Waynesword on Hoop
Section 2 Hoop Prelude--November ‘08
Salute to Prior Seniors
I never really got around to writing my traditional Hoop Re-Cap at the end of last season, but I intend to make up for that now, as best as I can. There are some now-graduated seniors I meant to commemorate one more time last spring—guys like Malcolm Austin, Zach O’Brien, Isaiah Duke, Khaliq Gross, DeAndre Kennedy-Ebron, Shimeek Johnson, Terron Victoria, Tashan Newsome, Gerard O’Shea, Brett Marfurt, Devin Grimes, Jordan Gettings, Pat Lanoue, Pat O’Rourke, Evan Christner, Jake Bowman, Dave Fischer, Ryan James, Malachi Mitchell, Shea Bromirski, and Vinnie Nicosia are some of the departed high school players that come to mind. Each of them except for the last two on the list I saw play at some point, and each performed in a stellar fashion. The last two had great games and/or stats I heard about. Grimes and Gettings of Catholic Central (CCHS) I’d written about plenty of times before. It is no coincidence that the three best players (in my own observation) on the above list—Austin (Delaware), Marfurt (Colgate), and Johnson (Fairfield) are all attending Division 1 Universities to play hoop. At least two—Grimes and Bromirski—were set to attend Division 2 Saint Rose in Albany last I knew.
T. Victoria and G. O’Shea can, I believe, also be seen this winter, competing for D-3 Skidmore College of Saratoga Springs. O’Brien and Gettings were reputedly headed to St. Johns Fisher, slated for D-2 ball at a consistently competitive school as well. I heard that Christner is attending RPI in Troy, and I’ll be checking box scores to see if he is on their hoop roster this winter. And if any readers know of other 2008 graduates who are likely to be playing college ball, I’d love to hear about them . While there was a lot of talent on the above list, none of them reached the pinnacles achieved by their 2007 predecessors, Talor Battle of Bishop Maginn, and Jimmer Fredette of Glens Falls HS. Both lived up to their hype during their first year in the NCAA ranks, after somewhat slow starts. Battle emerged as a blisteringly fast point guard at Penn State, acquitting himself well in the rugged Big 10, and winning the starting job over two other strong contenders. His team appeared on National TV at least 3 or 4 times that I saw, with Talor earning positive comments from prominent announcers each time. Jimmer was getting decent minutes in the rotation of top 8 players at Brigham Young U. in Utah, and from what I could tell seemed to peak toward the end of the season. He benefited from his ranked team making it to the NCAA Tournament in March, and for those local viewers who were extremely observant, they would’ve noticed Fredette briefly featured in the Shining Moments Montage CBS produced to showcase the ’08 Tourney—hitting a deep three and emitting his trademark celebration yell! Not bad for college freshmen hoopers from upstate New York.
Tribute to Taran & The Maginn Team
But back on the local HS level, anyone paying attention is aware that the most acclaimed and already the most accomplished player in the Capital District area was a sophomore last year—Taran Buie, Battle’s younger brother, also of Bishop Maginn, Class of 2010. In fact, even counting the locally famous duo mentioned above, his brother and Jimmer Fredette, Buie has received more eyebrow- raising attention from Division 1 Coaches than most anyone in Section 2 in a long time—to see esteemed Coaches like Paul Hewitt of Georgia Tech and Jim Boeheim of Syracuse peering closely at the Bishop Maginn games versus Mount Vernon and Niagara in
the State AA Tourney at Glens Falls Civic Center last spring gave validation to the claims being made about young Taran— that he was Top 50 material for his Class in the nation. I have heard interesting conjecture about Billy Donovan of Florida, John Calipari of national runner-up Memphis, and Rick Pitino of Louisville possibly being interested in Taran’s hoop services during his college career. Whether it’s casual interest or intense, it doesn’t get much more upper echelon than that group.
The attraction to Taran wasn’t only about his superb individual skills but that he proved he knew how to make his team win against top-notch competition. He filled his brother’s shoes in a hurry—as a fearless scorer, a harassing defender, and a natural leader on a team of talented guys who were older than him, but understood the nature of his talent, for the most part. Whereas the Talor-led team of the year before had succumbed by a narrow margin (68-65) to Mount Vernon in the NY State Finals in March of ’07, the ’08 version of Maginn vaulted past the same perennial powerhouse with an inspiring win, and made it to The Federation round against Lincoln High of Brooklyn, NYC’s baddest bunch for several years running. Though Maginn got blasted on the boards by the bigger Railsplitters in the Finals, they still made a thrilling game of it, and Buie may well have proven that he was not far behind Lance Stephenson of Lincoln, if he is at all. Stephenson has been getting O J Mayo-type hype since 9th grade, but Buie may be catching up fast, headed into this year, though he is a year behind the celebrated Lincoln star.
He was the consensus Section 2 Player of the Year even before he blew up in the Sectionals, Regionals, and NY State Championships, seemingly playing a more prominent and confident role in each round.
In fact, we were in attendance at the first varsity game Buie & his teammates played last season, the beginning of his vaunted soph season, as CCHS was granted the privilege of starting out the season against that emerging Big 10 powerhouse, at their placein Albany. First of all, the Maginn gym was electric right from the emergence of the squad from the locker room for warm-ups…and the music-driven mojo in the house was an urban revival meeting of about 1500 believers, stomping, hollering, clapping with glee and fervor.
Having made it to the school’s first Sectional Championship the prior year (beating 3-time champ CBA at the T-U Arena in a thriller), and then advancing all the way to the State Finals was an unprecedented run for Bishop Maginn in the hoop world. The buzz was still prevalent as the game began, and almost within moments of the opening, Buie came down the middle off the break and went down the lane for a tommyhawk dunk attempt that had the crowd howling and rising out of their seats—the fact that the ball bounced off the back rim and flew out about thirty feet, past the arc, only served to punctuate the moment. The potential 2 points was incidental—Maginn would not have much trouble scoring—it was the electric effect of a slender 6’2” (if that) guard going up like Doctor J to get the season started that brought down the house, and signaled what kind of year was ahead for the Golden Griffins of this small parochial school.
When Buie next hit 2 early free throws, sliced inside for 2 quick deuces, and then hit some late 3-bombs to prove his stroke had improved nicely, he had 12 points by the end of the quarter and there was no mistaking who was The Man for Maginn from the get-go. He finished with 27 in a 77-57 win, which may have been one of his highest scoring games of the year-- on a team with a lot of balance and multiple options, he and Shimeek Johnson led the way with averages around 16 or 17 each.
While Bishop Maginn has graduated 4 key components from that roster—lanky Shimeek, strong man Antonio Davis, scoring guard Khaliq Gross (who had transferred from LaSalle for his senior season), and the vastly underrated Terron Victoria—no one should have to feel sorry for Taran and his team this year.
Their junior class was stacked last year with guys like Bunduka Kargbo at point, burly James Torres inside, plus a host of others from last year’s roster hungry for more minutes than they got—T.J. Jefferson, Savion Melton, Lasai Banks, Billy Blake, and Abdul Marjaui. Another soph from last year who DID get meaningful minutes off the bench was prolific scorer Raja Johnson, who must be 6’6” or 6’7” by now, and who returns with another transfer from Albany Academy, Shavar Fields, who stands 6’7 or 6’8 and could easily be consider one of the three top centers in the entire Section, headed into his junior season.
This is not even mentioning how good their best JV players are who’d be moving up—Trason Burrell, John Scurry, Tyrone McNeil, Jerel Scott, Chris Jeffers, Dylan Tully, among others. I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating here--there are players who sat on the JV bench for Maginn last year who’d be STARTING on varsity for most of the B-C-or-D schools in the area last year, and maybe some of the A teams too. The 8-thru-12 guys on Maginn’s varsity these days would tear up those lower leagues if they chose to go elsewhere. That’s just how it is—like Lincoln, like Mount Vernon, like Rice—they are loaded, in the present and in the pipeline. Fortunately they can only play 5 at a time.
So, my preview for the year, at this point, starts and ends with Maginn—they are head and shoulders above the rest in Section 2 at this point in terms of talent, size, numbers, depth, dunking, highlight reels, however you cut it. Everyone else in the Big 10 and AA Sectional ball is fighting for second place, hoping not to get embarrassed too badly when playing Taran Buie, Bunduka Kargbo, James Torres, Raja Johnson, and Maginn.
Having said that, I’ve paid my homage to Coach Hurley and his State Championship squad, which I expressed to him directly last spring at a City Rocks event. There are multiple images in my head of their successes last year, and other accounts have informed me of still more highlights I missed, for example:
--Shimeek Johnson throwing down a Jordan-esque dunk from the foul line during a game at the Armory last December, which some have called the best dunk in Section 2 history (so far), and the Times Union sportswriter James Allen featured it in his piece the next day;
--Shimeek hitting a winning three-ball at CBA as time expired
in overtime, a game that the home team would’ve won had he missed, a sold- out packed house (we couldn’t get in) either screaming with joy or looking on in disbelief
--James Torres proving he could ( for one game at least) out-beast one of the toughest kids in the area—Deandre Kennedy-Ebron of CBA—in the AA Finals, scoring about a dozen off the bench &giving Maginn the inside-muscle edge they needed to blend with their athleticism;
--Khaliq Gross leading a second quarter surge to take a lead against powerful Henninger of Syracuse in the Regionals, and Victoria and Buie hitting 9 each in the second half to secure the 56-50 win at HVCC in front of another raucous local crowd—the highlight of the game being Taran attacking the rim over 7’1” center Ben Cronin (going to Michigan) repeatedly, scoring floating layups like he was just down playing at the Y;
--Taran leading the comeback win over a dominant, nationally-ranked Mount Vernon team by hitting 7 of 8 shots from the field in the second half, plus a key play at the end from a hustling Terron Victoria, who made a magnificent D.Wade-type save at half-court on a ball going out-of-bounds that he transformed into an assist underneath to Khaliq near the end of the stirring 54-52 victory over the D-1 bound Kevin Jones and the Golden Knights of Bobby Cimmino, who were no doubt none too happy to lose to a Section 2 team for the first time in their superb hoop history.
--Kargbo slicing and dicing (like the option quarterback he is) throughout the late season to the point where, against Lincoln in the hard-fought Finals, Coach Hurley told the press afterwards, “I think Benny just earned himself a D-1 scholarship…”
And the list would go on. So before we start with the new, let’s give All Due to the reigning State Champions of New York State AA basketball, The Bishop Maginn HS Griffins of Albany. Maginn will now be in the permanent record books of the State Tourney alongside prior Section 2 Champions such as the Schenectady teams of 1998 and 2001, and the Shenedehowa team of 1987 as Big School NYS Champions from Section 2 of which I’m aware. And young Taran Buie will be mentioned in the same breath as recent area greats such as Willie Deane and
Tiki Mayben and Lionel Chalmers and Jason McKrieth and Rashaun Freeman and James Thomas and Brian Monahan and Joe Bova and Lucious Jordan and J.J. & R.J. Harvey and Mike Van Schaick and Brian Larrabee and Luke Weaver (this list is in no particular order, by the way, and implicitly includes his brother Talor Battle and Jimmer Fredette), and really all the way back to the legendary Greg Koubek leading his Shen team in ‘87 to prove to Section 2 that a Capital District team—from the Suburban Council in that case-- could finally beat a team like Kenny Anderson’s Archbishop Malloy of NYC squad, to begin the new era of upstate hoop in Section 2.
That’s enough name-dropping for now—I’ll be back in the present tense soon, with an update as November goes on. Now that the season is here I’ll be posting hoopwords more often, so keep your eyes open and tell me what you see.
Here’s to Peace, and good hoop,
Wayne
--Copyright Wayne Perras 2008