Things learned, observed on Day 1 of ASIJ Holiday Classic basketball tournament
Published: December 16, 2011
Musings, mutterings and the occasional schmahts as Ornauer senses that the race for Kanto Plain basketball title space will go through Mustang Valley this season:
Don’t look now, but a Trojan may be gaining on you.
To see Thursday's basketball summaries and photo gallery, click here. For Friday's Day 1 ASIJ Holiday Classic results and photos, click here.
After several down-at-the-heels seasons, Zama American boys basketball, though to be rebuilding and with a new coach, Parish Jones, at the helm, is channeling the 2006-07 squad that won its first 34 games before coming up just short in the Far East Division I Tournament.
Andre Encarnacion, Mike Duncan, David Coleman and the 2011-12 Trojans have gotten off to a 6-2 start, their most recent triumph coming in double overtime 77-74 over the same Kubasaki team that five years ago halted Zama’s run to the D-I title 76-75, also in overtime, in the semifinal at Seoul American High School.
Imagine you’re coming off a 53-40 win over last year’s DODDS Japan champion and Kanto Plain co-champion Yokota on Thursday night at home, then the next day have to play Kubasaki, last year’s D-I champions, right off the bat in the first game of the American School In Japan Holiday Classic.
Probably riding an emotional wave following the upset over Yokota, the Trojans seized a 12-point first-quarter lead, only to watch Kubasaki roar back and lead by as many as eight in the fourth quarter.
But Zama didn’t quit, sending it to overtime 61-61, and again rallying from four points down in the first overtime to force a second extra session at 72-72. Encarnacion fouls out, and James Liker, a sophomore who had not played at all up to that point, was thrust into the lineup with the score knotted at 74.
So what does Liker do? Hits a three-pointer from the top of the key with 9 seconds left to win it.
Understandably, Zama didn’t have much left in its 51-38 loss to Christian Academy Japan later Friday. But they proved their fitness and made their point. This team is for real, and is taking dead aim at finishing what their 2006-07 counterparts, Wilberto Badillo, Carlos Walter and them, started.
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For first-day napkin “team to beat” honors on the first day of the Classic, though, it’s pretty apparent the tournament host Mustangs fit that bill.
This is a senior-laden bunch, with a big three of Sam Olson, Sam Hopkins and Hayden Jardine, along with skilled point guard Ken Yajima, and helmed by another first-year coach, Brian Kelley, the school’s athletics director.
Zama beat Yokota by a baker’s dozen on Wednesday; ASIJ laid waste to the Panthers 65-27, holding All-Far East shooting guard Warren Manegan to just six points.
It’s gonna take an awful lot to corral these Mustangs, that’s for sure.
And they do signage well. During the Mustangs’ 103-60 stampeding of Canadian Academy, one spectator held up a sign that read: “Can’t stop Sam Hop No. 33,” referring to ASIJ’s Sam Hopkins. The sign was held by none other than Tom Jardine II, whom Hopkins succeeded wearing No. 33 for ASIJ, both on the gridiron and hardwood.
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The first day’s hard-luck award has to go to Kubasaki. From defending Far East and Classic champions, the Dragons crashed out 0-2 in pool play, and by a total margin of four points (53-52 last-second loss to Christian Academy Japan), and played the equivalent of nine quarters to get there.
“It’s a good tournament. A lot of parity,” said Dragons coach Jon Fick, who all too well realized that his team could very easily have been on the winning end of those two games, if not for a few little things going Zama’s and CAJ’s ways.
In the eyes of Gerald Johnson, in his first year of coaching Kadena, it’s getting the players to understand that every single play matters in a tournament, whether it’s an early-season Holiday Classic or the D-I Big Dance on Guam. “You can’t take a play off,” Johnson said.
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Very well is it understood why Christian Academy Japan can’t play into Sunday’s championship and placement games. Sundays traditionally are off days where high school sports are concerned, but the last few years, the New Year/Holiday Classic has played into a Sunday, and CAJ, a fundamentalist Christian school that abides by the Bible and the Commandments to the letter, gracefully bows out, while the rest of the field will move up in placement. “On Day No. 7, He looked all around. He looked up to the heavenly sky. He looked all over the ground. His work was done, so he stopped right there and made the holy Sabbath, a time for rest and prayer.”
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To shot clock or not to shot clock? That is the question making the rounds at the ASIJ Holiday Classic, also known in some circles as the 6th New Year Classic which began in January 2007 at Yokota High.
The first few New Year Classics, at Yokota for two years then Nile C. Kinnick for the next two, did not feature a shot clock; this one includes a 35-second shot clock.
Interesting, since all the participating teams except one also play in the Far East tournaments, which do not have a shot clock.
DODDS is an affiliate member of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which encourages but does not mandate a shot clock. Of NFHS’ membership, only five states utilize a shot clock.
Blog post interruption: The 24-seconds shot clock was introduced to the NBA for the 1954-55 season, and injected new life into what had become a dull and boring game. Without the shot clock, with one-shot fouls instead of non-shooting fouls and without team foul limits, it was to the advantage of the team with the lead to freeze the ball and keep it out of the opponents’ hands.
So the losing team would foul to put the winning team at the line and the winning team would do the same to the losing team. Trading two points for one. Turning the game into a monotonous procession to the foul line.
The American Basketball Association used a 30-second clock and introduced the three-point line for the 1966-67 season, and eventually the three-point line was added by the NBA and the shot clock (45 seconds for men, 30 for women) introduced in college basketball for the 1986-87 season.
Some folks are for the up-tempo style of basketball the shot clock invariably encourages. Where the Holiday Classic is concerned, Kelley, the tournament’s organizer, falls into the pro-shot clock category.
“People come all the way here, give up their vacation time, spend all that money and effort,” Kelley said. “I don’t want to have a championship game where they’re stalling the ball to nurse a six-point lead. The game is deserving of a shot clock at every level.”
On the other side of the coin, though, having a shot clock forces teams to play the same style of ball. Not having a shot clock works to the benefit of lesser-experience teams that don’t have a veteran point guard who can set up plays and direct traffic in short order. With no shot clock, you can play any style of ball you want, up-tempo, slow-tempo, Nevada-Las Vegas Runnin’ Rebels style or North Carolina four-corner style.
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Great to see Canadian Academy back at one of the Kanto Plain-DODDS Japan events for the first time in quite a while. They used to play in Far East Division II Tournaments years ago, before they joined the Asia-Pacific Activities Conference for the 1994-95 season; one of APAC’s membership stipulations is not playing in other organization’s tournaments. The Falcons do play regularly against Matthew C. Perry and E.J. King in Western Japan Athletic Association tournaments, but not against Kanto Plain or other DODDS Japan schools. Welcome back, Falcons!
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Perhaps the best hair of the tournament belongs to Jarrett Mitchell of Kubasaki, who stenciled an arrow in the top to rear of his head that points to the image of a basketball on the left side of his head near the ear. Interesting ’do, Jarrett. Right behind Jarrett’s was the star etched into the hair of Savon Woodie of Kadena.
