Prep Talk

Today's Lafayette at Riverside boys basketball game has been postponed to Jan. 28.

On the girls side, the Lafayette/Riverside game has been moved to 4:15 p.m. after the cancellation of the JV game; also, the Bennett/East girls game is also at 4:15 after the JV game was cancelled.

---Keith McShea

The Yale Cup opened up Wednesday evening. On a busy night I was only able to catch a quarter (the third) of East at Seneca.

East was having their way, extending its 37-25 halftime lead to 55-35 lead after three.

Here's a highlight video as Seneca's No. 3, Nic Alexander, spins and scores with a circus layup, followed by East junior Jasen Oden draining a three (even though you can't see him shoot it) from the left corner to put East up, 42-26, and prompt a timeout from Seneca coach Scott Kirsch.

Deon Robinson had some impressive plays, as usual, with a blind reverse layup as well as a finish off of a nice steal by 6-3 senior Dale Gray. Domonique Jackson also, as usual, contributed in several ways with a block on defense and two nice passes, including a slick across-the-lane find of Gray for a layup.

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The finals have rolled in, and while East's 67-45 win is no surprise, Burgard's 51-49 win over McKinley is.

McKinley lost a lot from last year but still had some good wins to its credit, including a victory over Maple Grove at the Dunkirk Boys & Girls Tournament. 

Middle College got a nice opening win at Bennett, 77-60, while Riverside came back to edge City Honors, 74-70.

Other Yale Cup finals: Grover Cleveland 73, Emerson 34; Hutch-Tech 63, Buffalo Arts 33; Lafayette 76, South Park 33

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This just in from the Niagara Frontier League: Lockport 85, North Tonawanda 63. Nice win for the Lions helped by Shannon Haynes' 37-point night.

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We'll have a complete scoreboard up as soon as possible. And don't forget my live chat at 9:30 p.m.

---Keith McShea

As it is every year, it was great to see many familiar faces as well as some cool early-season basketball matchups at the Pastor-Cooper Tournament at Daemen College.

A private school played a city school in both boys games. How about that, football people? :-)

The final game was a fun one, with St. Mary's edging East, 62-59. Domonique Jackson of East and Vince Kazmierczak of St. Mary's both drew plenty of oohs and aahs from an entertained crowd.

St. Mary's looked fantastic at the start (18-9 first quarter and 36-26 at halftime) with Kazmierczak dropping several sweet long-distance shots. Jackson displayed his all-around talents as East caused several turnovers in a game that took on the frenetic pace of a Yale Cup contest.

Sophomore guard Rashaad Rogers was impressive for the Lancers with several strong takes to the basket; some times it appeared he was on the verge of going out of control, but often times he finished off the play.

Late in the third there was a flagrant foul on a St. Mary's player for a blatant body check in open space at midcourt. The foul was totally unnecessary, correctly called, and prompted some East fans to get very fired up and leave their seats. They were just venting, and they had reason to.

Continue reading "A fun tip-off to hoops season (and lots of video highlights)" »

The Gus Macker was great fun. Even though we at The News were oh-for-2, two-and-done, doubly eliminated.

The squad that competed in the Friday-only corporate challenge was myself, sales intern and current University at Buffalo student Holly Pryzbysz (a name I hopefully spelled right when she was a standout at Kenmore West) and buffalo.com's Dave Jarka and Ben and Tom Kirst.

The first game pitted us against West Herr Honda, which apparently has very tall people selling cars or working on cars. They had a duo that was just too big for us. We hung in there early on but ended up falling by like 8-1 or something. (The one basket will be the one I'll be telling everyone about, however -- a drive from the left side finished with an up-and-under move and a layup. Booyah.)

We were headed to the loser's bracket, where our opponent would be either Coca-Cola or Athleticare. Coke was leading, and they had a dude in skinny dreads who looked very familiar. Sure enough, it was East High grad (and 2008 All-Western New York first-teamer) Jamal Webb. Luckily for me, there was no chance for Webb to posterize me -- Coke beat Athleticare.

At Athleticare, they take care of people, which apparently means they are very adept at hurting people as well. Hey, we kid because we care -- and because we lost to them. :-)

More big, physical dudes. This was the first game I received an armbar on a drive to the hole. Early on I went baseline and ended up with a contact lens dislodged (but I got some great help from -- no joke -- the trainers' trainer, who hooked me up with some solution).

I haven't gotten my Macker on in about 10 years, but at the end of the game a ref said, "They shouldn't call it the Macker, they should call it the Mauler."

Even Athleticare's female (every team must have one) was about a head-and-a-half on Holly (who gets my vote as our MVP). I think we managed a few more points in this one, but the score was similar to the first. Athleticare ran some pretty give-and-go's late to settle things, and the biggest dude among the big dudes posted me up and played Dwight Howard to my Anderson Varejao.

Despite me knowing every referee in the joint on a first-name basis, our Macker was over.

But it was a great time with some co-workers, a nice chance to see some coaches, officials and players I see in high school gyms all winter -- even if I showed why I write about the hoops instead of play the hoops. I might check out the action of what should be a great hoop festival on Saturday.

As I walked out, I got the ultimate cutdown from Dick Gallagher, the guru of Western New York high school football. He was smiling his devilish smile, the one he usually reserves for trash talking to Yankee fans about how they are living in the decade of the Boston Red Sox.

"We'll call you if we're doing a story," he said, "on how not to play basketball."

I got one thing for Mr. Gallagher and the Macker. In the words of Timmy Lupus, "Just wait til next year!"

---Keith McShea