Breslin Bound: Boys Report Week 5
January 14, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The powerhouse programs often seem to be the same from boys basketball season to season.
But one of the most entertaining parts of high school hoops is how a team can change its level of success substantially from year to year as players move up to varsity and graduate each spring.
The below list of last week's 10 impressive squads includes a number that are off to strong beginnings to 2013-14 after lesser performances a season ago. (Records are based on results reported to the MHSAA Score Center.)
1. Holland (6-0, Class A) – The Dutch finished a game under .500 last season, but have opened by beating some of the best from the state’s west side plus solid Mount Pleasant.
2, Detroit Henry Ford (6-1, Class B) – The Trojans already are halfway to equaling last season’s win total and have posted some of their most impressive over Ann Arbor Huron and Rockford.
3. Negaunee (7-1, Class C) – The Miners are the only team undefeated in the Mid-Peninsula Athletic Conference after handing rival Ishpeming its first loss of the season, 57-55, last week.
4. Ann Arbor Huron (5-1, Class A) – The River Rats have jumped out to a nice lead in the Southeastern Conference Red and earned a solid win over Detroit East English during holiday break.
5. Boyne City (6-0, Class C) – Call it clutch; the Lake Michigan Conference-leading Ramblers already have three league wins by five or fewer points.
6. Rochester Adams (6-1, Class A) – The Highlanders have lost a combined two games over the last two seasons, with this winter’s lone defeat a mere three-pointer during the opening week.
7. Fennville (6-1, Class C) – The Blackhawks are off to their best start of the young decade, with the lone loss a four-pointer to traditional Class D power Wyoming Tri-unity Christian.
8. Flint Carman-Ainsworth (6-1, Class A) – The Cavaliers have won their first four Saginaw Valley Association South games by an average of 23 points per.
9. Mount Pleasant (5-1, Class A) – Four of those five wins have put the Oilers on top of the always-competitive Saginaw Valley Association North.
10. Bloomfield Hills (5-1, Class A) – The Black Hawks' first season after emerging from the merge of Lahser and Andover is off to a great start, with the only loss a one-pointer to Rochester and last week’s 13-point win over Southfield-Lathrup most impressive.
PHOTO: Ann Arbor Huron got past East Lansing during the Holiday Hoops Invitational at Michigan State's Breslin Center and is off to a 5-1 start. (Click to see more at HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Class A Final: Trojans ring up a title
March 24, 2012
EAST LANSING – Every time Draymond Green visited a Saginaw basketball practice this season, he reminded the current Trojans of the same thing:
The Michigan State and former Saginaw star has two Class A championship rings. They had none.
And he brought that up one more time when he went to dinner with the team Friday night.
He can’t tease them anymore. Saginaw – top-ranked entering the tournament – ended it that way with a 54-42 win over Rockford in Saturday’s Class A Final.
“Now I don’t gotta hear Draymond Green’s mouth saying we don’t have a ring. Now I can take my ring to his face and say, ‘Yes, now we do,’” Saginaw senior Davario Gaines said. “He said (Friday), ‘You’re happy just to be here,’ since we won yesterday. We said, ‘No, we’re not happy to be here.’ We hadn’t won anything yet.
“So now we won.”
The championship is Saginaw’s sixth, and first since 2008, when Green led the Trojans to their second straight. But this title-winner had a different look from those that won under previous Saginaw coaches Lou Dawkins and Marshall Thomas.
Those two sat behind the Trojans’ bench Saturday as first-year coach Julian Taylor guided a team that didn’t have a Green-esque star, but a number of contributors who didn’t get down during the streakiest play of the weekend.
Saginaw jumped out to a 7-0 lead. Rockford countered with 18 straight points. The Trojans came back from that with an 18-6 run to lead 25-24 at halftime.
The score was knotted 40-40 with 5:01 to play. But Saginaw finished on a 14-2 run, scoring the final 11 points of the game.
“You try to control runs and limit them,” Rockford coach Nick Allen said. “Saginaw is a very good team, and obviously we didn’t do a very good job of it.”
The Rams did hit 10 3-pointers, tying for fourth-most in MHSAA boys basketball championship game history. They made 55 percent of their first-half tries from beyond the arc.
But the Trojans turned up the pressure to full-court, and limited mistakes at a level rarely seen. Saginaw had just five turnovers and only nine fouls – and Rockford didn’t get to shoot a free throw.
Senior guard Travontis Richardson led the Trojans with 13 points and junior Julian Henderson had 12. But seven players scored at least four points and six grabbed at least six rebounds.
“We don’t have to have a big player. As long as we have parts to the team, they balance out the floor,” Gaines said. “We played D that they haven’t seen before, probably. We fought hard.”
So did Rockford, just to reach Breslin. Allen also was in his first season coaching after taking over for longtime coach Steve Majerle, who is battling Parkinson’s disease. The Rams entered the postseason unranked, but won seven games to finish 22-6.
Junior Chase Fairchild scored 14 points off the bench Saturday to lead the team for the second straight game. He’s one of seven juniors who won’t be nearly as big a surprise if they make a run again in 2013.
“No one expected us to go all the way to the state championship game,” Rockford junior guard Chad Carlson said. “We got here and played together as a team. It was a great season for us. We just couldn’t get it done.”
Click for box score or to watch the game and press conferences at MHSAA.tv.
PHOTOS: (Top) Saginaw players embrace each other at midcourt after clinching the 2011-12 Class A championship. (Middle) Saginaw sophomore Joseph Williams-Powell (42) sends up a shot above the reach of Rockford senior Ivy Johnson. (See more at Terry McNamara Photography.)