LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Appropriately enough, the final game of the evening was the most compelling during Friday’s Day III of the inaugural Jerry Tarkanian Las Vegas Classic at Bishop Gorman High.
Trailing by as many as 10 points very late in regulation the host Gaels – behind the magnificent play of scintillating senior wing Rashad Muhammad and sensational sophomore Stephen Zimmerman – pulled out an improbable 83-80 overtime-victory over Morgan Park of Chicago.
I write “improbable” because, like so many other states (unfortunately), games in Nevada are played without a shot block and, with a 10-point deficit late in the game, a whole lot of things had to go right for the Coach Dave Rice’s team to pull the thing out.
And they did.
Some of those happened at Morgan Park’s end, where a team with so many terrific guards (namely Kyle Davis and Billy Garrett) had to take some ill-advised shots and careless passes – remember the phrase, folks, “time and score”) – to help Gorman’s cause.
But the Gaels had to also capitalize on those opportunities and they did just that, largely behind the play of Muhammad (who scored 27 points after an 18-point performance in his team’s 68-61 victory quarterfinal victory over Phoenix Pinnacle earlier in the day) and Zimmerman (24 points by, IMHO, the best sophomore center in the United States).
The victory by the Gaels – which took place after a 20-minute tribute to Tarkanian – set the stage for their Saturday night (6 o’clock) Platinum Division championship game with California power Santa Ana Mater Dei.
The Monarchs of Coach Gary McKnight were mostly dominant during their quarterfinal (67-40 over Oakland Bishop O’Dowd and 6-foot-8 sophomore Ivan Rabb) and semifinal (55-39 over Our Savior of New York) Friday night behind the play of seniors Jordan Strawberry and Elijah Brown and junior Stanley Johnson.
The other quarterfinals Friday found Our Savior holding off Redondo Beach (CA) Redondo, 59-50, and Morgan Park rolling over Sacramento Sheldon, 76-57.
The most significant revelation among the individual talent in the tournament Friday was the first looks I got at the Our Savior trio of underclassmen – by way of Africa – Michael Nzei (a 6-8 freshman from Nigeria), Cheick Diallo (a 6-9 sophomore from Mali) and Kassoum Yakwe (a 6-7 freshman from Mali).
Each is a Division I (of the high-major variety) college prospect with Yakwe deserving to be part of any conversation about the best freshmen in the country.
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