CORONA – Three of its four best players from the Class of 2020 transferred from the Corona Centennial boys’ basketball program before stepping foot in Centennial class room – or the school’s gymnasium – for their senior year.
Fortunately for Coach Josh Giles – and the Huskies – one of those four players decided to stay put for his senior season.
With former teammates Jaylen Clark (Etiwanda), D.J. Davis (Riverside Poly) and Dennis Cash (Las Vegas Trinity), it’s been left to the shoulders of Paris Dawson to carry the Huskies into the 2019-20 season.
Two games in, the 6-foot-1, Portland State University-bound Dawson has been more than up the task.
Dawson, four nights after leading his squad to a season-opening, upset-victory at JSerra in San Juan Capistrano, helped his team cruise past San Ysidro of San Diego, 89-48, Tuesday night in a pool-play game of the BattleZone Tournament at Centennial.
Dawson played only three quarters Tuesday night (the Huskies took a 37-point advantage into the final eight minutes) but hit six 3s and scored a team-high 22 points with five assists and five rebounds.
The Huskies, with a win over San Bernardino Wednesday night in their second pool-play affair, would meet northern California-powerhouse Sacramento Sheldon in a semifinal Friday night.
If not for the decisions of his former teammates, Dawson would be (along with classmate, Mason Machado, a 6-6 post) part of an all-senior starting lineup for a squad that would have gone into the season as a Top 5-ranked clubs in Southern California.
Instead, the Huskies – if not exactly shipped to the “also-ran” category; Giles and his program have earned too much respect for that to happen – are now an “early-season” surprise.
Dawson doesn’t expect that to be the case.
“I saw the guys (the Huskies’ 10 non-seniors on the roster) every day, so I knew how good we could be,” he said Wednesday night.
The enhanced expectations for him – as a player and a leader – were something he fully grasped going into the season.
“Coach (Giles) and I talked a lot, almost every day, about how my role was changing and what he expected of me,” he said.
Joining Dawson and Machado (who will attend Northwest Nazarene in Idaho next fall) in the lineup Tuesday night were sophomores Payden White and Ramsey Huff, as well as freshman Jared McCain.
McCain, one of the best jump shooters in the regional Class of 2023, hit three jumpers Tuesday night (one of those a 3), and two reserves, Aaron McBride and Jeremiah Whitmore, showed why Giles considers this one of his best-ever freshmen classes.
McBride scored 10 points (including a dunk over the top of his Compton Magic teammate of last spring and summer, Mikey Williams) and grabbed five rebounds while Whitmore scored a couple of fourth-quarter buckets.
“They (the freshmen) come to me and ask a lot of questions,” Dawson said, smiling.
“Not only about stuff on the court, but other things about class and high school, too.”
They’re also learning the importance of defense, as Williams – who came into the came with consecutive scoring efforts of 40, 50 and 29 points – can attest.
Williams hit a couple of 3s in the first quarter but missed nine of his final 11 shots and was limited to 14 points.
In other games Tuesday:
Junior forward Luke Turner scored 24 points and National Player of the Year candidate Evan Mobley chipped in with 22 points and 10 rebounds in a little more than half of the game as Rancho Christian cruised past short-handed (only six players suited up because of illness and injury) Westminster, 97-29;
Arizona State-bound forward Marcus Bagley scored 26 points as Sheldon pulled away in the fourth quarter to knock off a game Hillcrest (Riverside) club, 68-57;
And senior point guard Yassine Gharram (who will attend Yale next fall) scored 38 points as El Cajon Foothills Christian eased its way past Temecula Valley, 82-56.
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