis, whose shot was "Buttah" last night. Juice tried to put St. Ray's on the line to get back in the game after falling behind in the fourth quarter, but the Ravens proved up to the task.
Final - St. Raymond 95 - Juice All-Stars 91.
The High School teams have acquitted themselves well in this Fall IS 8 Classic, as St. Raymond's, Mt. Vernon and Boys and Girls still are alive in the playoffs. While these teams may not have the stars that the other teams feature, they all have good coaching and solid teamwork in common, as well as the familiarity with each other that only daily practices over 2 or 3 years can bring. Mt. Vernon and St. Raymond's each revealed their Achilles Heels to the scouts, but they have more than a month to fix those problems before their HS seasons start. B&G doesn't seem to have an Achilles Heel.
Check out the main site for NYHoop's more accurate coverage if you're looking for more details on these games. I spend too much time applauding to keep track of the play-by-play. As always, the Fall IS8 features great players, great plays, and a lot of fun.
Friday, December 09, 2005
What's up with this site
I'm just going to post some random thoughts about basketball games I've seen or topics I'm reading about. I'll have links to various on-line basketball news and discussion sites for reference.
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