Ten Best: SF Washington vs SF O’Gorman
O’Gorman senior pair Matt Cartwright and JP Costello played like veterans last night as the Knights defeated rival SF Washington 51-40 in the spotlight game of the state Tuesday night. PHD caught all the action and here is “Ten Best”…
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Continue ReadingO’Gorman senior pair Matt Cartwright and JP Costello played like veterans last night as the Knights defeated rival SF Washington 51-40 in the spotlight game of the state Tuesday night.
PHD caught all the action and here is “Ten Best” from last night’s showdown.
MVP: Matt Cartwright. Matt’s ability to dribble separate, ability to knock down shots from distance, and to do that as a guard is what separates him. This is why he will play at Augustana on scholarship. The Warriors simply did not have an answer for Matt’s shooting touch and if they left him when Matt was off the ball he knocked down shots.
Best Offensive Performance: Cartwright. Matt scored a game high 19 points making three treys and also using his dribble separation into a stepback jumper. He was the one guy on the floor last night who created his own offense consistently from outside the paint.
Best Defensive Performance: Knight Guards/Wings. Notice how all second half long it seemed Washington would attack instantly instead of a wing entry or quick pitch? Notice how there were contested no pass possessions from the Warriors? A lot of that had to do with the wing defensive efforts and the on ball defense keeping the ball in front. Louis Peterson, Joey Messler, and others did this very well and Washington simply didn’t get many high percentages shots in the second half.
Best Guy Off the Bench: Jaron Zwagerman. The 6-foot-4 junior forward is becoming a player opposing coach worries about. The number one reason is that Jaron tough. Off the ball he gets into space for boards and putbacks including two late game scores in the paint that helped the Knights build their lead.
Best Under the Radar Performance: JP Costello. It wasn’t under the radar as much as it was a tad overshadowed by Cartwright but JP deserves a lot of credit for last night’s win. He had a block of an Arroyo attack, an in traffic board, a putback, and a post move all in the fourth quarter that were key to the O’Gorman win. Costello scored 13 points and grabbed five boards.
Best Underclassmen: Luke Ronsiek. The 5-foot-7 back-up point guard is the only underclassmen that played last night so he’s the only choice! Says something that he was able to get on the floor with all the talent around.
Best Story to watch Moving Forward: Who is Number 1? Head to head is the first measuring stick always. Problem is Class AA is it’s so balanced that you can’t get a true order in head to head so basically you have to look at who the best is, and among them who beat who. We are confident in saying that despite a loss to a couple out of state schools and Stevens that O’Gorman is number two. That said, Stevens beat O’Gorman by double figures. There was arguing last night about last night’s game being for number one but with Stevens being 5-1 and having beat both these teams, they are the clear number one with or without a loss to Huron.
Best Aspect of the Environment: The Crowd. Nothing can really beat it. Large student section cheering together in a packed gym full of noise! Nothing can beat it at all. That is high school basketball.
Best Prospect: Cartwright. In seeing Matthew play this summer against some quality talent from the Midwest we feel strongly that he will be one of the best 2017 prospects that signed with a D2 school in the Midwest. Cartwright has the size and touch on the wing to play at the low major level and in our opinion Augustana got a D1 talent from their own backyard.
Other: Angel Arroyo. Angel had a team high dozen points and did a lot of the ball handling for Washington. The halfcourt offense did not run the way the Warriors wanted it to in the second half but Arroyo did show off his ability to corner turn and get into space to release. That’s something we didn’t know he had in his game so consistently. There is potential there.