mats recap: gold bracket

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SoCalHoops Tournament News

Mat's Madness Gold Division Recap:
Rockfish Win Title--(May 30, 2000)

Regrettably, we couldn't stay in beautiful Fresno for the championship game, and had to cut out early at noon (several players who drove with us had flights to catch, and given the traffic up the Grapevine, we really had no choice but to leave when we did), but we've gotten several reports about what happened in the semis and the final championship game, including one very good report on the message forum about the final game between Oakland Soldiers I and the LA Rockfish.

First, just the facts about the Championship: Rockfish won by a single point, 78-77. Joe See didn't play for Oakland; he had to return home to study for a very important chemistry final which he took today, and thus the morning matchup between Oakland and Clovis West (Hustlin' Eagles) which would have seen a rematch of the best point guard battle the State D-I title game has seen in a while (Joe See v. Chris Hernandez) failed to materialize. Oakland won the game anyway, but they did it without Joe See. More Facts: Julian Sensely didn't come to the tournament, so Rockfish was without him, and without Donald Wilson who didn't make the trip, and a bunch of other guys who got injured in the previous games. . . but more on that later.

While Oakland was playing their Monday morning quarterfinal game at 9:00 a.m. in the Sunnyside #2 gym against Clovis West, the Rockfish were battling it out against Rock Johnson's Amer-I-Can #1 squad in the Sunnyside main gym. We arrived about mid game, and only caught bits and pieces of that game, but Bryant Markson was amazing. Anthony Davis, who missed most of pool play and the first game of single elimination with a rolled ankle, did play in the three Sunday games, but a bunch of other Rockfish guys got injured, so Dave Benezra made the decision to move Bryant Markson (6'-6" So. SG/SF) from the Orcas (the No. 2 team) to the No. 1 team.

The Rockfish proceeded to beat Amer-I-Can in that 9:00 a.m. game on Sunday, then took on Kool Aid Perry's Inland squad at 1:00 p.m. and as usual, Perry had some great young players, including Jason Braxton (6'-3" Jr. PG) from Canyon Springs, Richard Cobbs (6'-5" Fr. SF/SG), Paul Roby (5'-10" Jr. SG), Alex Acker (6'-5" Jr. F), Jason Burrell (6'-4" Jr. SG/SF), Leon Rosborough (6'-3" Jr. SG), Tron Smith (6'-0" So. G), Howard Taylor (6'-1" Jr. G), Sylvester Seay (6'-7" Fr. F), Alfonso James (6'-0" So. G(), Richard Roby (6'-1" Fr. G), Grayland Walter (6'-1" Fr. G) and Royal Taylor (5'-10" So. G). And even though Inland played Rockfish tough, and both Cobbs and Braxton played well, Rockfish won and advanced to the final.

In the other half of the bracket, Oakland played the Hustlin Eagles at 9:00 a.m. and won a very hard-fought game. Oakland had advanced by winning their first "Round of 16" game on Sunday night fairly easily over the Belmont Shore "East" (aka Upland) team, while the Eagles team advanced by beating a very tough North Riverside Slam N Jam squad which was led by JS Nash (6'-2" Jr. SG/PG), who amazingly only put up one outside shot, at least that's all we saw him shoot in this game. JS is usually a prolific outside shooter, an All-CIF First Team selection from Rancho Verde HS who led the Inland Empire region in scoring this season with well over 25 ppg, mostly on his deadly outside shooting. He's got a very quick release and is deadly accurate off the dribble. But in this game he was running the point a lot, and driving to the basket where he got most of his points. JS is a lefty and he's not very athletic looking, but looks can be deceiving. He's strong, much stronger than he looks and able to finish in traffic, quick, and above all, pretty smart and makes excellent decisions on the court.

Isaiah Bryant (6'-8" Jr. F), William Wynn (5'-10" Jr. PG/SG), Ryan Rikansrud (6'-4" Jr. SF), and Davell Washington (6'-4" Jr. F) all played well, but in the end, the Clovis smothering trapping defense just overwhelmed Riverside, and despite being down by 23 at the half and coming back to close to within 3 at one point late in the game, Riverside never led and ultimately Clovis advanced behind the great play of Charlie Rodriguez and Chris Hernandez, not to mention the great cast of other supporting Clovis guys. We were especially impressed with Danny Parker (he was listed at 5'-10" in the program, but he's more like 5'-8". . . ), a junior guard who reminds us a lot of Lance Buoncristiani. Tenacious, speedy, and he collected a bunch of steals.

Clovis West had the usual cast of characters: Chris Hernandez (6'-2" Jr. PG), Charlie Rodriguez (6'-7" So. PF), Tyron Jackson (6'-2" Jr. G), Jason Walberg (6'-0" Jr. SG), Nick Debban (6'-4" So. SF), Danny Parker (5'-10" Jr. G), Jeff Nef (6'-4" Jr. F), Brian Thurman (6'-0" So. G), Tyson Parker (6'-0" So. G), Steve Reid (6'-0" Jr. G), Nathan Thomas (5'-10" So. G), Charles Fair (6'-3" So. G/F), Nick DeLaTorre (6'-3" Jr. F), and Greg Warren (5'-10" Jr. G), all from Clovis West High School. In their game against Oakland Soldiers I, we only caught the second half, and Clovis was down and never led, although they threatened a couple of times, but ultimately, the guard play of the Soldiers, especially Will Venable was too much even for Hernandez, whose shot just wasn't working, and with Chuck Hayes (6'-6" Jr. PF) and Demarshay Johnson (6'-9" Jr. PF), inside, even Rodriguez was having trouble getting the ball in the hole, and so Oakland advanced.

Meanwhile, following Monday morning's two 9:00 a.m. games, the other two quarterfinal games got going at 10:30 a.m.: In the Main Sunnyside gym, EBO matched up agaisnt Inland, and in the Sunnyside #2 gym, Double Pump All Stars took on on the LA Palladins. We watched the entirety of the Double Pump v. Palladins game, so we can't really comment at all about the EBO v. Inland game, but from the final score and the few minutes at the end of that game we managed to catch, we're willing to bet we saw the better game of the two. . . . The Palladins are an interesting team, very athletic, quick and they are coached by Erik Hardin, who used to coach with Dave Benezra at Rockfish, but who broke away last year to form his own team (as a sidebar, a few of the players who originally left with him have returned to Rockfish too, and this squad is really an almost entirely new group from the one that came together originally). Another sidebar: The Palladins feature big man, Doug Thomas (6'-9" Jr. PF), who won the slam dunk contest this year at Mats' Madness, was a former teammate of this same Double Pump squad, having played with them at the Pump Easter Tournament and the two spring shootouts at Dominguez. . . Third sidebar: Doug, who attended Pasadena, has now apparently transferred to Inglewood.

The Palladins also had Derrick Clark (6'-0" So. PG) from Leuzinger, Jason McKinney (5'-10" So. PG) who has now transferred from Westchester to Inglewood as well, Willie Dunn (6'-5" Jr. SF) from LA Fremont, Michael Jenkins (5'-10" Jr. PG) from St. Francis, Anthony Davis (6'-2" Jr. SG) from Inglewood--this is the other AD, not the one from Rockfish who attends LA Cleveland, Terrell Stovall (6'-2" Jr. SG) from Inglewood, Williams Barnes (6'-5" Jr. SF) who is listed as being from Alabama, but we thought he was attending school here in California, Otis Hankins (6'-6" Jr. SF) from Inglewood, and Kenneth Eaton (6'-1" Jr. PG) from Fremont.

We've already posted the Double Pump roster, but at the risk of repeating ourselves, they had David Gale (6'-0" So. PG) from Buckley in Sherman Oaks and Bakari Altheimer (5'-11" Jr. PG) from St. Elizabeth in Oakland at the point, Quinn Hawking (6'-5" Jr. SG) from El Dorado in OC and Andrew Moore (6'-2" Jr. SG) from Crespi in Encino at the two guard spot, Torin Beeler (6'-5" Jr. SG/SF) from Ocean View, Marques Crane (6'-5" Jr. SG/SF) from Ocean View, and Justin Burns (6'-7" Jr. SF/SG) from Georgetown Prep who is transferring to Bishop Gorman in Vegas at the three, Dustin Villepigue (6'-9" Jr. SF/PF) and Justin's cousin Jason Carter (6'-9" Jr. PF/C) at the four and five spots respectively. DP had advanced to the Elite 8 by beating their first round opponent, the Rockfish Barracudas in a game which was very close the entire way, a lot closer than the final score.

The Palladins had beaten Keith Howard's IEBP All Star squad in their Round of 16 first round game on Sunday night pretty convincingly too, and on Monday morning, the Palladins came out with their game faces on. While they quickly jumped out to an early lead against Double Pump, pushing the margin to 11 at the half largely behind the agile and often spectacular shooting of Anthony Davis, who scored 23 points in the game, in the second half, it was Double Pump who came from behind to pull it all even with about 6 minutes to play, and which managed to take the lead for the first time in the game shortly thereafter. The lead then see-sawed back and forth until late in the fourth quarter when the Palladins again built a 9 point lead with a little over two minutes to play. Double Pump then went to a two man-trap in the backcourt, which was pretty successful, and they picked off two quick steals, and each time Quinn Hawking, one of the best pure shooters in the tournament converted consecutive three-pointers from the left baseline on jumpers to close the gap to just three points. A slam dunk on the next possession by Jason Carter capped an 8 point run which pulled Pump to within a single point with a little under a minute to play, but then the Palladins Anthony Davis was fouled, went to the line, and hit one of two. On the next possession, Pump turned the ball over, and Jason McKinney hit one of two at the line, and the lead was Palladins by three points with just under 20 seconds.

At that point in the game, one of the most bizzare plays we saw all weekend occurred. And yes, we know that this will sound like "a little cheese with whine", but we've rarely seen refs blow a call as badly as the one we're about to describe. We've seen a lot of Fresno-area refs, and they are notorious for making bad and controversial calls at tournaments such as this one, but when you add in inexperienced kids running the clock in a close game like this, the combination is just deadly. Really, next year Mats and Dennis Magro have got to get some better-trained scorekeepers (who know not to erase fouls or change the score because a coach asks) and they should import some refs from anywhere besides their usual pool of officials.

But here's the play: Less than 20 seconds to play. DP has the ball, down by three. Dustin Villapigue makes his way down court and quickly posts, flashing just outside the key on the left near the block; he gets the ball, catches, turns, shakes his defender has a wide open look at the basket and proceeds to power up for a two-hand drop into the basket (not a power dunk, but just enough to get it into the basket). Just as he's above the rim, his jersey is grabbed hard from behind by Palladin player (not sure of his number in the confusion which followed) who yanks hard, nearly throwing Dustin to the floor. But as Dustin is falling backward, he manages to put the ball on the rim and it's going over and in when Doug Thomas tips it out of the cylinder. That's the play. Three refs in attendance, including one standing just at the baseline next to Dustin who had an unobstructed view of the jersey hold, another on the right baseline with a clean view of the basket, and another at midcourt who can seen the entire floor.

Now, you guess the call. . .

If you said, "Flagrant foul, and goaltending" then you go to the head of the class. But you'll never work a day in Fresno. . . .

If you said, "Intentional foul before the shot, two shots at the line" then you should move to Fresno, become gainfully employed as a ref, and throw away your glasses, because you won't need them ever again. . . and you won't lack for steady work at high school basketball tournaments. This wasn't a completely shocking call considering some of the other stuff we saw this weekend (scorers failing to stop the clock, changing fouls, erasing points in the book, etc) but it was just, about the worst. After a longish conference at center court among all three refs they ruled that the foul occurred before the shot (maybe Villapigue just levitated himself above the rim after the foul. . . who knows). Villapigue went to the line, made one of two to cut the Palladin lead to just two points, but with only about 10 seconds remaining on the clock and Double Pump being forced to foul and the Palladins in the double bonus, they went to the line and made one of two and ultimately the Palladins advanced, 73-70 to the semifinals to take on the Oakland Soldiers. As we said, we would have loved to stay for the semifinals at 1:00 p.m. and the finals at 3:30 p.m., but we just weren't able to. Still we found some really good info and spoke with those who were there. Sure this is hearsay, but it's really reliable stuff. . . .

In any event, the Gold Championship game featured the Rockfish #1 vs. Oakland Soliders #1, and it sounds like it was a phenomenal game. We read the post from one of our readers who recounted the game from the Rockfish's point of view, spoke with others who saw the game including Mark Mayemura, but just when we thought we had a grip on what had happened, we came across an article in today's Fresno Bee, and at that point, we were really confused. . .

The Bee wrote that the Orcas (which is the Rockfish #2 team coached by Mark Berokoff) not the Rockfish #1 team (which is coached by Dave Benezra, but which had Jeffrey Berokoff, Mark's brother assisting Dave) as the winner of the Gold Division. Clearly this is wrong. . . but setting aside the slight inaccuracies and an interesting concept (check it out. . . according to the author, Rockfish could have let the "ball run out"), it's not a half-bad account of what happened.

Rockfish-Orcas come out on top in close Mats finale
By Anthony Galaviz
The Fresno Bee
(Published May 30, 2000)

With the ongoing rivalry between the Los Angeles Rockfish-Orcas [sic] and Oakland Slam-N-Jam Soldiers, it's only fitting the last shot would decide the outcome of the game.

Monday's championship game of the Mats Madness Tournament was no exception.

With 20.2 seconds left and down 78-77, Oakland looked to 6-foot 6-inch forward Chuck Hayes to sink the winner, but the Orcas' tough defense prevented him from setting up the shot.

Hayes' desperation lob hit the side of the rim as time expired, and Los Angeles won the Gold Division championship game at Sunnyside High in front of a half-capacity crowd.

The 64-team high school boys' tournament started with pool play Saturday before advancing to 16-team, single-elimination brackets Sunday.

"This was a tough way to lose," Oakland coach Calvin Andrews said. "I thought we had a good shot to win this. We had the ball to the right guy, but this was good competition for us knowing that we have a rivalry against them."

Both teams traded baskets early in the first half before Oakland took over.

Oakland led 19-18 halfway through the 16-minute first half and 28-26 lead on a Demarshay Johnson jump shot. The Soldiers increased their lead to 38-32 when Wil Venable made two free throws after an intentional foul by Tim Drisdom.

Oakland closed out the first half with a 44-38 lead.

"I told our guys that they need to step it up in the second half, they know us well and we know them well, we knew that they would make it a possession game," Los Angeles coach Mark Berokoff said.

Both teams stepped it up in the second half as the pace of the game quickened.

The Orcas chipped at Oakland's lead until it was down to 67-66 with 6:12 left in the game.

It was Jermaine Harper's aggressiveness that helped give Los Angeles a 69-68 lead, making 1 of 2 free throws with 4:30 remaining. Harper was fouled again, and made both free throws to put Los Angeles up 71-68.

Harper continued to keep the Orcas alive a few minutes later, stealing the ball and driving for a layup to give Los Angeles the 78-76 lead. "Harper played great for us," Berokoff said. "I told our kids it was going to be a physical game, but in the first half they were tougher then us."

Los Angeles had the chance to run out the ball [sic--should be "clock"] or draw a foul, but committed a turnover on a traveling call with 20.2 seconds left. Four Los Angeles players scored in double-figures, led by future NBA hopeful Bryant Markson, a 6-foot 6-inch power forward from Monrovia High, with 16 points. "It was fun, I started to lift my arms up in the air as soon as Hayes missed the shot," Markson said.

Oakland's Johnson led all scorers with 22 points.

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend for everyone, and we got the chance to check out a lot of players we'd seen many times, and some new ones we've never seen before until now. It's now June, and "high school summer tournament month" is just about upon us, and then the July extravaganza begins, and we'll have plenty to write about, so stick around because the summer is just starting. . . .