Basketballtopia

When Kendall Marshall and his fellow Tar Heels were thrashing the Terps last night, I took solace in memories of watching a crazily talented Bishop O'Connell team at Bender Arena several years ago. These same memories were triggered at Verizon Monday evening while celebrating Jason Clark's (and Henry Sims') Georgetown career, as the Hoyas took apart a Fighting Irish squad coached by a DeMatha alum and featuring Jerian Grant.

This is a great time of year to be a sports fan living in the D.C. metropolitan area, courtesy of the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference.

With the Maryland women's basketball team hosting North Carolina on Friday night and Notre Dame visiting the Georgetown men on Monday night, a day spent watching either the quarterfinals or semifinals was the most I could push my luck at home. I opted for Saturday at Gallaudet University -- four games, eight teams, and incredible basketball talent on display.

Of the four games, only the third -- DeMatha versus Bishop O'Connell -- was non-competitive. Joe Wooten's kids got drubbed by a loaded Stags team. At one point during the game, Jerami Grant went to the baseline and spun from underneath the basket to slam the ball and I forced myself to remember that this was a high school game. A bit later, with DeMatha having sealed the game, O'Connell's sophomore reserve forward Jamall Gregory tomahawked a one-handed slam over a DeMatha player that riled the crowd.

In the final game, Bishop McNamara's perimeter shooting gave the Mustangs a lead over Gonzaga at halftime. Kris Jenkins, the WCAC player of the year, was as good as advertised and knocked down almost every open shot on offer. Gonzaga's talent -- and reigning WCAC Coach of the Year's Marty Keithline's less than encouraging screaming -- eventually overwhelmed McNamara.

The guard play throughout was fantastic. Gonzaga's Nate Britt, DeMatha's James Robinson, and Paul VI's Stanford Robinson are very, very good.

The other team to advance, St. John's, also featured an elite guard: sophomore Darian Anderson. And that was probably my biggest takeaway from the games: the kids are alright.

The sophomore class of the WCAC is exceptional. For significant stretches of the game against Archbishop Carroll, Allante Holston controlled the game. Along with Anderson and Holston, fellow sophomores Donald Campbell and James Mitchell saw extended playing time for the Cadets.

Good Counsel gave eventual WCAC champs Paul VI a bit of a scare in the second game, fueled by the play of three sophomore guards: Tre Thomas (with GC's students cheering "Tre Tre Redick" after every made three), Chris Craft Jr., and WCAC first-teamer Byron Hawkins.

Although falling short against DeMatha, Bishop O'Connell featured the third sophomore on the WCAC's first team (along with Anderson and Hawkins), Melo Trimble, starting alongside fellow sophomore Kamrin Moore, with a very athletic Jamall Gregory coming off the bench.

DeMatha and Gonzaga each had a sophomore pull significant playing time, 6'9" Brock Ruble and 6'7" Jordan Abdur-Ra'oof, respectively. Abdur-Ra'oof, in particular, was really impressive.

The future remains bright.

Sick

"Sick." It is a phrase that I've found myself using a lot while watching basketball recently.

Tonight, the Bulls hosted the Atlanta Hawks, fresh off of an embarrassing collapse against the team last week in Atlanta. Atlanta puts up 50 in the first half. 3rd Quarter? 10 points. Though one minute left in the fourth quarter (down 20 points)? 10 points. Sick.

No Carlos Boozer. Kurt Thomas queued up from "DNP -- Coach's Decision." 3 of the 5 starters account for a grand total of four points. Bulls win by 18 over the fifth seed in the East. Sick. Sick.

We missed DeMatha's WCAC championship win for the Bulls visit and we missed their City Title victory because of work commitments. So I missed more chances to get wowed by James Robinson, Mikael Hopkins, Jerami Grant, Jairus Lyles, and Beejay Anya this season.

We are four miles north of DeMatha, but three miles west of Eleanor Roosevelt. So after missing the DeMatha games and having to give up tickets behind the basket for the Bucks visit last Tuesday, we carved out a night to watch E.R. tackle Baltimore's Patterson Senior High School at Comcast in the state 4A semifinals.

Go for Eleanor Roosevelt, stay for Aquille Carr. We took our time getting to the game and Carr spent much of the second quarter on the bench. Eleanor Roosevelt was dominating and seemed to have the game in hand. Carr took over in the third quarter. Jaw-dropping ball handling skills, incredible leaping ability, and impressive court intelligence (anticipates the movement of other players). Merits all the hype and heads and shoulders above everyone else on the floor. Sick. Sick. Sick.

Not that the kids from Greenbelt's finest were slouches. Chaun Miller (Junior) and Prince Okoroh (Senior) played well and the team's defense was strong enough to hold Patterson's potent offense to less than seventy points in the game.

I walked out curious about what options Okoroh has for D-I play next year. Not only is he a good ball player who has excelled as part of E.R.'s basketball team, he is also apparently a promising academic prospect. His play matches his description of his own game and that of Coach O'Connell's.

And, yet, despite being thought of as one of the top ten basketball prospects in the region and one of the nine nominees from PG County for McDonald's All-American Game, Okoroh does not appear to have generated a great deal of interest from mid or high major programs.

Left off most subscription service listings for basketball recruits, Okoroh is reported to have scholarship offers from two Ivy League schools (Brown and Columbia), three local schools (UMBC, Howard, and Mt. St. Mary's), and Fordham (although a UMBC basketball supporter blog indicates that no offer has been made).

I'm a bit surprised, from just a limited viewing of his game, that Okoroh does not have options to play at higher levels. But, perhaps, it is simply a reminder of the truly exceptional talent required to play D-I basketball on scholarship in this country. Sick.

Preppie

At Verizon on Wednesday, talking to Georgetown alums after the tough loss to Syracuse on Saturday, and again tonight at Bender Arena, Georgetown's supporters voiced the same negative theme: the Hoyas have made too many reaches on local talent nice guys -- Jerrelle Benimon is not good enough to play in the Big East; DeMatha's Mikael Hopkins is not aggressive enough to play in the Conference and will not help the program; and making an offer to DeMatha's James Robinson was a mistake and a misguided effort to curry favor with local AAU teams and the WCAC.

The Benimon criticism kills me. As soon as Jerrelle is introduced, the grumbling starts. No matter where I sit in the stadium, inevitably someone will audibly, obnoxiously groan "Why does Thompson play him?" Benimon's numbers are pretty meager and he has not progressively built on the promise he's shown in a few performances, most notably against Memphis this year. But he always plays hard and, as a sophomore, his efforts and JTIII's obvious faith in Benimon should be enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The Hopkins and Robinson criticism seems crazy. Admittedly, I've seen both play a grand total of two times -- Monday against St. John's and this afternoon against Paul VI in the WCAC Semifinals -- but I want to see how both develop under Georgetown's coaching staff.

The ESPN Profile of Mikael Hopkins includes this analysis of his perceived weaknesses:

Hopkins must be more physical and learn to welcome contact. At times he seems not into the game and untimely disappears on the floor. He is a very capable rebounder on both ends but at times watches the action instead of perusing the ball sometimes the only rebounds he gets are the one that come right to him. Hopkins must play with more energy and urgency on a consistent basis to obtain the production he is capable of.

From the limited sample set I have, that seems about right. But, two things are important to keep in mind in relation to this criticism: first, he is immensely physically gifted and is unquestionably a good high school basketball player and second, if he wants to fully harness those talents, he'll be able to do that at Georgetown and, if he does, he's going to be a very good D-I college player. This is a kid who got scholarship offers from Kansas, Texas, West Virginia, and Maryland. The fact that he is local means that Georgetown alums can dissect his game and its purported flaws up close. But that doesn't mean that their negative reaction somehow invalidates what is immediately evident to anyone who watches him play (he is a very talented basketball player).

The ability to see the player first hand also plays a huge role in the rush to denigrate James Robinson. Robinson may not decide to come to the Hilltop. He's got a ridiculous number of scholarship offers: at least five schools in the ACC (Maryland; UVa; NC State; Boston College; Wake Forest), at least six schools in the Big East (Gtown; WVa; Pitt; Marquette; Rutgers; and Notre Dame) and Oklahoma. Robinson's the type of prospect who is thinking about how to cut down the number of schools he's considering. But if he decides that Georgetown is the right place for him, color me excited. Indeed, the prospect of just getting to see Robinson for another season at DeMatha makes me happy.

Watching Robinson play basketball is a pleasure. He controls the game, makes good decisions on the floor, and is the type of player that makes everyone around him better. He's faulted for being slow, but he is able to beat opposing players off the dribble and can get to the rim fairly quickly. He's also a big point guard, who is not afraid of drawing contact or playing physically.

Today, DeMatha struggled with Paul VI. Josh Barr's summary for the Post correctly and appropriately focuses on the role Robinson played in avoiding an upset.

Setting to one side the future of Georgetown, both WCAC boys semifinals games were great. In the first game, Paul VI's junior guard Patrick Holloway very nearly beat DeMatha with a tremendous performance that had everyone at Bender buzzing. But as good as Holloway was, Bishop McNamara's senior guard (and WCAC boy's player of the year) Marcus Thorton was even better. A series of missed open perimeter shots put the Mustangs in a major hole against Gonzaga, but a frenzied comeback in the fourth quarter took place after Thorton's shots started falling. Thorton doesn't need a lot of space to get his shots up and when he hits a groove, he is deadly.

What I liked most about watching Holloway and Thorton (and most everyone on the floor) was the way they play. Thorton was hitting ridiculous shots and was pulling McNamara back into the game, but it would have been very difficult to tell from his reactions whether he had hit or missed the shot he just launched. I doubt that I could have ever show similar restraint, but as a neutral at the games, it is refreshing to see kids this talented approach the game with respect.

The DeMatha-Gonzaga final tomorrow night (8:30 pm at Bender) should be highly entertaining. Of all the players we saw today, I was most impressed by Gonzaga's Kris Jenkins. I would be surprised to hear that Jenkins plays in the final as an ill-considered late block attempt in the middle of McNamara's run seemed to have resulted in a bad injury that prevented Kris from putting weight down on his leg. Without Jenkins, Gonzaga misses a potent offensive post and perimeter threat.

Bender may be the place to be for DC Hoops fans tomorrow, but for me, the place to be is the Verizon Center for yet another chance to see Derrick Rose and the Bulls live.

Bball Frenzy

In advance of the Bulls second visit to DC this coming Monday, I've gone a bit basketball mad. Monday night: DeMatha vs. St. John's; Wednesday night: Georgetown vs. Cinci; Tonight: (sitting on the couch) Chicago vs. Miami. More high school hoops (hopefully) tomorrow and Sunday.

Sitting at Verizon last night and absorbing a tough loss made far worse by the injury to Chris Wright, I spent a lot of time contemplating how blessed folks are in this area in terms of basketball. The Wizards are a long way from making DC relevant in the NBA, but Georgetown and Maryland boast decent college programs with occasional flourishes from George Mason and George Washington. And then, sounding the same repetitive theme, basketball at the prep level is stunningly good.

I went to the Georgetown game with a Duke alum. As we watched Austin Freeman, Chris Wright, Julian Vaughn, Jason Clark, Henry Sims, and Markel Starks represent the DC-Baltimore metro area as six of the ten man rotation on the number eleven team in the country, I realized that local kids also make up one third of the rotation of the number one college team in the country (Nolan Smith, Tyler Thorton, and Josh Hairston). And there will be more local products (Mikael Hopkins and Quinn Cook) joining these two programs next year.

Two years ago, I marveled at the number of D-I basketball players that hailed form PG County. Broadening that out to the DC-Baltimore metro area further underscores the depth of the talent pool in the region.

I may be late to this realization, but I'm certainly enjoying taking advantage of it -- as a passive fan of the sport -- now.

DeMatha

$5.

I wrote something last week contending that the annual Duke - U.Md's women's basketball matchup at Comcast was the best area value for a sporting event.

That assessment probably fails to appreciate how rich the sports offerings are in the DC metro area.

I finally got around to going to a DeMatha high school basketball game tonight, despite the fact that the school's home stadium is only a few miles down the road on US1. We could not make the DeMatha - Gonzaga showdown on Sunday, but DeMatha - St. John's was still well worth seeing.

And all it took was $5.

I went to the game looking forward to seeing future Hoya Mikael Hopkins play on senior night and to see sophomore big man phenom BeeJay Anya. And both were well worth the trip, but I was not suitably prepared for the ridiculous talent that DeMatha boasts.

At the end of the first quarter, I was most impressed by DeMatha's junior point guard, James Robinson. At 6'3", Robinson is a big player at the point, solid defensively, and a good passer. He had a bad turnover in the third quarter, but other than that performed very well directing the Stags attack. I read a bit about him after the game and I think this ESPN profile description is particularly apt. He definitely can run a team, he seems like a very mature basketball player for his age, and he has a surprising ability to block shots with a quick, explosive leap in defense.

While I was pointing out the things that I liked about Robinson's play, my wife keyed in on the third 6'7" plus player DeMatha had on the floor at the time along with BeeJay Anya and Mikael Hopkins -- Jerami Grant. Grant's face looked familiar, but I couldn't place it. As the third of Harvey Grant's sons to go to DeMatha, there is no reason that I should not have known his pedigree. In any event, I would generally agree with this ESPN write up. Grant's got pretty good ball handling skills, his perimeter shot seemed to be better than what the description would have indicated, and while he doesn't hold the post, he does crash the boards well.

St. John's were no pushovers either. I was very impressed with Julian DeBose and when Danish international Soren Dossing started hitting from the outside, St. John's looked like they might be able to pull off an upset.

But the stars of the show were DeMatha. The Stags host a playoff game Friday night (time to be determined) and if they advance, they'll play in the first game of the semifinals doubleheader to be played at Bender Arena on American University's campus on Sunday (4:30 pm; game 2 of the doubleheader, likely featuring Gonzaga, at 6:15).

One last thing: I've read a bit about the reservations that some Hoyas fans have developed regarding Mikael Hopkins. From what I saw tonight, I would take those concerns with heavy grains of salt. The most remarkable thing about DeMatha's team is how most (not all) of the players carry themselves. There was not a lot of individualistic celebration during the game, players did their jobs, did them (for the most part) well, and moved on. I think this approach has been interpreted, in Mikael's case, as a lack of drive. That would not seem to be a fair assessment.

Hopkins appears to be a very bright basketball player. He has good instincts on defense and in rebounding and may develop into a good shot blocker. Any comparison to Henry Sims would be inapt. I don't know what he may eventually offer on offense, but Hopkins will be a solid contributor as an underclassmen for his rotations in the post.