|
This page is part of the
Tourneytown.com archives and is no longer updated. |
| Published January 19, 2004 :: Home |
Anticipating Top
Matchups as Much No, not the woofing between a defensive end and the offensive tackle who have been assaulting each other for three quarters. Not the coach questioning the parentage of the referee who penalized his team. The what-if kind of arguing. The would-have. As in, my terrific team would have whipped your sorry crew if only they'd ever met up. Of course, if my super squad was vintage 1982 and your bozos played last year, that showdown couldn't happen. If my wonderful warriors play in this league over here and your pathetic punks play in that different classification over there, it usually doesn't happen. So we argue. It's not in anger, but in what-if one-upsmanship. (Plus, it's really not much of an argument, since it's obvious to anyone with half a brain that my team should be in the Hall of Fame, whereas your lineup of losers couldn't find its way out of the hall closet.) That's why today's Tourneytown.com Shootout is so appealing to high school basketball junkies. It's an argument-eraser. That Brewster's boys are the class of Class 1A is
pretty much a foregone conclusion. The title is theirs to lose and I don't
see them losing it. But are they as good as, say, a really outstanding
big-school team like, say, West Valley? Is there really that big a difference between the top-level Class 4A teams and the ones in 3A? Good question. Today it'll get answered when the girls of Central Valley -- who have placed second, first and first in the last three 4A girls tournaments -- play the Lady Rams of West Valley, who have trophied in six of the last seven 3A tourneys. There are other intriguing questions that will be decided today: Are the Granger boys truly ready for Prime Time? Are the unbeaten Burbank girls ready to eclipse Brewster as Class 1A's pre-eminent power? Are the Riverside Christian boys all that and a side of fries? We could argue those points, which would be fun. (I'd be right, of course; you, like the players on that lame team you're always yammering about, would be unable to dress or feed yourself without written instructions.) But this is that rare occasion when the arguments are moot, because the answers will become evident today. And tonight's 7:30 boys matchup between West Valley and Brewster is, quite simply, the state's most intriguing game of the season. Period. End of discussion. Yes, Brewster has beaten two pretty fair 4A teams in Auburn and Snohomish, but Auburn hasn't been in the 4A state tournament since 1997 and Sno-Hi is basically a .500 club. West Valley is a 3A contender year-in, year-out and is capable of playing for this year's state title. Barring a significant upset, the winner of this game will finish the regular season with a spotless 20-0 record and the loser will go 19-1. West Valley star Andrew Strait admitted to Herald-Republic prep editor Scott Spruill last week, "I know we've been looking forward to this (Brewster game) all season." Each team has a future D-I standout -- the Rams' 6-foot-8 Strait, bound for Montana, and Brewster's 6-6 David Pendergraft, on his way to being a three-time 1A player of the year and then headed to Gonzaga. It doesn't look like Brewster will get tested by anybody in the 1A tournament -- sorry and thanks for coming, Napavine, Zillah, Bellevue Christian, Onalaska, Seattle Christian and White Swan. The Bears are already being considered by people who know basketball as possibly one of the best -- if not the best -- team in Class 1A history. Had not Pendergraft been injured and sidelined during the 2002 tournament, the Bears would be working on their third straight title -- matching Brewster's three-year title run from 1975 to 1977. Basketball fans have wondered for years how that 1970s-era Brewster juggernaut would have fared against bigger teams -- like the 1977 Cashmere team voted last year by an expert panel as the best in Class 1A state-tournament history. We'll never know about that one. (Fans with an opinion, though, can go to www.tourneytown.com and vote for their choice in that epic-that-never-was.) But how would these Bears do in a bigger classification? How should they be viewed in a historical perspective? We'll find out tonight. Because these Rams are good. When I brought the game up in telephone conversations last week with basketball aficionados as far away as Blaine, Ilwaco and Forks, each started thinking out loud about how he was going to have to find a way and the time to get here. A four-hour each-way drive? To see that kind of game? No problem. And all those of us around here have to do is drive to the SunDome. Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? Half-hour? That's nothin' when you're talking about a game
that's really somethin'.
ADVERTISEMENT
©
2002-2008 All photos, content and design |
Scott Sandsberry
|
