Before we get started, there should be a couple of things said about the
tournament this year. Call it bad timing, or just bad luck, many of the
teams were shorthanded during the weekend for two main reasons. Saturday
turned out to be an SAT testing day, leaving some teams on Friday night
with only 5 to 7 players available for games. Love affected Saturday night,
as players ran for the exits Saturday afternoon to get home in time to take
their sweethearts to prom. Using No Excuses as an example, the team began
the weekend with two nationally ranked point guards, junior Jason Gardner
and soph Brody Boyd. By Saturday night, both had gone home, but were
instructed to check back in Saturday evening to see if they were needed to
return to West Lafayette to play on Sunday. No Excuses, however, lost in the
second round of the tournament to Bloomington Red and didn't make it to
Sunday.
The weekend kicked off with a bang on Friday evening at 6:00PM with a matchup
in Mackey Arena featuring No Excuses (IN) and LA Rockfish (CA). No Excuses
was tagged as the early favorite from Indiana to make some noise, but
quickly found out the weekend wasn't going to be easy. Rockfish defeated
No Excuses 74-65, as the team who traveled the longest distance to Mackey
Arena looked to be the most focused. No Excuses was not clicking, but managed
to have scoring support from everywhere. 7'0 junior John Stewart led No
Excuses with 16 points, having a solid game considering he had to work
for everything he got against 6'10 Rockfish center Nick Van Der Laan (25
points) and 6'9 power forward Rafael Beruman (17 points). It also didn't
help that Beruman was hitting from the perimeter. 6'5 Brian Wethers added
20 for the Rockfish, all from within the perimeter, and nationally
rated point guard Shantay Legans harrassed Jason Gardner defensively,
holding him to 8 points. Gardner was visibly upset with the play of his
teammates, who were generally not moving well and playing rather poor
defense. No Excuses did get some perimeter help from 6'5 shooter Gavin
Groninger (11 points, 2 3-pointers) and 5'11 soph point guard Brody Boyd
(13 points, 2 3-pointers). The matchup of Gardner and Legans certainly
did have the eyes of most of the scouts, but many came away with the
impression that the sophomore Boyd stole the show. Although still a
little raw and his passes could become a little crisper, Boyd showed a
host of flashy moves and skilled ballhandling that legitimized his early
ranking as one of the top players in the class of 2000.
Over in the IAF, onlookers saw the weekends first two overtime games.
On court 2, Bob Widmeyer's Spiece North Stars team battled what has
become one of my favorite teams to watch, Salt Lake City Metros. The
Metros aren't a flashy team, but they define team basketball. They
did last year, and returned this year with the same amount of composure.
The Metros do not wait for you to set up defensively. They run a little
motion, and rely on a catch-and-shoot scheme that doesn't allow the
defense much time to set up, let alone think. They will kill you with
the 12-15 footer, but will also set up the perimeter on occassion. If
shooting statistics were kept, you would likely see a team shooting in
the 50-60% range from the floor on medium range jumpers. Their quickness
is in their passing and knowing where their teammates will be. Spiece
North was expected to dominate the interior, but the Metros arrived with a
frontline of 6'10 soph Derek Dawes (6 points), 6'8 junior Blake Hansen
(9 points), 6'8 soph Mike Higgins (2 points), 6'7 junior Kevin Dorenbosch
(2 points) and 6'7 junior Travis Visentin (10 points). Spiece countered
with 6'9 junior Martin Brothers (10 points), 6'7 junior Ricky Wright
(9 points), and 6'6 junior forward Carlton Baker (9 points). Spiece had
the physical speed advantage, plus a group of kids who's jumping
ability allow them to play a couple of inches taller than they are.
One player Spiece did not show up with, but was scheduled to be on the
roster, was 6'9 junior Vincent Hart. More on Hart in a moment. If you
had to pre-pick the shooter on Spiece North, who would be tempted to
point to 6'4 soph John Hamilton (22 points), who was one of the leading
scorers in the state last year. But it was 5'11 soph PG Austin Parkinson
who hit twice from the perimeter, getting three more from the freethrow
line. Parkinson, who had yet to practice with the Spiece team according
to former Boiler and father Bruce Parkinson, was impressive. He hit
from the perimeter, then make the defense pay for coming out on him by
driving the lane, collapsing the defense and going to the line for some
freethrows. Hamilton got 18 of his 22 from inside the arc, burning
Salt Lake at its own game. The 1997 Spiece tournament's #8 scorer 6'2
junior Brett Snodgrass added 7 points, while 6'4 junior Kenny Lowe and
6'6 junior David Meece added 6 each. Spiece pulled away in overtime,
84-74.
Now for Vincent Hart. Hart was supposed to be on the Spiece North roster,
but we were told he wasn't coming to the Spiece tournament due to
"personal reasons". We later found out that Hart was given an ultimatum
of sorts by a guardian. If he didn't concentrate on academics, he wasn't
going to be allowed to play for Widmeyer. Hart would later jump onto
the Gary based Sports Youth Foundation team, and made it to West Lafayette
on Saturday afternoon. So, that's why you tend to see Hart's name on
two different team rosters this summer. Hart was on Widmeyer's Spiece
team when most of the rosters were sent into the tournaments, but look
for him on SYF this summer.
We mentioned two overtime games in the IAF. The second was a double-overtime
win for Indy Majik (IN) over Harvey's Hustlers (IN), 75-72. 6'8 Decatur
junior Jason Napier led the winners with 18 points (5 2PT, 1 3PT, 5 FT).
Friday was not short on outstanding performances. The best shooter of Day 1
was 6'0 Randy Ramsey from Riverside Brookfield HS, playing for Ramsey
Basketball Academy (IL). Ramsey poured in 33 of his 43 points over two
games from the arc, while dishing off a fair amount of assists in the
process. 6'3 Deshawn Williams of Tim Thomas Playaz had the top game total
for the evening with 42, his closest competition coming from Abbey AC's (OH)
6'2 Jon Higgins who scored 31 against Tiffany's AAU (IN). The top Indiana
scorers from Day 1 were 6'4 Greg Anderson with 27 (The Athlete, IN), and
5'10 Joey Ray (Team Indiana, IN) and 6'4 frosh Dennis Cootee (Bloomington
Red 15) with 25 point outputs a piece.
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