Burlison on Basketball

Frank Burlison | High School Basketball | College Basketball

Burries, Williamson make presence felt immediately

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LOS ANGELES — Wednesday night’s game was a long time coming for Eastvale Roosevelt High basketball players Brayden Burries and Issac Williamson.

And just how long .  . .

“Twenty-one months,” Williamson said before the question was finished, after he, Burries, and the rest of Coach Steve Singleton’s No. 5-ranked (via BurlisonOnBasketball) Mustangs cruised past L.A. City power Birmingham, 80-37, in a season opener at Westchester High during the third Westside Tip-Off Classic.

Burries (who scored 31 points with nine rebounds Wednesday night) and Williamson were freshmen standouts at Riverside Poly when the Bears lost to visiting St. Bernard (the eventual champion), 57-50, on Feb. 18, 2022, in a second-round, CIF Southern Section Division I playoff game.

But what was expected to be an even more successful sophomore season was jerked out of the duo’s path when Burries and Williamson were declared to have been residentially ineligible by the school district to have attended Poly as freshmen just prior to the start of last season.

They landed at Roosevelt where the CIF Southern Section ruled them ineligible play in the 2022-23 season.

So, yeah, Wednesday night’s official debut for the duo – Williamson and Burries have played for Mustangs in “summer and fall” competition ­– marked just three days short of 21 months since they’d played in a real high school game.

“Those two guys have been chomping at the bit for a long time to get back on the court,” Singleton said.

And, if back with a vengeance is a bit strong a fashion to describe the long-time teammates’ (since elementary school-level hoops) approach to this season, it was quite apparent by their performance Wednesday night that all the on-court promise they showed two seasons ago is still intact.

And the collective skill and depth of the Mustangs has them in position to challenge for one of the eight spots in the CIF Southern Section’s Open Division playoff field two and a half months from now.

Six-foot-four Darnez Slater, who signed a National letter of Intent with Colorado state last week and was all-CIF as a junior, overcame a slow shooting start and scored 16 points Wednesday night.

Another transfer and long-time compadre of Burries and Williamson, Myles Walker, joined Williamson with 10 points.

The 5-9 left hander, a transfer from Riverside JW North, has admirable “hoops bloodlines”, since Pops Tony and Uncle Billy were terrific college point guards at Loyola Marymount and Long Beach State, respectively.

Walker and Williamson spearhead what may be the most tenacious man-pressure defense anywhere in Southern California, the turnovers and hasty Birmingham decisions they forced Wednesday usually unleashing a wicked transition offense.

The program’s best deep jump shooter as a sophomore, Jazz Shoker, missed last season because of a torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament.

But he’s back to blistering 3s — with four de facto “point guards” in Walker, Williamson, Burries, and Slater finding him with on-target passes — as he closed the fall season with eight against Cypress a few weeks ago and hit three Wednesday night.

The Mustangs are still at least a couple of players short of “full-strength”, as 6-10 senior Tochi Anigbogu (a transfer from Centennial who didn’t get a lot of on-court varsity minutes with the Huskies) is still awaiting eligibility clearance by the CIF SS and 6-3 junior Dominic Copenhagen – usually ­the team’s top sub during the fall — in street clothes Wednesday night with a sore hip.

And despite having so many other dynamic players around him, Burries will always be the lynchpin in the machination that will determine how successful this club is and can be.

He’s on a very short list — which contains maybe five names, at best — of the best of the best players, regardless of class, in California right now.

And Singleton wasn’t timid while putting together his team’s schedule, too.

The Mustangs are back in action Friday night at Centennial against Hesperia (in the BattleZone) and at St. John Bosco High 24 hours later for a game against No. 11 (before Vyctorius Miller left for Compass Prep in Arizona).

Tuesday night they visit No. 28 Foothill in Santa Ana, then on Nov. 25 they will be at Dublin High to face one of Northern California’s top teams, San Francisco Riordan.

In the other two games played at Westchester Wednesday:

*In a “Long Beach Showdown” played some 24 miles north of the LBC, the St. Anthony Saints zipped past the Poly Jackrabbits, 85-59, by way of a scintillating transition and jump-shooting performance.

Senior guard Quincy Phillips led the way with 30 points (19 of those before intermission) while terrific sophomore JoJo Wicker added 13.

Six-five junior Jovani Ruff hit a bunch of pull-up jumpers while scoring 30 points for Poly.

*Foothill, which takes on No. 17 Redondo Union Saturday at SJB, had too much strength in the paint and on the perimeter for the host Comets, 67-31.

Six players scored from eight to 16 points for the Knights with junior guard Rocco Gaffoglio leading the way.

One of Orange County’s best players, 6-4 senior Isaiah Bernard, played well despite just being cleared to play after missing most of the late-summer and fall competition because of a fractured right wrist.

He made multiple passes in transition that led directly to layups.

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