Hold’n Court: The HoopGroup Blogs

HERE’S THE DEAL

We have reached the end of the 2007 scholastic season and here is the final “Deal Or No Deal” poll. However before we present our thoughts on the poll we must state the fact that this poll could not have been done without the immeasurable help of Jay Gomes of NJ Hoops. Jay is the foremost authority on high school basketball in the state of New Jersey. His NJ Hoops covers New Jersey scholastic basketball better than any other publication has ever covered the Garden State. In fact, we believe, NJ Hoops covers New Jersey better than any other publication covers any other state in the entire country.

In the end we had to give Oak Hill the title as their national schedule rivals any in the country. Their one loss came to Simeon of Chicago who in the end won their second consecutive AA Illinois State Championship. All in all, Oak Hill beat nine teams that won a state title. Just edged out was St Patrick’s of Elizabeth, NJ. They defeated five nationally ranked opponents and lost the chance to become national champions when they lost to Linden, in the Union County finals, after just flying in from Huntington WV. In Huntington, they defeated OJ Mayo and company, in overtime, in front of a packed house of hostile fans. Both Jersey schools, St Benedict’s and St Anthony, lost only once. Both losses were to St Patrick’s. Look for all three Jersey schools to be highly rated next preseason. Abraham Lincoln won the New York State Federation Class AA Championship when they defeated Rice, who defeated Mount Vernon in the semi-finals. Schenley became the first Pittsburgh City League Champion to win the PA AAAA state title since 1979 when they defeated Chester in the state finals. One of Schenley’s losses was a forfeit, on a technicality, after they soundly won the game. Roman Catholic really came on, at the end of the year, when they defeated St John Neumann/Goretti for the Philadelphia Catholic League Championship. They then defeated them again in the Alhambra Tournament Finals after beating DeMatha in the semi-finals. Lastly Boys & Girls of Brooklyn, NY lost only three times and they were all to Lincoln. On their resume are wins over DeMatha, Towson Catholic & one win over Lincoln. They jump up in the final poll as they get the benefit of being in the Lincoln jet stream, and as Lincoln continued to win it boded well for Boys & Girls. We think everyone else severely underrated Boys & Girls.

And now onto the teams in question….The Final “Deal or No Deal”.

HERE’S THE DEAL

A lot has been settled in the last two weeks. St Patrick’s steamrolled to the Tournament of Champions crown in New Jersey.  They gave St Anthony their only loss of the season in the Parochial “B” North Jersey Final and then beat Wildwood Catholic in the State Championship game. In the TOC they gave Seton Hall Prep their first loss of the season in the semi-finals and then upended Bloomfield Tech to capture the crown. They beat St Anthony 62-46 and beat everyone else by over 20 points.

The Philadelphia Catholic League came up big as Roman and St John Neumann/Goretti made it to the finals of the Alhambra Tournament in Western Maryland. Roman defeated DeMatha in one semi-final while Neumann bested Towson Catholic in the other. Roman then went on to beat Neumann by a surprisingly easy 20 point margin. Abraham Lincoln won their fifth New York City Public League Championship in the last six years by routing Boys & Girls in the final. Boys & Girls lost only three games this year. All to Lincoln. In the New York Catholic League, Christ the King defeated Rice & St Raymond’s in the Catholic League Championships but then lost to Rice in the state tournament.

The only teams in “The Deal” in PA, still playing, are Schenley, Aliquippa, Prep Charter, and Chester. In New York it is Rice, Abraham Lincoln, and Mt Vernon. It will all be settled this week-end and the final poll we be out early next week.

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

  Sure rankings are fun.  But kids should remember they are only somebody’s opinion and should be taken as such.  If a player feels slighted, he should use it as motivation and remember that it also only a snapshot at a point in time and things can and usually do change.

We look to the Big East All Rookie Team as an example of this.  The league came out with a 11 player All Rookie Team.

There were 19 players who were ranked among rivals.com top 100 seniors from the high school class of 2006 who headed to the Big East as freshman.   Six of them made the All Rookie Team and 13 did not.  In addition, five players not ranked among the top 100 made the squad.

Some of the most highly ranked players did not make it, namely:

Earl Clark    #22    Louisville

Derek Caracter  #25  Louisville

Curtis Kelly  #27  UConn

Mike Jones  #40  Syracuse

Vernon Macklin  #37  Georgetown

Gilbert Brown  #66  Pittsburgh

Hamady Ndiaye  #68  Rutgers

Lazar Haywood  #73  Marquette

Antonio Pena  #75  Villanova

Jerry Smith  #82  Louisville

Larry Davis  #92  Seton Hall

This is not to state that any of those players above will not be great players or did not contribute this season.  The team they went to may have had experienced players above them, or the frosh were not yet ready to compete at that level.

Some guys not as highly rated who made the team:

Luke Harangoody  Notre Dame  #104

Tory Jackson  Notre Dame  #118

Da’Sean Butler  West Virginia  #147

Hasheem Thabeet  Georgetown  N/R

Deonta Vaughn  Cincinnati  5th Year N/R

The top 100 ranked players who made the squad:

Paul Harris  Syracuse  #12

Dejuan Summers  Georgetown  #23

Jerome Dyson  UConn  #52

Eugene Harvey  Seton Hall  #67 (pictured above)
Edgar Sosa  Louisville  #74

Scottie Reynolds  #76  Villanova

The point is it matters what you do on the floor in practice and on the floor, not the rep you carry into college.  It is a whole new ballgame.

Like everyone else, we have our opinion on the NCAA Tournament field that was just selected on Sunday. The committee gave Albany a lot of love, giving them a 13 seed. The success they had last year, giving UConn all they could handle in last year’s game.

Somehow the committee slighted Syracuse which was 10-6 in the Big East and gave Arkansas a bid. The Razorbacks were only 7-9 in the SEC.

Another surprise was the fact that Niagara, the MAAC league tournament champion was forced to play in the play-in game last night. The MAAC is regarded as a solid mid-major league in these parts, so that seed was a surprise. Niagara started out slow with some players suspended the first few games. Since they have been have been at full strength, the Purple Eagles were 20-5. The MAAC representatives have usually represented themselves well in the tournament as well.
A look at the NCAA teams by league:

Big East had the fifth highest RPI and had six teams who made the cut:

Georgetown 2

Pittsburgh 3 (Pitt Center Aaron Gray is pictured from when he was at EIBC Big Man Camp)
Notre Dame 6

Louisville 6

Marquette 8

Villanova 9

The Atlantic 10 Conference was the 10th highest rated conference and got two bids:

Xavier 9th

George Washington 11

The Colonial was 13th and had 2 teams selected:

VCU 11th

Old Dominion 12th

The Patriot League was 17th

Holy Cross #13

The Ivy League 18th

Penn 14th
America East 20th

Albany 13th
MAAC 23rd

Niagara 16th/17th seed play-in game
NEC 28th

Central Connecticut 16th

MEAC 31st

A look by state:

There are only two Division 1 schools in Nevada, UNLV and Nevada, and both made the tournament.

Virginia fans have a lot to cheer for as Virginia, Virginia Tech, Old Dominion and Virginia Commonwealth are all playing.

Pennsylvania got three teams in Pittsburgh, Penn and Villanova.

Washington DC got two teams in Georgetown and George Washington.

NJ which has 7 eligible D-1 schools got no bids this year.

Niagara and Albany are the only two schools from New York that made the cut.

Hey, there’s always next year.

HERE’S THE DEAL

The long awaited match up between St Anthony & St Patrick’s is here at last, and tonight at 8:00PM at the RAC on the campus of Rutgers University the story will unfold on the court. They have met once each of the last five years with the Friars winning the first two and the Celtics winning the last three. This match up, however, is the most anticipated scholastic contest since the Camden-Neptune Group IV State Semi-Final back in 1981. Camden, just ranked #1 in the country by Dave Krider and Basketball Weekly, and Neptune were both undefeated. At the time Basketball Weekly was the most respected and one of only a couple high school national polls. The game was held at Princeton’s Jadwin Gym and the overflow crowd broke through the glass doors and an estimated crowd of over 13,000 watched Neptune stun the top rated Purple Avalanche 85-65. Tonight’s game is clearly too close to call.

In the Philadelphia Catholic League Championship Roman Catholic won their rubber match over St John Neumann/Goretti 59-56. Mount Vernon defeated White Plains for the second time and gets back into “The Deal”. Niagara Falls fell to Sweet Home, and Trinity Catholic fell to Bassit, so both teams go to the “No Deal” pile. Bloomfield Tech, the odds on favorite to win the Group I NJ State Tournament, gets their first shot at “The Deal”.

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

It was a great year for college basketball with a ton of great players. The new NBA age rule forced some of the top young players to experience college, at least for one season. That rule seemed healthy for the college game as Kevin Durant and Greg Oden, just to name two made their mark in the NCAA before heading to the NBA, most likely this summer. Narrowing it down to the very best of the best was extremely difficult, however I managed to come up with 10 players for my All American Team for the United States Basketball Writers Association. Here is my All American Team:

Name Height Grade School PPG, RPG, APG Team Record

Kevin Durant 6-foot-10 Fr. Texas 24.7 ppg, 11.5 rpg, 1.6 apg 22-8
Nick Fazekas 6-foot-11 Sr. Nevada 20.6 ppg, 11.5 rpg, 1.8 apg 27-3
Alando Tucker 6-foot-6 Sr. Wisconsin 20.4 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 2.0 apg 27-4
Joakim Noah 6-foot-11 Jr. Florida 12.7 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 2.5 apg 26-5
Greg Oden 7-foot Fr. Ohio State 15.5 ppg, 9.5 rpg, 0.8 apg 27-3
Sean Singletary 6-foot Jr. Virginia 18.4 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 4.8 apg 20-9 (pictured)
Acie Law 6-foot-3 Sr. Texas A&M 17.0 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 5.5 apg 25-5
Arron Affalo 6-foot-5 Jr. UCLA 17.5 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.2 apg 26-4
Jared Dudley 6-foot-7 Sr. Boston College 19.7 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 3.2 apg 19-10
Tyler Hansbrough 6-foot-9 So. North Carolina 18.5 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 1.3 apg 25-6
PLAYER OF THE YEAR:

Kevin Durant Texas

       

HERE’S THE DEAL

The big story this week surrounded top ranked St Patrick’s of Elizabeth, New Jersey. They went to Huntington, West Virginia last Thursday to play nationally ranked Huntington and their All American star OJ Mayo. Mayo hit up St Pat’s for 47 points but the Celtics still escaped 78-76 in overtime. They then flew home Friday and came out flat Saturday against Linden in the Union County Finals and suffered a resounding 63-51 setback.

We have tossed and turned over how much of an impact the Linden win should have in our poll. After a lot of thought, we have decided to stick to our guns on the theory of letting the team settle in on the court. Therefore, we have catapulted Linden all the way up the polls to the #3 spot, and placed them right in front of St Pat’s. No one else with a national or regional poll will have the nerve to do this. We decided to bring Linden up rather than drop St Pat’s below St Benedict’s as The Celtics have given the Gray Bees their only loss of the season. St Pat’s & Linden could meet again in the New Jersey Tournament of Champions and that would settle the debate once and for all.

Holy Cross of NY gets back into “The Deal” on the strength of their second win over Christ the King in the Brooklyn/Queens boro final.

Things will continue to heat up this week as the best start to play the best. It is hard to hide in March.

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