Hold’n Court: The HoopGroup Blogs

Coach Herb Magee of Philadelphia University is currently tied with Coach Clarence Big House Gaines for the most wins in Division II history. In his 40^th year at Philadelphia University, his alma mater, he has 828 wins and counting. When Coach Magee graduated in 1963 the school was called Philadelphia Textile, and since has been renamed Philadelphia University. He was the all-time leading scorer at the school with 2,235 points. Since then two of his former players Randy Stover and Tayron Thomas has passed him. During his 40 year tenure he is two time national coach of the year, but most important to him, his players graduate. Being at the Division II level has allowed him to spend the time with his family, and not have to deal with the politics of Division I Basketball.

Coach Magee has been speaking to the campers up in the Pocono’s for over 40 summers now. His favorite topic to speak about is shooting. When he first came to the Poconos 40 summers ago he was given the opportunity to speak on any topic he wanted too and he chose his favorite subject, shooting. He has been lecturing about the art of shooting ever since. He is one of the best shooting instructors and teachers in the country. There is no wonder why he has been successful at his alma mater Philadelphia University. His humor and wit has made him a camper favorite. He has wowed the campers with his famous shot through the rafters. Former Pocono campers still remember and talk about his shot through the rafters in the covered gym at the Poconos. He continues to speak multiple weeks every summer, and continues to make the shot. The legend carries on!

We wish Coach Magee the best this week as he continues his quest to become the most successful Division II Basketball Coach in history. They play next at Wilmington College at 8pm on Thursday February 1^st, and then back at home on next Monday against Bloomfield College for a 6pm game. For more information on Coach Magee please visit http://www.philau.edu/Athletics.

How many games does the average high school boys’ basketball player play in during a calendar year?  The answer would be too many.  In today’s society there is a lot of pressure in finding the next Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Dwight Howard, or Kevin Garnett.  Those are kids who went straight from high school to the NBA and have developed into elite players in the league.  

There has been a slow decline in skill over the past ten years because of the lack of time being spent on developing kids’ games and teaching them how to play.  Everyone wants to rush the kid to the NBA for their own benefit.  There were times when kids would work on their individual game during the off-season.  Players would go to the gym or the blacktop and spend hours practicing on their game.  Now they spend time playing in a minimum of 10-15 AAU tournaments during the spring and the summer. AAU is not the complete blame.  The NCAA has made it so that the summer recruiting period is the most important time to recruit basketball players.  They have 20 days to evaluate kids that they must decide on investing 100,000-150,000 scholarship on over the next four years.  

Kids today play an average of 25 high school games during the season.  The majority of the kids go straight into AAU season the day the season ends.  The middle of March to the end of June begins the first part of the AAU season.  Players may end up playing an average of 50-60 games during that time.  Most kids today play in two summer leagues with their high school team which usually averages 12-15 games in each league.  The player goes to camp and plays 2-3 games a day.  The kid has to end his summer playing in AAU tournaments across the country in Vegas or Orlando with an average of 4-5 games.  The average high school basketball player today is playing an average of 120 games during a calendar year.  That’s more games than a NBA season including the playoffs.  How does an individual improve his game if he continues to play all of these games?  

Yes, kids are more talented and athletic than most players who played 15, 20, and 30 years ago but they aren’t as skilled.  The new rule implemented by the NBA to allow players to enter the draft at age 19 or one year removed from their graduating class will hurt many of the players who had a chance to go straight to the NBA from high school.  Playing against better competition, opposing coaches taking away the player’s strengths through scouting, and learning how to deal with adversity will bring out plenty of weaknesses to most of the top high school players with potential to go to the NBA.  

Kids have to get back to the basics of working on their game individually (improve on their weaknesses and build on their strengths) and getting to camp to improve their game and develop skill.  

HERE’S THE DEAL

The big news from last week was Chicago Simeon’s win over previous No. 1 Oak Hill Academy 78-75, in a game nowhere near as close as the score. It was the first high school game ever carried by ESPN’s top network. We thought the announcers did an excellent job covering the game, but spent too much time in the second half complaining about Oak Hill’s lack of effort, and too little time raving about Simeon’s great team play. When a team as good as Oak Hill looses, it is a major debate on how far to drop them. Almost every game they play is against top competition, and they go to war every night.

The other big game of the week, in our poll, was the Harrisburg, PA win over Chester, PA 76-62, in a game much closer than the final score. Harrisburg was led by junior Quincy Roberts. The 6’4 point guard had a career game in front of 2000 fans packed into Harrisburg’s brand new gymnasium.

DeMatha slips a little in the poll after losing to a tough Gonzaga squad in a DC Catholic League game. Prep Charter falls after losing to Aliquippa, PA but stays in “The Deal” because of their total body of work.

Roman Catholic & St Francis Prep of NY fall into the “NO Deal” pile after suffering defeats. Undefeated Trinity of CT gets their shot at “The Deal”, while St Raymond’s of NY gets another shot off their total body of work.

And now onto the teams in question….Deal or No Deal.

How does a Big East recruit fly under the radar? In this day and age, it is not easy to do. But it is still possible. We will examine the case of recent St. John’s commit 6-foot-4 Mike Cavataio of St. Francis Prep in New York as one case study. Cavataio is not on any top 100 national or even top 250 lists nationally. Hoop Scoop which does an excellent job nationally, had him at 857 in the country in the senior class.

His high school career which started at Christ the King High School and later moved to St. Francis Prep, has been curtailed by injuries both his sophomore and junior seasons. As a sophomore he fractured his ankle two seperate times and as a junior he broke his wrist. Any college coaches and scouts had never gotten a chance to see him play.

This summer he was healthy and finally got an opportunity to show what he could do on the floor. He started a little buzz at Eastern Invitational Camp in early July. He followed that up with an All Tournament performance at the Harley Davidson West Virginia Jam Fest with the Long Island Lightning.

This fall he was impressive again leading the Lightning to the championship of the Hoop Group Fall Jam Fest at Rutgers. When NJ Hoops spoke to him at that time he mentioned Lehigh, Columbia, Manhattan and NJIT as the schools recruiting him. In three short months since then he has raised his recruiting level from low Division 1 to the highest level of Division 1, the Big East. While his play was good, there were not yet any coaches at a high level that were convinced he was good enough or involved.

How has this been done? Well he has done it on the court, he currently leads the toughest high league in the country, the New York City Catholic League in scoring at 25.3 ppg. He was team MVP at a recent showcase event and has led the upstart Terriers to a 12-3 start.

A good athlete, Cavataio has what is often described as a good upside. The St. John’s coaches feel that he is this productive at this time against good New York City defenders, despite missing two seasons of play, how good can he get? He is described by his high school coach as “a gym rat”. All that work has paid off with a scholarship to play in the Big East. With continued work in the gym, he will show everyone else what they missed out on.

Top Photo courtesy of njhoops.com

Deciding on which college a student-athlete should attend becomes the first major decision in their life.  The decision the kid (most student-athletes are under the age of 18) is making will impact them for the rest of their life.  Families have input in the decision, but the majority of the decision will be left up to the kid, who probably has not done as much homework on the program, academics, campus life, etc. 

Everyone has aspirations of playing at the highest level (their dream school) in college athletics.  We all know that everyone can’t play Division I basketball.  First, there are only 334 Division I schools and each school can only give out 13 full scholarships.  Secondly, everyone is not a Division I basketball player.  

Most kids seem to make their decision on which college to attend by the amount of players that have gone on to play professional basketball, how much the program is on television, and how the coach can develop them to help them reach their dreams of playing professional basketball.  Kids forget about what level or program is best suited for their style of play where they can succeed, what school they can achieve academic excellence, and which program is going help them grow as a person.  

These kids seem to be making their decision for the short term.  The elite student-athletes are going to college for one or two years and leaving for the pros.  The other 98% of the student-athletes are basing their decision on spending four or five years at the college of choice.  Statistics tells us that more than 80% of college students remain in a 50-75 mile radius of the college they attended.  In other words, student-athletes should be basing their decision on 40 years instead of 4 or 5 years.  Most college students find their wife in college or surrounding areas. This means that they will start a family, find a job, and have most of their friends near them.  

When a student-athlete is making a decision to attend college, they should look at three aspects that will play an important part in their success in college.  All three factors must coincide with each other.  The three factors are the athletic, academic, and social life success/failures.   It does not matter which order the three of the factors are in because they all affect each other.  For example, if you’re not doing well on the basketball court then you tend to not care about your academics as much which can lead to partying too much or not wanting to have a social life at all.  You can start each factor with a different scenario and all three have to work to be successful.  

If we’re going to allow our kids to make their first major decision that will impact them for the rest of their lives we should at least educate them on short term and long term decisions.  This becomes a career decision that affects the individual as well as the family. 

HERE’S THE DEAL

This is the time of year when things get hard for the true pollsters of high school basketball. The better teams, who play the toughest competition, start knocking each other off. As we have stated in the past, if you win on the floor, you get rated higher than the team you beat. However, now that teams have as many as fifteen games under their belt, you have to also start looking at the total body of work. This especially comes into play with the tough catholic leagues in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC.

Last week we moved New York’s Holy Cross way up when they beat Christ the King. This week, when they fell to St Francis Prep, we had to move them down low enough to get them behind St Francis. However, if we look at the entire season, Christ the King has accomplished more than both St Francis and Holy Cross. Therefore, Christ the King is now back in front of Holy Cross. These three will continue to settle the debate on the court later in the season.

Dematha suffered a tough loss to St John Neumann-Goretti so we had to raise Neumann and drop Dematha so Dematha is now behind Neumann. Towson Catholic lost a close game to St Benedict’s but the loss didn’t lower our respect of Towson in the poll. Mt Vernon lost a tough one to nationally ranked Norcross from Georgia and we slipped them one spot to also allow us to reward Rice for their excellent wins last week-end. St Andrew’s lost and they fell from the Deal to the No Deal. Niagara Falls lost, but stayed with us because their loss was to a very hot Rice squad. Undefeated Boston College HS slips into the last spot in “The Deal” as they are currently kings of the Boston Catholic League.

Lastly, notice the three New Jersey teams tucked in close behind front runner Oak Hill. New Jersey is loaded this year.

Nolan Smith of #1 Oak Hill

And now onto the teams in question….Deal or No Deal.

Being in this business you meet a lot of people and coach against a lot of people. As the years go on, you try to keep in touch with some players and follow the stats of others. This past week I went to go see Georgetown and Rutgers to see a former player of mine, Brina Pollack, who is at Georgetown. Unfortunately, I did not get to see her play; she is injured. What was real nice is some of the Rutgers players who I have coached at clinics and things remembered who I was (Matee Ajavon and Katie Adams). It was a nice feeling, but what was even nicer is when I opened the sports section of the Asbury Park Press and saw 3 shore girls in the paper. Each week the press does their local player of the week and talks about some other players who are doing well. Of those that were listed were Kristen Dalton (Freshmen @ Lehigh University…Monmouth Reg HS), Chrissy Fisher (Senior @ Delaware…Rumson Fair Haven HS) and Alisa Kresge (Senior @ Marist…Red Bank Catholic).

Kristen Dalton at Battle on the Boardwalk

It is really a nice feeling to see kids that you have helped in the past, or seen play or coached against, be successful in what they are doing. At this point in time, Dalton is averaging 6.5 ppg and 3.9 RPG; Fisher is averaging 14.2 ppg and 7.9 rpg and Kresge is averaging 2.8 ppg, 6.0 rpg and 6.1 apg. I have to tell you, knowing each one of these players they are the nicest kids and the hardest workers. I am very happy for all of them and I wish them all continued success.

There were three major showcase events in the state this weekend and NJ Hoops was there for all three, 14 games in all. Some notes and observations:

The Hoop Group Battle on the Boardwalk Saturday at Convention Hall in Asbury Park.

A first class environment with big time hoopla, put together by Pete Kirschner created one of the best days of basketball in the state. Big crowds were on hand for the five game slate and they arrived early for the local rivalry with Neptune and Asbury Park. Asbury Park is having one of their best seasons in recent memory but they were no match for Neptune on this day.

Linden high school shut down CBA in another contest. Once again the Linden Tiger defense was outstanding not letting the CBA offense get into any comfort zone.

St. Benedict’s High School beat a good Prep Charter team from Philadelphia. The twin big men from Prep Charter, Markieff and Marcus Morris were solid and get all the ink but a trio of sophomores impressed also, 6-foot-2 Parrish Grant, 6-foot-1 Jesse Morgan, and 6-foot-6 Ferguson Myrick.

St. Patrick’s beat a good Blair team, as once again 6-foot-2 Villanova bound Sr. Corey Fisher showed he is the best big game player in the state. Fisher had 18 points in the 2nd quarter.

Eddie Fischer

Freehold Township continued their undefeated season with a close decision over Holy Spirit. Another Fisher was named MVP as 6-foot-2 Sr. Eddie Fisher ran the attack for the winners.
The Ocean County Challenge Sunday at Southern Regional High School

Chuck Donahue does an excellent job running this event which features Ocean County High schools versus out of county teams.

Two shore conference stars both went over the 1,000 point plateau during the event. 6-foot-2 Brett Behrens from South and 6-foot-1 Mike Gawronski from Brick Township.

Red Bank looked like a top 25 team with an easy win over Lakewood. Playing without one of their stars, 6-foot-4 Sr. Casey Peters they didn’t miss a beat.

The Freedom Fighters Challenge on Monday at Paterson Eastside High School.

Jimmy Salmon put together this charity event with many of the best teams in North Jersey.

A good crowd was on hand to watch this one and Jimmy does an excellent job on the microphone entertaining the crowd throughout.

Despite not having much size, Science Park High School is a legit top 12 team in the state.

Paramus Catholic has three freshmen starting, all three ranked in the top 15 in the state by NJ Hoops and they didn’t disapoint although the Paladins lost to #5 Bloomfield Tech.

New Paterson Eastside Coach Tommy Patterson is doing a tremendous job at his new school. They are playing very hard, defend and attack the glass. 6-foot-4 Antonio Brimley is having a solid season, and is a sleeper to many because he didn’t play AAU ball. NJ Hoops was aware of him however as we had him rated among the top 60 seniors in the state in the June NJ Hoops Newsletter.

More coverage on all these events on www.njhoops.com.

I’ll be back next week to talk more hoops

This past weekend, 10 of the top boys basketball teams in the northeast got together at The Hoop Group’s Battle on the Boardwalk.  There was tremendous turnout from each teams fan base, and the event showcased some of the top teams and players in the country! 

Adding to the atmosphere of the event was a tradition that has been going on for many years at all of the Hoop Group’s many high school basketball events.  Pocono Invitational Basketball Camp sponsored and ran the halftime games played by grammar school teams. For many, a run up and down the court at halftime for a couple of minutes might seem trivial. But, for Matawan, Brick, the Shorerims, Toms River, Howell, Colts Neck and the CJ Hawks, the excitement and thrill of being on the big stage at the Asbury Park Convention center was something they will never forget!

Where else could young aspiring basketball players say that they played in front of thousands of spectators, had their names announced over the PA system as if we were in Madison Square Garden, and shared the court with future greats like Dexter Strickland and Samardo Samuels?  Who knows? Maybe some of these young boys and girls will be high school players in the Battle on the Boardwalk someday! 

Pocono Invitational Basketball camp would like to thank our participants and hope that being able to play at halftime in the Battle on the Boardwalk was a truly memorable experience. 

For those interested in future events be sure to contact us in the office at 732 502 2255!  

Who could have imagined how the impact of two rules from the NCAA and NBA have changed the face of the game in college basketball? Over thirty years ago the NCAA instituted the rule to allow college freshman to participate in intercollegiate athletics.  The NBA passed a rule over a year ago that allowed student-athletes to enter the NBA draft after one year removed from his graduating class or at the minimum age of 19 years old.  These two rules have shown, at least to this point, that these talented and gifted freshmen have brought a new competitive spirit, new excitement, and a maturity beyond their years to the college game. 

After watching the McDonald’s All-American game last March and seeing the competitiveness amongst the players in that game I realized that the 2006 class was very special.  All 22 players who participated in the game have made an immediate impact for their program.  Many of those individuals in the game including Greg Oden (Ohio State) and Kevin Durant (Texas) may have gone in the first round of the 2006 NBA draft.  Most people had Greg and Kevin as potential top five picks.  

Many freshmen have made an immediate impact on their program by leading their team to a national championship such as Carmelo Anthony (Syracuse-2003), Pervis Ellison (Louisville-1986), and Mike Bibby (Arizona-1997).  There have been a few standout freshmen each year but the 2006 class has a tremendous amount of talent and the future looks bright for both college basketball and the NBA. 

The number one team in the country boasts three freshmen (Brandan Wright, Ty Lawson, and Wayne Ellington) who start and play a huge role in the team’s great start.  Texas is presently starting four freshmen (DJ Augustine, Kevin Durant, Damion James, and Justin Mason) who are only getting better as the season continues.  Ohio State has one of the best core group of freshman in Oden, Mike Conley, and Daequan Cook (with only Oden and Conley starting).  Georgia Tech (Javaris Crittenton and Thaddeus Young) and UCONN (Hasheem Thabeet and Jerome Dyson) also have a pair of freshman who are playing well.  Durant (23 points and 11 rebounds) leads Texas in both categories, Conley (6.6), Augustine (6.5), Crittenton (5.9), and Lawson (5.2) are all in the top 15 in the country in assist.  Chase Budinger (Arizona) and Spencer Hawes (Washington) are both playing well for their teams. 

The new rule can only be a good thing for both player and fan.  College basketball has become more competitive with high quality athletes willing to play for the sake of playing and not for an immediate pay check that he will get regardless.