BELLFLOWER – The Harvard-Westlake and St. John Bosco High squads came into their State Southern Open regional semifinal with enough high-quality underclassmen to already be considered the choices to be the Southland’s top two teams coming into the 2023-24 season.
But let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves, Frank.
The teams the Wolverines and host Braves put on the floor Saturday night were dang good, too.
But only one could be good enough to get out of the building with a win to earn a spot in Tuesday night’s regional final against a Corona Centennial program that’s been the state’s best for three seasons.
And, with major contributions from their only two seniors to play, Jacob Huggins and Brady Dunlap, the visitors prevailed, 69-64, in front of a SRO gathering of boisterous and, uh, emotional spectators.
Dunlap (pictured) scored 19 points while Huggins added 15 points and grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds as the Wolverines improved to 31-2 to earn a Tuesday game against a Centennial squad (30-3 after it blistered San Diego Open champion St. Augustine, 89-67) they’d hoped to play in the Feb. 25 Southern Section title game in the Honda Center.
But the Trinity League champion Braves (26-7) dashed those aspirations by way of their 62-55 upset (mild, relatively speaking, as it may have proven to be) of the host and No. 2 seed Wolverines on Valentine’s night in a pool-play contest that enabled them to get that trip to Anaheim and their own pop at Coach Josh Giles’ Centennial squad.
And Matt Dunn’s Braves almost kept the Huskies from their third consecutive sectional Open title, leading by four points with about minutes to go and, seemingly, in possession of the basketball and a shot for either a win (if it went in) or overtime (if it failed).
But Aaron McBride came up with a steal and dunk that will live ad finem whenever hoop heads discuss steals and dunks, jarring a Braves’ pass loose about four seconds to go and slamming the ball through the rim and net as the buzzer sounded for the 58-56 win.
So, one might have suggested, the Wolverines were visiting Bellflower with revenge on their minds – avenging that loss to the Braves during which they led by nine points late in the first half and six with about three minutes to go.
And one would also feel the same way about the Braves, who were dialed in with their aspirations of getting another pop at the Huskies to – yeah – avenge that heart- and gut-twisting loss to the Huskies seven nights before.
But it would be simplistic to assume that revenge was on the minds of Harvard-Westlake Coach David Rebibo and his Braves’ counterpart since the Sunday afternoon of Feb. 26, less than 24 hours after St. John Bosco’s Anaheim loss.
That’s when the CIF State Office in Sacramento unveiled the brackets for each of the six regional divisions and the teams were plugged into the Saturday night semifinal.
But if a coach is preaching revenge as a means of “motivating” his team in preparation for a game that magnitude instead of zeroing in, during practice and meetings, on what his players need to do on the court, in terms of preparation and execution, to win, he’s not a real coach – he’s a cliché.
And Rebibo and Dunn are real coaches – as good as it gets on this level of high school hoops.
They knew that Saturday’s winner was going to be the team that played with the most focus and best execution, at both ends of the floor.
And that was especially going to be the case down the stretch.
“Even when we were up (by 14 points, with 4:30 to go in the third quarter), I knew they were going to make runs and come after us,” Dunlap said afterward.
“The question was would we able to withstand them this time?”
Sure enough.
The Braves cut their deficit to seven points going into the fourth quarter and, amping the half-court defensive pressure a couple of notches, coaxed the Wolverines into seven turnovers the rest of the way.
And the same dynamic pair of youngsters – sophomore Elzie Harrington and freshman Brandon McCoy – who propelled them on that decisive spurt down the stretch in Studio City on Feb. 14 nearly repeated that performance Saturday night.
Harrington (who scored a game-high 20 points) and McCoy (once again, a defensive dynamo by way of his quick feet and hands) only had a bucket apiece in the fourth quarter.
But the pressure they put on the defense, on the dribble and in transition, led to them attempting a combined 14 free throws in the quarter, with Harrington hitting six of his eight and McCoy swishing all six of his attempts.
Two of those Harrington free throws helped the hosts creep to within 62-60 but, after a Wolverines’ timeout, sophomore Nikola Khamenia hit both ends of a 1 and 1 with 1:28 to go for a four-point edge.
Jack Turner missed on a drive at the other end but, after grabbing the rebound, Huggins committed his team’s seventh turnover of the quarter with 1:09 to play.
After a Dunn timeout, Turner drove from the right top left just outside of the lane in front of his bench but was called for charging into Christian Horry with 53.1 on the game clock.
Horry (the much improved, 6-foot-4 junior who scored 11 points off the bench) was fouled six seconds later and hit the second of two free throws to push the edge to five points.
Six-nine senior Xinyi Li backed down Khamenia into the lane for a hook shot that banked in with 27 seconds to play and Dunn got another timeout with 24.5 on the clock.
After catching the ensuing inbound pass, junior Trent Perry – splitting a backcourt trap – was fouled three seconds later and hit the second of his two shots for a four-point advantage.
The Braves’ comeback hopes were dashed, though, after the ball dipped deep into the rim’s circle – and out – on a 3-point attempt by Turner from the right corner with 11 seconds remaining.
Khamenia (10 points, seven rebounds and four assists) and Harrington closed out the scoring with three free throws apiece in a final 7.2 seconds of game time that may have taken at least seven minutes of “real” time.
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