SoCalHoops Tournament News

Nike Summer National Championships:
Houston Hoops Wins Title--(July 30, 1999)

Well, the final day of this tournament has come and gone, and there's a new Nike National Summer Champion:  Houstoon Hoops, coached by Arizona player Josh Pastner, which knocked off the Illinois Warriors by 3 points in a great game, 55-52.  Marcus Spears (6'-6" Sr. PF) from Southern Lab in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, led Houston with 20 points and Carlos Hurt (6'-2" So. PG/SG) from   Alief Elsik in Houston had 13 points, and Nick Anderson (6'-7" Sr. PF) also from Southern Lab, had 10 for Houston.   Illinois' Dwayne Wade (6'-3" Jr. SG) from Chicago Richards had 23 points.   We'll post up the final box score shortly.

The most interesting story, or non-story, was that Riverside Church abandoned the tournament after last night's weird game in which they were just blown away by Illinois.  That game was called with 1:27 left to play after Riverside basically threw in the towel, and while Illinois blew away Riverside, so did the refs and Riverside's assistant coach, who was ejected from the game.   The ejection of the Riverside assistant coach,  a total of 8 technicals called on the Riverside team and bench, the ejection of Omar Cook (6'-1" Sr. PG) from Christ the King, Riverside's top player and most prominent recruit, and then yet another technical on Cook for kicking over a chair, marked a sad and stormy end to the tournament for Riverside, and a dismal way to end what had been a very bright and otherwise successful summer.

So today, rather than play in the third place game, Riverside just left and forfeited the game, so Howard Pulley got the third place title by default, which was really a shame because even though everyone was tired on this next-to-the-last day of the college exposure period, the guys from Minnesota probably still wanted to win the game outright.  Oh well.

The 5th/6th place game was played at 12:00 noon along with the 7th/8th place game.  The Georgia Stars finished 5th, beating Bray Center 71-66.  The leading scorers for Georgia were Marvin Lewis with 17 and Sherrod Teasly.  Bray was led by James Butler with 22 and Bryan Bedford hit for 21 points.

The Portland Legends finished in 7th place, beating host High Five 55-53 in the other 12:00 noon game.  James Proffit had 14 for High Five, while Amon Gordon had 12.  Portland was led by Michael Lee with 18.

At 10:30 a.m. the 9th/10 place game was played, and the Alabama Lasers finished 9th, beating The Family-Detroit 72-68.  Brandon Robinson had 18 points for Alabama, followed by Chris White with 12;  The Family was led by James Thues (actually pronounced "Theus" by the Detroit coach, so we wonder if it isn't misspelled in the rosters we were given) who scored 17 points, including 5 threes, not a tournament record because Brett Melton last night scored 39 points with 7 three pointers and 10/11 from the line, but still it's a pretty good record no matter how you pronounce "Thues".

In the other 10:30 a.m. game, the 11th/12th place game, the Arizona Stars beat Salt Lake Metro 47-42 behind Andrew Pauling's 13 points.  Salt Lake was led by Jason Baker with 10.

Finally, or rather first,  the 13th/14th place game was played at the crack of dawn, or at least it must have seemed that way to the SCA team (which actually does use the name "So.Cal Hoops" on their jerseys this year, and no, we're not gonna sue Nike, but we may demand a small royalty from Pat Barrett, or maybe we'll just work out a deal with Josh Childress when he gets to the NBA in about 5 years. . . (yeah, this great shooter, who was the standout for SCA, or So.Cal Hoops or whatever they're going to call themselves, will in our opinion, do four years in college before he gets to the league; and we do think he's got a legitimate shot at making it to the league. . . last night he hit for 21 points, and was unstoppable).

Today, Childress wasn't as prolific, but SCA managed to knock off the Bloomington Red team 61-46 for the right to call themselves the best 13th place team anywhere.  Which is probably really unfair, but this was a group which just never really clicked this summer.  Tyson Chandler had 16 points in today's game, but he hasn't looked like he's having any fun out there in about two weeks.   Jamal Sampson, who also doesn't look like he's enjoying himself, score 16 too.   We'll have more on our impressions of the SoCal team shortly.  Andrew Owens, who has been just really great for Bloomington hit for 16 in the game today.

And of course, Sports Express, a sort of rag-tag collection which never really gelled or played together much, garnered the 15th place spot, a title they secured without much of a fight because they never got to play the 15th/16th place game because TPI forfeited and never showed up, which is sort of ironic because about half the guys on Sports Express (EJ Harris, Jason Morrissette, Chad Bell, and a couple of others) used to play for TPI, so they got to avoid playing themselves for last place.  Oh well. . . .

Here's what's happened today:

Consolation Bracket Games:

Championship Bracket Game

We'll have more reports and player profiles shortly.  Stay tuned.

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