Well does the player want to be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond? All depends on the mindset on how good the parents think their son is.
WCAL 2017: NORCAL PLAYOFFS
- Thread starter Mr. Direct
- Start date
Well does the player want to be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond? All depends on the mindset on how good the parents think their son is.
Yeah, but nobody likes SI... and he'd fit right in at SHC. Irish have the best players and the league's premier gymnasium, not a converted bathroom or a carved-out cinder block.
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Not if no one can guarantee him playing time or that hes starting
there is no coach to make these broken promises lol
SHC has a good returning group of players led by Hollins. SI has 3 good jrs coming back. Riordan has good guards returning led by Chun and lil Ugbaja. Coach Buck is well respected and his players buy in and over achieve. Also, Rob Jones is one of Coach Buck's assistant coaches. Now there's someone that has the credentials to coach a 6-8 kid. Jones & Buck both worked with Jorge Camacho as he came in as an overweight, but talented 6-7 big man with a shooting touch. His Jr year was a "welcome to the WCAL" moment going up against Drew Gordon. Camacho dropped 30lbs his Sr year and dominated a Jr laden SHC squad that had Jerry Brown and Kevin Greene that captured D3 CCS and earned WCAL POY. Other than AG, Rob Jones had a great bball IQ and a high motor. He dominated at only 6-5 and did pretty well at San Diego/St Mary's.
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Agreed, but I also know its been hard to get the financial support needed to attract these elite athletes. I understand that the Boarding Program is in place, but it seems everybody has their hand in that now. To be able to compete the Athletic Dept needs the abiltiy to offer "scholarships" aka financial aide because regardless how much the staff can relate and coach, if I'm a parent and 1 school is offering me a "ride" and another is offering me a partial (which Riordan does as those on full rides arent as prevalent as it seems, as it seems the whole school is on some financial aide) then that elite athlete and his parents will be going to the school that shows them the money. Until Riordan is willing to give these full rides more often, without having to go through what it seems like Congressional hearings to get the funds approved, they'll always be a step behind in attracting the elite athletes. I hope they do turn it around and see that Athletics is a marketing tool on its own, but it is what it is.
I understand Riordan has the largest amount of students on financial assistance than any of the other schools, thus providing less $$. Nothing wrong with that as the school wants to make it available to all young men. The new Development Dir has done an incredible job in his short stint as it retired all of its debt early that went to the Boarding School conversion, exceeded fund raising never seen before on Phelan Ave and is expecting another large incoming frosh class based on the latest Alumni newsletter. We shall see.
I think the league is in the midst of a significant shake up similar to what happened when Barbour, Buckner, Motil, and Kennedy were hired to take over programs for long standing coaches.
Riordan league finishes under Buckner (.38 Win%)
5th
5th
6th
7th
7th
4th
4th
4th
7th
Mitty league finishes under Kennedy (.77 win%)
4th
4th
1st
1st
1st
1st
3rd
4th
St. Francis league finishes under Motil (.63 win%)
2nd
1st
5th
6th
6th
5th
1st
1st
SHC league finishes under Barbour (.57 win%)
2nd
1st
5th
2nd
3rd
3rd
5th
4th
6th
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If SHC brings everyone back, they are the favorites with MacKay now at the helm. Homerun hire for SH in my opinion. The top of the league with be very strong and the bottom (Riordan, VC) very weak.
Hard to argue your point as it definitely looks that way on paper...But, that's why they play the games.
Practices are about to commence and so here are my predictions now that transfers, coaching changes etc. have occurred.
1.) Mitty - Don't sleep on the Monarchs. Very good core returning. Complete team. Excellent coaching.
Last Season Finishes:
Varsity - T3rd
JV - T2nd
Frosh A - T2nd
Frosh B - 6th
2.) St. Ignatius - The most depth and talent IMO. Will suffer a bit without Henry Little who chose not to play his senior year (?). Coaching is a big question mark.
Last Season Finishes:
Varsity - 5th
JV - T2nd
Frosh A - T5th
Frosh B - 5th
3.) Serra - Lost most of scoring to graduation but still have Coach Rapp. The season starts and begins with 7 footer Jack Wilson, Oregon State commit. The team will go as far as he takes them.
Last Season Finishes:
Varsity - 2nd
JV - 1st
Frosh A - 1st
Frosh B - 4th
4.) Bellarmine - Excellent 1-2 combo with Athens and Wojick. Not sure what else but those two are good enough to lead them wins consistently.
Last Season Finishes:
Varsity - T3rd
JV - 4th
Frosh A - 2nd
Frosh B - 1st
5.) Valley Christian - This is the year. Valley Christian will finally be out of the cellar with Coach DeLuca at the helm, leading scorers returning, and big man transfer. 9-131 record over the past 10 years.
Last Season Finishes:
Varsity - 8th
JV - 5th
Frosh A - 8th
Frosh B - 8th
6.) SHC - Coach Barbour out. Coach MacKay in. Hollins, Hillman, Smith out. Will be the most interesting team to watch this season with all of the changes.
Last Season Finishes:
Varsity - 6th
JV - T6th
Frosh A - 7th
Frosh B - T2nd
7.) St. Francis - How the mighty have fallen. A rebuilding year for the Logan Johnson led Lancers. Could fall to 8th if Riordan gels and plays well.
Last Season Finishes:
Varsity - 1st
JV - 8th
Frosh A - T5th
Frosh B - T2nd
8.) Riordan - Lack of size will hurt the Crusaders. Style of play and team chemistry will be key this season to avoid the cellar.
Last Season Finishes:
Varsity - 7th
JV - T6th
Frosh A - 4th
Frosh B - 7th
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Heard SI's 6'7" center has decided not to play this year. Not a great player but nice to have that size under the basket. They will be good a guard but lacking size up front.
Losing Henry Little is going to hurt them - he's a nice player. Surprised he decided not to play but banging inside week in / week out in the rugged WCAL takes quite a toll / commitment. I don't think they have another 6'7'' post waiting in the wings. I guess they'll have to adapt to a more guard oriented up-tempo offense. Should be fun to watch their games this year with their trio of juniors (Beckman, Trammel, Redmond) leading the way.
Riordan opens WCAL play @ St Ignatius on Jan 4th. That's always an exciting game / venue as the students get into it a bit even though its been a while since Riordan won at McCollough.....
I didn't know he quit basketball. That changes things a bit but they will have a 6'6" Jr., Teddy Synder who is already better than Henry Little IMO. Sophomore Jaedon Roberts is 6'3" 250 lbs and athletic. They also will have a couple of 6'5" sophomores on the roster. I don't think size will be an issue in league play.
I don't think you can say SI is the "clear favorite" especially this year. A lot of parity this year. Great guards but coach is still a "newbie" and no real bigs. Saw them this summer and they played 4 guards and one forward and played uptempo. IMO Winner of WCAL probably will got 10-4/ 11-3. I can see a lot of teams beating each other. Look for Valley to win 6 to 7 league games. New coach is bringing in new players 3 transfers, 2 are pretty good and I is from Berkeley- Interesting on how that worked out. Bellarmine will have the best backcourt, Mitty the best frontcourt with Grigsby, Diaz and ? ( can't remember his name the kid who didn't play last year because of concussion. he is healthy now and he can play. I think he is 6'6'. and Logan Johnson of SF is the best player in the league.
I too see a lot of parity this year in the league and on any given Wednesday or Saturday it'll be a battle. There will be outstanding guard play as many of these teams are loaded in the back court. Valley Christian is the great unknown at least to me and by many accounts isn't an automatic bye anymore. It'll also be interesting to see how well SHC gels as a team under new management. As a Riordan homer - I'm concerned about their lack of size upfront. There aren't (m)any dominant big men to contend with in the WCAL this year so they'll have a shooter's chance on many nights but my expectations are low for the Crusaders.
They better be able to shoot like the Dubs. Hopefully one day, RB gets another big enrolled/transferred in, until then Riordan's team are athletic but typically under-sized.
If the Crusaders get at least 5 non-league wins and at least 4-5 wins in WCAL play they would qualify for CCS and anything can happen. Riordan most likely will run a 4 guard one F/C Lineup. As I've always stated, having Good guards in the 6-0 - 6-3 range that have a high bball iq, are fast, have good handles, shoot and play tough team D can have good success in HS ball.
J24...the Crusaders lose 80% of their starting lineup and several years of Varsity experience, that will be tough to replace. They return Chun but this year teams know who he is...last year he wasn't planned for and came on 2nd half of the season.
The Irish are in shambles and they do not return enough to be competitive IMO. It's all predicated on Carter having greatly improved and Robinson's continued growth. Not much else returning...
This may be a solid year for The Cats...lots of returning talent and talent moving up to Varsity...they'll be fun to watch....
IMO Serra and Mitty will be the favorites and Bellarmine on their heels.....I also predict VC will finish no lower than 5th.....
Can't wait for hoops!!
The Irish are in shambles and they do not return enough to be competitive IMO. It's all predicated on Carter having greatly improved and Robinson's continued growth. Not much else returning...
This may be a solid year for The Cats...lots of returning talent and talent moving up to Varsity...they'll be fun to watch....
IMO Serra and Mitty will be the favorites and Bellarmine on their heels.....I also predict VC will finish no lower than 5th.....
Can't wait for hoops!!
I wouldn't say the Irish are in "shambles" but we'll probably get a good idea with how the pre-season goes and how Sean MacKay runs his team. You're right about Carter. I suspect he'll spend more time in the paint rather than tossing up 15-foot layups.
Serra's 7-footer is heading to Oregon State in two years. So how non-dominant is he in a guard-heavy league?
Coach Rapp's offensive scheme calls for constant ball movement. His defensive scheme calls for tight man-to-man defense. Not really the strengths of the 7 footer as he is an old school post up and rim protector player. Agree, the WCAL is a guard-heavy league and even the so-called big men in the league are fast and can run the floor. Will be interesting if Rapp alters his scheme to the 7-footer or not, but I really don't see it happening.
The WCAL title is up for grabs between Serra, SI, Mitty and the Bells. The second tier will be St. Francis, SHC, VC and Riordan.
no elite teams but still have a handful of elite players than can average 18 ppg and up. i project Mitty's Grigsby to be the POY over St. Francis' Johnson. Too bad Hollins left, I think he wouldve given it a good shot at POY.
I understand Riordan will have a freshman on the Varsity roster. I believe this is a first that a freshman started the season on the Crusader Varsity roster and we are talking about the legacy Crusaders the likes of Brett Crawford, Erik Newman, Terrence Mullins, Ray Kelly, Dwayne Fontana, Jaha Wilson and Rob Jones...
Jordan, have you seen or heard about the freshman starting for Riordan? I heard he played well in the foundation game but was wondering if he passed your eye test yet.
I see SI lost to HMB in their foundation game in which the Cougars had 7 players suited up. I'm sorry but the coaching staff there has failed to impress me thus far. I hope they figure it out soon enough.
I plan on checking out the new look Irish at SH this weekend.
I see SI lost to HMB in their foundation game in which the Cougars had 7 players suited up. I'm sorry but the coaching staff there has failed to impress me thus far. I hope they figure it out soon enough.
I plan on checking out the new look Irish at SH this weekend.
Mr. Direct, gonna have to defer to our esteemed poster, SFMikey, as I have not seen the 2016-17 edition of the Crusaders yet. This year's team is extremely young with 4 sophs and a frosh on the roster. I understand one of the sophs is a transfer not sure from where tho. I hope to catch a game or two this week/end at the Crusader Classic and will provide my thoughts/assessment.
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I thought Jelani Clark looked pretty darn good in the game against Menlo. He didn't look nervous or overwhelmed playing at the varsity level but I'm not shocked by that as he's a confident kid who played tough competition at the AAU levels. He's real fast with the ball and is a slasher so if his outside shot comes around he'll be tough to guard as he continues to grow and get stronger. He's a wing player at 6'1 or 6'2''.
It'll be interesting to see how Riordan fares this year due to their lack of size and/or elite athleticism. They'll have a shooter's chance most nights but will get beat up on the boards and when Sandoval gets into foul trouble his backups are extremely limited offensively. James Chun is noticeably stronger which he'll need to fend off all the double teams he is going to receive this year. Still think it's going to be a challenging year for the Crusaders.
SFMikey, curious if this team is deep, albeit lots of guards...Did the transfer (Sonnier?) play? Do you know if Chun is back from his injury against Menlo? Talked to some folks in the AD and they know this young team will experience some growing pains during the WCAL grind.
The team has depth at the guard position but I wasn't overly impressed with any of them besides James Chun. James Chun was back practicing the day after the Menlo game from what I've heard. Sonnier played about 10-12 minutes against Menlo and looked decent. I can see him as part of the rotation at forward as they aren't deep at that position. I don't foresee too many WCAL wins this year and they might take VC's spot in the cellar.
I think Serra is ranked way to high. The lost 5 starters and 6 of their top 8 players. The senior class is pretty weak as no senior saw any significant minutes last year. I think Wilson is getting better but still a project. The will play a lot of juniors and probably some soph's. I am sure you will see some growing pains
I don't disagree with Serdaprs. My take is Serra's high rankings are testament to Coach Rapp's ability to consistently coach em up and maximize the available talent on hand each and every year. James and Wilson will form a nice one-two punch the next two years. Serra has a strong freshman A team as well.
I really like their current JR and Sophomore classes. But I can see your point. Where would you drop them to? Below Valley Christian?
I can see them being a 500 team. They will play hard and surprise teams but overall I think they will have some growing pains. Probably will be better late in the season then early. I heard that Wilson missed the first 3 weeks of practice because he was hurt and just returned this week. I also heard coach Rapp is currently not coaching due to his health. Not 100 % sure, I have not seen Serra play yet, but I know he did not coach the foundation game.
I hope coach Rapp gets healthy soon enough. Wilson being hurt that long is a definite red flag. Thanks serdaprs.
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