My December hoop coverage started with the Maroon Tournament at Arlington High School December 6 & 7. The 178 mile drive to Poughkeepsie on Friday the 6th was eye opening. After crossing the Throgs Neck Bridge at 1pm I took the Bronx River parkway to the Sprain Brook to the Taconic Parkway and realized that snow had recently blanketed the area while Montauk had been spared. I got to Arlington for the 5pm tip against Ossining HS. Ossining is the birthplace of two NBA playing brothers, Jacob & Obi Toppin. Jacob, 24 is with the Knicks and Obi, 26 is with the Pacers. Jacob was not highly recruited and played for Ossining before finishing his high school career at Woodstock Academy in CT. His older brother Obi lists four high schools (Heritage, FL Melbourne Central, FL Ossining & Mt Zion Prep in Baltimore). Luckily, Mount Vernon has a rich history of keeping local talent. Kids grow up dreaming of playing for the High School at 100 California Road.
I’m sure there’s plenty of Catholic & Prep Schools that would love to cherry pick the best players from the 12 time NY Public HS Athletic Association champions. Mount Vernon has a legendary Head Coach. As we go to press Mt. Vernon’s Head Coach Bob Cimmino has 610 career wins. The Knights beat Ossining 70-51. The next day Mount Vernon got an early season wake up call when the tournament’s home team, Arlington beat the Knights for the first time in Arlington’s history, 49-45. At times it felt like MV was playing against more than five players with the referees consistently making bad calls against them. I’ve watched this happen throughout the years. Regardless, the Knights needed to move on. It’s well known that the Knights have targets on their backs because of their consistent success.
Three days later on Tuesday December 10th I was blessed to cover the Jimmy V Classic at the world’s most famous arena, Madison Square Garden. James Thomas Anthony Valvano was born in Queens in 1946, he played point guard for Rutgers from 1964-67. He was an assistant at Rutgers from’67-‘69 became Head coach of Johns Hopkins ‘69-‘70 was an assistant for UCONN ‘70-‘72. He finished up as head coach for Bucknell (‘72-75), Iona (‘75-‘80) & NC State (‘80-‘90) before he succumbed to glandular cancer in 1993. Jimmy V’s cancer was diagnosed in June 1992. In basketball his biggest coaching moment was winning the NCAA Championship in 1983 at NC State. On the 10 year anniversary of the 1983 championship he gave a speech at NC State’s Reynolds Coliseum on February 21, 1993.
During the speech about hope, love and persistence he included “don’t give up, don’t ever give up”. Eleven days later he gave his most famous speech at MSG at ESPN’s first ESPY awards on March 4, 1993 while accepting the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award. On April 28, 1993 he lost his battle with cancer at 47 years old. It indeed was special to cover the doubleheader at the Garden on the second Tuesday of December 2024. First game was Miami vs no.1 ranked Tennessee. TN came into the game 8-0. Miami was 3-6. The game started fast with both teams connecting on 3 pointers. In the first eleven minutes they both hit 6 threes. Miami was 6-12. TN was 6-11. Miami took their only lead of the first half at 25-24 with 7:57 left. TN ran off 14 straight points and led at half 38-25. After half TN inflated their lead to eighteen 53-35 with 13:04 to go. With 5:39 to go I tweeted about Divine Ugochukwu hitting both of his free throws to get Miami to 63-57. This would be the closest they got losing 75-62 after Tennessee outscored them 12-5 in the last 5:39.
After the game I got to ask legendary Miami head coach Jim Larranaga my final question. I asked about Divine. I heard NBA & NCAA legend Hakeem Olajuwon was Divine’s Godfather. The 75 year old coach from the Bronx took over two minutes answering my question about the final 5:39 and Divine’s performance and recruitment. Jim Larranaga stepped down from coaching the Hurricanes December 26, 2024. Jim sited the professionalism of his sport in the NIL era. The name, image and likeness era of college basketball has become the Wild West. Jim just couldn’t deal with it anymore.
After Miami’s loss it was time for the main event Arkansas vs Michigan featuring teenagers Boogie Fland(18) and DJ Wagner Jr(19). Boogie’s from the Bronx and played for Archbishop Stepinac in White Plains. DJ played for Camden High School in NJ. DJ played for Kentucky last season before leaving for Arkansas to play for coach John Calipari who had left a lifetime contract at Kentucky for Arkansas. As I said this new era of big time college basketball is the wild west. Arkansas rallied from being down 15 in the first half to get it to 49-45 at halftime led by Boogie’s 13 points. In the second half Arkansas scored the first 12 points to lead 57-49. They would never trail again. The game came down to a blocked shot at 88-87 with 14.3 seconds left by Arkansas’ Trevon Brazile a 6’10” Junior transfer from Missouri. He blocked 7’1” Russian Vladislav Goldin’s left handed hook shot. Goldin came to Michigan after playing one season at Texas Tech and three at Florida Atlantic. He’s a 23 year old graduate student at Michigan. With 3.7 seconds left Michigan had a shot to tie as time ran out when Niagara Falls NY junior Roddy Gayle Jr chased down a bad pass from Danny Wolf a 7 foot junior. Gayle played two seasons for Ohio State before Michigan. Wolf played two at Yale before Michigan. Gayle Jr’s turnaround heave hit the front of the rim before the buzzer sounded. The razorbacks won 89-87.
After the game I asked Danny and Goldin about the block and bad pass. Wolf answered “I don’t think Vlad is ever going to be blocked like that.. I wouldn’t want any other shot than that and I don’t think the game came down to that.. I think it’s a lot of other things than that” Goldin said, “we have to be more physical.. they played more physically than we did.. that’s strictly on us”. After Michigan left the press conference Calipari walked in holding his cellphone out. It was on speakerphone with Knicks center/forward Karl-Anthony Towns Jr speaking. Towns said, “I saw your big man shooting threes.. I don’t know what in the hell must’ve happened.. you must’ve had an epiphany” Calipari answered, “I saw you win a game last night shooting threes.. I’m gonna let these guys shoot threes” Calipari went on to say, “you couldn’t guard pick and roll defense.. you still can’t.. look you’re bothering me.. you know I love ya you’re the best.” After hanging up with Towns, Calipari told us how cheap the new Knick was. He said they recently went out to dinner and Calipari had to shame him into picking up the tab by saying, “dude pick up the tab.” They definitely broke the mold on the Arkansas coach. I asked him about Goldin’s comments about Arkansas’ physicality. I said “they said it was your physicality” Calipari answered, “who’s physicality?” I answered “your team’s physicality.”He smiled and smirked looking at Boogie and DJ who were sitting on the floor in the press conference room. When Boogie and DJ took the podium I asked them, “what if anything happened at halftime that lit you guys up to come out and play the way you did?” DJ answered, “we spend a lot of time in practice going against each other.. you don’t get any other player better to go against.. when we get in the game it’s time to have fun.” Boogie agreed saying, “like he said.. honestly just having fun.. I feel like second half.. let’s go out and have a blast.. the atmosphere is crazy.. we’ve got all our fans here.. let’s just go out with a bang.”
Four days later on December 14 I was back at MSG for the Basketball Hall of Fame matchup between no.8 Gonzaga and no.18 UCONN. It was a real coming out moment for UCONN’s 19 year old Freshman Liam McNeeley. Connecticut started fast with a 13-2 run and led 43-40 at halftime behind McNeeley’s 13 first half points. UCONN started the second half fast again leading 53-44 with 16:47 to go. Gonzaga fought back and tied it at 55 forcing UCONN coach Dan Hurley to call a timeout with 11:51 to play. After the timeout UCONN went on a 10-0 run to lead 65-55 with 10:09 left. Gonzaga got it to 73-70 on a three point play by senior Michael Ajayi. With 59.4 seconds to play Hassan Diarra from Queens, NY found UCONN’s redshirt junior Alex Karaban for a layup to put UCONN up 5. UCONN held Gonzaga to no field goals in the final 3:25 to win 77-71. McNeeley led all scorers with 26 points while Queens product Diarra dished out 7 assists with 5 points 3 rebounds and 2 steals.
I ended 2024 covering Mt. Vernon High School at the NY Holiday Invitational at St. Dominic High School in Oyster Bay. MV’s first game of the two day invitational was against Karl-Anthony Towns Jr’s high school, St. Joseph’s from Metuchen, NJ on Saturday December 28. The Knights beat the team coached by Karl-Anthony Towns Sr. 79-58. The next day Sunday December 29 Mt. Vernon played 24 time Connecticut state champion James Hillhouse High School at St. Dominic’s. With 6.1 seconds left MV’s star guard Tavien Tyler ran out the clock chasing down a loose ball and the Knights beat Hillhouse 49-45. Tyler had 48 points in the two wins at St Dominic’s.
The Knights were back on Long Island at Chaminade High School in Mineola playing Holy Trinity High School from Hicksville in the Gary Charles Hoop Classic on Sunday January 5, 2025. The Knights were led by 6’5” senior Hadi Ajeyi who had 14 points and won MVP in their 78-50 win. As we go to press Mt. Vernon is 7-2. MV has ten days between their win at Chaminade against Holy Trinity. They play away at New Rochelle High School on January 15th. The two schools are 1.6 miles from each other. It’s the biggest rivalry in downstate public high school basketball and should be a real barnburner. Yes indeed, 2025 is going to be a glorious year for hoops.
