Classic at Damien: What We Learned
La Verne, Ca. — The 2018 edition of the annual Classic at Damien boys’ basketball tournament brought together 64 teams from six states including California, Texas, Washington, Arizona, Utah and Hawaii for the premier post-holiday high school hoops tournament. Here’s…
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Continue ReadingLa Verne, Ca. — The 2018 edition of the annual Classic at Damien boys’ basketball tournament brought together 64 teams from six states including California, Texas, Washington, Arizona, Utah and Hawaii for the premier post-holiday high school hoops tournament.
Here’s what we learned from the opening day of action:
St. John Bosco needs to find an identity without Jonathan Salazar
The Braves fell to Riverside Poly, 75-72, in the opening round Wednesday but were missing their most productive player, Jonathan Salazar. The 6-foot-5 forward is a walking double-double and extremely versatile on the defensive end of the floor. Salazar has been out since the Bosco-Gahr Tournament with a knee injury and the seriousness of the injury is still unknown.
Losing such a dominant figure, combined with Bosco playing in four straight tournaments, has resulted in limited practice time and the inability for coach Matt Dunn to figure out a way to lessen the impact of losing its senior forward.
Ziaire Williams is, in fact, the real deal
The blow up of the Sherman Oaks Notre Dame forward got some more steam behind it as Williams picked up an offer from North Carolina within the last couple of weeks. The 6-foot-8 wing scored 32 points with 14 rebounds in a loss to Riverside Notre Dame, showing his playmaking and shot making abilities in the process.
Anthony Bell is a big time piece to Chino Hills’ puzzle
The Huskies were missing two starters last night and still beat up on Buckeye of Arizona by 20 points. Bell, a senior guard who transferred from Etiwanda, scored 19 points and played some old school sit-down perimeter defense.
Damien has some late-game grit
Second Baptist out of Houston surprised the Spartans with its ability to share the ball and shoot the ball, taking the host team down to the wire. But Damien dug in on the defensive end late, getting some crucial late-game stops to pull out a four-point victory. Jarred Hyder led the Spartans with 25 points.
Rancho Verde can stay in any game against (almost) any team
Mustangs’ coach Brandon Baker has devised a scheme of how to play with just about any team in SoCal: Be grimy on both sides of the floor. Rancho Verde slows the game down with its lockdown perimeter defense and utilizes the shot clock well offensively, moving the ball side to side and taking (mostly) good shots on that side of the floor.