Half Moon Bay, 25-1, and Menlo-Atherton, 24-2, will play for the championship Saturday at 7:45 p.m. at Mills High in Millbrae. Both teams are expected to be pulled up to the CCS Open Division, regardless of the outcome Saturday.
PAL tourney title game
- Thread starter colhenrylives
- Start date
THE DOCTOR of Hoops will have his boys ready. There will be no repeat of Mills from last year.
Possibly, but their Hostess Twinkie League schedule did nothing to prepare them for this game. Yes, they play the team on their schedule, but it doesn't necessarily prepare either. Agreed the Dr will reference last year's loss, but I just feel like the "Force" will be with M-A. I could be wrong and it won't be the first time though lol is the game being streamed?
M-A has done an excellent job of not allowing HMB to get to the basket. Nuno doing a fine job of killing HMB with bad shots and awful turnovers.
Tommy with a couple good baskets, then commits 3rd foul and another turnover. WAY too much dribbling by Nuño
Problem with HMB continues to be their own strength which is their discipline. If you throw them off their game, they can't improvise.
Defensive clinic. People forget or dont remember that Molieri has a WCAL background coaching on the Dr's coaching staff during the Rob Jones era. Defense leads to offense. 27 points is amazing in a championship game. Hats off to Coach Mo. Torch has been passed and Young Skywalker finally beat his mentor. Interesting where they'll be seeded in the Open. Athletically and defensively they matchup with anyone, but can they score enough against a team as athletic and defensive minded as they are like a St Francis or Serra. Will be very interesting.
M-A will get 2 seed in Open. Everyone might think Serra but Serra lost to Burlingame and MA beat Burlingame by 20. With that said HMB might get the 3 right behind them because they also beat Burlingame. Congrats to coach Mo and his team. MA was great defensively for 32 minutes and HMB had no answers for their defensive activity. Nuno and Hilton had a tough time getting any high percentage looks. Best way to describe it like another poster said. It was a clinic!! Help, hedge, double physically on screens and great rotations.
I am not sure this will change the seeds. MA and Hmb both split. MA did beat Burlingame, but lost to Bellarmine. Serra beat Bellarmine twice and HMB beat Bellarmine as well. Palma split with HMB as well. Should be interesting. I still think any of the teams can make it to the open championship and wouldn't be surprised if you saw HMB, MA or Palma in the championship
Rich Forslund said after the game that he expects to be seeded below M-A and Palma and draw Serra in the first round.
Until the PAL catches a clue and makes basketball a power rankings league like every other sport in the PAL, with the BAY DIVISION being the top OCEAN DIVISION being middle and LAKE DIVISION being the bottom this will continue to happen. The league is doing itself NO justice in its current structure. Not sure what their reasoning is behind not incorporating basketball into the power structure but it's hurting the LEAGUE !!!
The power structure was tried for 3-4 years I believe and it was a big failure mainly because of the fact that no one from Carlmont was coming to watch games vs Jefferson on a Wednesday. (Just using those two teams as an example) Geographical keeps all the rivalries together and is a big draw for these struggling athletic programs that need that extra gate revenue. The quads would sometimes have 3 different schools involved. Like the girls from a certain school would host one school while the boys hosted someone completely different. Thats why that format was scratched and geographical was brought back. Plus any time in any C league in any year will have a tough time claiming an at large berth in playoffs and most teams in A leagues won't play them because if they lose to them it hurts their chances later in seedlings. I think the league is fine as it is. Like they say the cream always rises to the top anyways.
Agreed and unfortunately HMB has sank the last 2 seasons through no fault of their own. Im not bashing what the Dr has done, but I am saying in a best of 7 on a neutral court M-A is hands down the better team. HMB would be lucky to win 2 games and that would only be because of the Dr's coaching. The game last nite reminded me of some of the trips the Dr. made with Riordan in the Norcals to Redding to play an upstart Enterprise team with a gaudy record, but those Enterprise teams played nobody in their League or Section with the athetes or pressure D that the Dr's team had. The man to man pressure D and deep athletic roster was too much and they exploited the structured unathletic team from Enterprise. Fast forward to the last 2 seasons and it seems HMB is playing the role of Enterprise playing a soft League schedule (through no fault of their own) but then succumbing to more athletic teams who can make them "uncomfortable". Don't get me wrong, I think HMB is a good team, but in the overall sense, I think they are just nice once you put them in an environment with athletes and players who can get them out their comfort zone.
During the game I posted (and for some reason it appears to be gone) that HMB's strength, their discipline is also their weakness. When you get them out of their game, they cannot respond as they do not know how to improvise.
Agreed. They don't have the type of player who can break down a defense and improvise and create. Which is hidden when they are blowing everone out in the PAL North. That said, they know what they need to do to do succeed and if you are not prepared, they can surprise a more talented team if that team is undiciplined. Unfortunately M-A was not that last night. Good luck to them in the Open. Me being a fan of the Dr, I HOPE they do get their Highway 92 rival. Would be great to see Rapp n the Dr match wits again and maybe just maybe he can recapture that underdog lore and pull an upset in the jungle.
Colonel, I dont have a dog in the Open Race, my school is in the D3 bracket. That said, being a noted fan and friend of the program of the Dr and MO-Town (M-A) I will have a rooting interest in the game. Although in the end once CCS is done its all about the WCAL! But for now BEAR DOWN! That would be for M-A!
As a matter of fact, M-A gave a downright WCAL-like defensive/rebounding performance on Saturday evening in Millbrae.
