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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Harris, BayHawks close to playoffs
Check out Erie Times-News reporter Duane Rankin’s blog on the Erie BayHawks, the NBA D-League squad of Springfield native Ivan Harris.
The BayHawks have six games remaining and are in a battle with Dakota and Albuquerque for the final playoff spot. Both teams, however, hold a tiebreaker over Erie, so they’ve got some work to do.
Harris has started all 44 games for the BayHawks this season, averaging 16.1 points and 5.3 rebounds per game.
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Meet Allonzo Trier, basketball prodigy
From New York Times Magazine:
After school on a recent afternoon, Allonzo Trier, a sixth grader in Federal Way, outside Seattle, came home and quickly changed into his workout gear — Nike high-tops, baggy basketball shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt that hung loosely on his 5-foot-5, 110-pound frame. Inside a small gymnasium near the entrance of his apartment complex, he got right to his practice routine, one he has maintained for the last four years, seven days a week.
He began by dribbling a basketball around the perimeter of the court, weaving it around his back and through his legs. After a few minutes, he took a second basketball out of a mesh bag and dribbled both balls, crisscrossing them through his legs.
It looked like showboating, Harlem Globetrotters kind of stuff, but the drills, which Trier discovered on the Internet, were based on the childhood workouts of Pete Maravich and have helped nurture his exquisite control of the ball in game settings — and, by extension, his burgeoning national reputation.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Boys Basketball, For your reading enjoyment...
On this date in area sports history …
Fourteen years ago on this date, March 24, 1995, the North boys basketball team lost a 17-point lead and the game in the state semifinals. Complete story on the jump.
PANTHERS LOSE THEIR SHIRTS, BUT NOT THEIR PRIDE
By Dave Shedloski, News-Sun sports editor
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Kwint Sparks ripped off his No. 32 jersey, flung it to the St. John Arena floor, then angrily kicked it across the hardwood for good measure.
The 6-foot-1 senior, along with his Panther teammates and their large contingent of followers, simply couldn’t believe how their state title dreams had literally been stripped from their beings.
Players were sobbing. Fans were laying on their backs in the bleachers. Parents lingered.
“They were real lucky,” said Sparks, still smoldering long after the final buzzer. “No way we should have lost.”
But they did. Inexplicably, they lost.
The Panthers’ championship season came to a screeching halt Friday night in the Division I state semifinals as Cleveland Heights rallied from a 17-point deficit and stole away with a 69-61 victory.
Big lead disappears fast
It was the most improbable of outcomes for a North team that had lost just one game all season and had dominated the No. 1-ranked Tigers for the first two-thirds of the game.
No team this season had ever forged a larger lead on Cleveland Heights than the 17-point cushion North concocted with 2:38 to go when Carl Berg found Eric Thomas slashing through the lane and dished to him for an easy layup to make it 48-31.
“I thought we had it,” North Coach Eddie Ford admitted afterward.
No doubt he wasn’t alone.
Probably most of North’s supporters - and quite possibly the entire crowd of 13,276 - figured the Tigers, making their third straight trip to the final four, were finished.
“I think North’s got them,” whispered Catholic Central center Jason Collier (who with his Irish teammates plays for the Division IV state title today) as he walked by press row.
But then Cleveland Heights, which had been outhustled and appeared out of sync much of the way against North’s 2-3 zone and attacking offensive scheme, suddenly found a fifth - or maybe sixth? - gear and began creating turnovers at a furious pace out of its zone press.
The Panthers, who ended up 24-2, outrebounded the Tigers 36-21 and outshot them 53 percent (23-43) to 47 percent (29-62). But the telling stat was 25 turnovers, 16 in the second half when Heights, 25-1, came roaring back.
Tigers stole game away
Twenty of North’s miscues were on Cleveland Heights steals. You try winning when the other team wants the ball that badly.
“Basically, what happened … I don’t know what happened,” said Stephens, struggling to find the words to describe North’s demise. “We were playing stupid. Real stupid.”
“We choked,” Berg said. “I wanted to blow them out, and instead we got real tentative.”
The Panthers, the first boys team from North ever to reach the rarified level of the state tournament, were neither stupid nor chokers. Chokers do not win 24 games after going 8-14 a year ago. Chokers do not go nearly undefeated in the regular season or claim one-and two-point regional heart-stoppers just to get this far.
No, the Panthers were simply overrun by a team with its back to the wall and forced to gamble with an all-out assault. It was a pure emotional gambit by the Tigers and the Panthers simply buckled under the intense pressure.
Most teams would.
“They (the Tigers) weren’t going to be denied,” Ford said. “To their credit, they kept coming at us.”
“It was like we were some middle school team and they were professionals,” said Walt Sanford, North’s spiritual leader, who finished with 13 points, one of four Panthers in double figures.
It was Sanford who set the tone for his team, giving no quarter to the Tigers’ big gun, Ohio’s Mr. Basketball and Buckeye-bound guard Damon Stringer, who scored 18 of his 24 points in the second half.
Fellow seniors Dee Wynn and DeVon Lewis were the offensive catalysts, with Wynn spinning and slicing for 16 and Lewis getting 12 points and three assists. Pat Rastatter added 10 points for North.
That’s the kind of team effort the Panthers have put together throughout their marvelous season. It was little wonder then that they took the loss in stride as a team, too.
“We accomplished so much this year, we shouldn’t let this one loss take anything away from us,” Wynn said.
“We kept it together as long as we could,” Stephens added, a tiny smile finally creeping to his face. “You know, it was no one’s fault. We had a beautiful year. I was glad to be a part of it.”
Too bad it couldn’t have lasted one more day.
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