SoCalHoops Tournament News

Rim Rattler Holiday Hoops Invitational
Day 2 Results & Day 3 Schedule--(Dec. 20, 2000)

What Rim Rattler Holiday Hoops Invitational Where: Cal State Long Beach Pyramid & Gold Mine When December 18-21, 2000 Who 20 Top Teams; 10 National & 10 SoCal

This is the schedule for today, December 20, 2000:

And in case you're curious, here's how we got there, who won and lost yesterday:

Championship Bracket:
Quarterfinals--actually because of some quirks, these really all weren't, technically speaking "quarterfinals", because the upper half of the bracket has 6 teams, and the lower half only had 4.   Thus there were three games yesterday, plus a real quarterfinal in the upper bracket. . . so we'll describe each half of the bracket:

Upper Half Bracket

Quarterfinal
Eisenhower 56, Inglewood 52
Second Round
Mt Zion def. Springarn
Horizon 53, Santa Barbara 51 (OT)
Quarterfinal
Mt Zion def. Horizon

Lower Half Bracket

Quarterfinals
Long Beach Poly 59, Miami Christian 57
Mayfair 55, Rice 53

Consolation Bracket

Gainesville def St. Albans
Compton Centennial 63, Pasadena 52
Southern Lab 67, Chester 34
Fontana 2, Boston English 0 (English dropped out of the tournament)
Long Beach Jordan 78, Miami Senior 61

We also managed to cull some of the local papers for some good game descriptions for those games we didn't get to see (which was most of them yesterday), and even for some that we did see.  Here's what we know or what we found:

Long Beach Poly 59, Miami Christian 57-- The Long Beach Press Telegram's Ted Kian was at this game, and he had a pretty good account of what happened:  "Poly High boys basketball coach Ron Palmer is a veteran and successful coach. But the Jackrabbits game against Miami Christian on Tuesday proved that Palmer is not always right.  Before the game, Palmer told his players they needed to do two things to win. The first was to take care of the basketball by limiting their turnovers. The second was to minimize the scoring of Miami Christian standout guard Carlos Morban. Well, Poly committed 20 turnovers and Morban scored a game-high 28 points. But thanks to Reggie Butler's steal and baseline jump shot with two seconds remaining, the Jackrabbits pulled out a 59-57 win at Long Beach State. "They didn't do what I told them to do, but when you consider that this was the first game for the players we got back from the football team, I have to feel pretty good right now," Palmer said. "We're rusty and we're young, but this team is going to get better."   Palmer was referring principally to the return of Marcedes Lewis (6'-8" Jr. F), who was on Poly's Championship D-I football team. He scored 17 points.  Markee White also returned and finished with 12 points, 4 rebounds and three steals.  Lewis had 10 rebounds.  Reggie Butler (6'-6" Jr. F) had 14 points and 7 rebounds.   With 1:20 remaining in the game, Poly had a 55-53 lead. Markee White hit a jumper to push the lead to 57-54, but then fouled Morban who was shooting a three.  With 32 seconds remaining, Morban hit all three free throws and tied the game.  Poly's point guard, Carlos Rivers, forced a pass inside to Reggie Butler, resulting in a steal by Miami Christian's Johan Rivera, but Butler stole the ball back, and hit a short jumper with only two second showing on the clock. Miami Christian called a quick timeout and tried to set up a play, but Markee White intercepted the inbound pass, and that was the end of the game.   Poly will play Mayfair tonight in one of two semifinals at the Goldmine.   The Poly-Mayfair game tips off at 7:30 p.m.

Mayfair 55, Rice 53 -- The Long Beach P-T also had a story by Kirby Lee about this game. The bottom line is that Eddie Draughan and Josh Childress each scored 19 points to propel Mayfair (7-0) past Rice (3-2), the 1999 Catholic High School Athletic Assn. runner-up. Draughan also grabbed 8 rebounds and Childress had 3 blocks. Mayfair, which plays primarily man defense, went to a 2-2-1 zone with the 6-foot-7 Childress, his 6-4 sophomore brother Chris and 6-6 Draughan to help neutralize the Raiders' 7-foot-2 sophomore center Shagari Alleyne. Alleyne had 8 points, 6 coming on dunks, and 7 rebounds, but it was the 3-point shooting of Keydren Clark (14 points) that kept Rice in the game.  Free throws were also important against Rice. The Monsoons converted 12 of 15 in the game, including 10 of 10 in the fourth quarter. Mayfair expanded a 51-50 lead in the final minute to 55-50 with a driving jump shot in the key by sophomore guard Brian McFadden with 17 seconds left and two free throws by Draughan with five seconds remaining. Rice's Jason Wingate connected on a 3-point basket at the buzzer for the final margin. The Monsoons, who held Miami Senior scoreless for nearly six minutes in the first round, shut down Rice for almost seven minutes in the second quarter. Mayfair turned a 20-13 deficit into a 30-22 lead with a string of 15 unanswered points, 9 by Childress.

Jordan 78, Miami Senior 61 -- Rashawn Childs and Ronald Banks scored 18 points each for Jordan (5-5) in a consolation bracket game. The Panthers face San Diego Horizon in a seventh-place semifinal at 1:30 p.m. today.

Centennial 63, Pasadena 52 --Tony Key had 25 points and Anthony Davis scored 20 to lead the Apaches into a fifth-place semifinal at 4:30 p.m. against Gainesville.  If you haven't yet seen Tony Key, by the way, he is a man playing against boys, and is a big-time prospect assuming he can qualify.  Huge upper body, tremendous strength, plays with big-time intensity, dunks, rebounds, and has amazingly good touch around the basket.  We also got a look at Rodney Biggers, the New York import senior point guard, and while he's a nice prospect and a solid ball handler, we were not as impressed as perhaps we were led to believe we should be.   Gabriel Pruitt, the young freshman,  played well, and he's going to be a solid player.  Dino Wilburn played pretty well for Pasadena, and it's also nice to see that Duwan Rice has grown some too, and he's a quick and agile ballhandler. 

Fontana 2, Boston English 0-- Boston English dropped out of the tournament so Fontana didn't play.

Eisenhower 56, Inglewood 52-- The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin's  Paul Oberjuerge covered this game:  Alex Acker scored six of Eisenhower's final 17 points and Andre Rouzan added 13 points for Eisenhower and 6-foot-3-inch forward Marcus Sams scored 10 off the bench as the Eagles improved to 6-0. Eisenhower's interior defenders kept 6-10 junior D'Angelo Collins (10 points) and 6-9 Doug Thomas (eight points) under control. With Acker, a senior guard, misfiring (he was 0-for-8 on 3-pointers), Eisenhower trailed 20-10 in the second quarter. The Eagles then went on an 18-7 run during which six players scored, led by seven points from Rouzan. Eisenhower trailed 45-39 with just over five minutes to play when Acker finally got going, with a putback basket. Sams, who was 3-for-3 from the field and 4-for-4 from the line, hit a clutch 15-footer from the free-throw line to give Eisenhower a 47-45 lead, and the Eagles never trailed again. While Acker struggled, his teammates shot an even 50 percent (17-for-34) from the field. Senior 6-4 forward Anthony Davis, who covered Acker for most of the game, led Inglewood (4-3) with 15 points.

Horizon 53, Santa Barbara 51 -- While we were at this game, the Santa Barbara News-Press described this game better than we could:   Trey Putnam had 21 points but it wasn't quite enough as Santa Barbara High lost 53-51 in overtime Tuesday morning to San Diego power Horizon in a second round game at the Rim Rattler basketball tournament.  Playing at the Gold Mine, Long Beach State's old gym, the Dons played to a regulation tie of 47-47 despite getting only two points and seven minutes of play from star guard Dommanic Ingerson. Ingerson hurt his wrist in the Dons' first round win over Chester, Pa., and reinjured it early in Tuesday's game. His status is day-to-day, according to SBHS coach Jeff Lavender. Putnam, a 6-foot-7 forward, connected on 8-of-12 shots and also had five rebounds and four assists. Dante DeRose and Dante Bogan each scored seven points and DeRose added seven assists with only one turnover. Nate Carter had 14 points to lead Horizon, 9-0, which has won seven straight CIF San Diego Section championships.

 
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