Left a little feedback on my previous post dealing with Alan Siegel’s high-powered Sunday story on slam dunks.
Would love to hear some interesting comments on who your favorite area dunkers of all time are.
Watched Central Catholic dismantle A-B last night. It was great to see legendary Central coach Dick Licare at the Raiders/A-B game the other night. Licare insists he’s content in the stands, away from the bench, but the competitiveness still shows.
There is no truth to the rumor that Licare is petitioning the MIAA to add the eight wins he earned coaching his son’s 7-year-old team in Texas to his 447 (I believe) career wins on the Raider bench.
A couple games into the tourney and I miss Lawrence High. I miss the program’s passion. I miss Paul Neal’s personna. I miss the athletes and the chance that you could see a miracle comeback from 20 points down in a four-minute spurt. Let’s hope the Lancers do the necessary offseason work and get back to their usual high standards.
Speaking of high standards, Neal does have a top quality building block, on and off the floor, in Justin Nieves. You have to love the kid, polite, a hoop junkie, and from all the reports in school, a dedicated student. (My wife has him in class, that’s a first-hand report).
OK, I know it’s an MIAA thing, and it has so little to do with the public domain, but every tourney season, it must be brought up.
Why? Oh why, do the folks at nearly every site (non-Valley at least where people don’t know us) continue to insist that there is some MIAA press pass that I MUST, repeat MUST have to get into tourney games?
Last night at Lynn Classical, the guy wouldn’t even allow me to sign the pass list. Again, I’ve been covering high school events since 1990, and I’ve never seen this mythical MIAA press pass.
Neither has my editor, Mike Muldoon, who’s been doing this since the mid 1980s and neither has the Herald’s Dan Ventura.
I’m making it a point, for all media involved, to talk to the tourney directors about this.
I know what the problem is. The powers that be have so many hangers-on, so many freebies out there, that they make it painful for us who are actually there for a reason.
You all should go to New Hampshire once, just to see how high school events are meant to be done.
On the floor, Andover just couldn’t throw it in the hoop. Plenty of effort, plenty of good shots, just not enough hoops.
Yikes, did Central Catholic look good the other night. When Carson Desrosiers invokes his will, like he did in a triple-double the other night, it takes the Raiders to a whole new level.
And that extended 2-3 zone, with the 6-foot-9 soph protecting the paint and long athletes like AG and Timmy Wheeler jumping out on the shooters, yikes. Opposing coaches have to be nauseous thinking about how to attack that.
