Bobby Hill?

[ACE]

Roy, where did I accuse you of being a blatent racist? Ignorant and clueless on several levels, yes. 3-Star's post below summed it up well.

[billiken_roy]

just a few posts above ace said, "Roy, it's one thing to be critical of Irons... the guy is arrogant and brings a lot of criticism on himself. It's another thing to compare 16, 17-year-old African-American kids to "wild animals." You might want to take a deep breathe and re-think that one a little bit. You were way out of line."

i never once brought race into the thread you did.

as to 3 star's post, i dont agree with what he is saying. he is trying to inject that vashon is no more athletic than popular bluff. i disagree. i think tyler hansborough is far athletic than anyone on vashon's team, but after that, probably only ben is on par with the majority of vashon players. look at it this way,

brian roach, who 3 star said is the 6th man and who played some inside saturday after powell got into foul trouble, slammed home a couple of put back rebounds. roach is listed as 6'4". popular bluff had a 6'8" kid that didnt even try to dunk his open bunnies he had on rebounds under the basket. i didnt see anyone else that i felt was as athletic on popular bluff's team either.

as to the iq portion of 3 star's post, that was the whole point of my comments. vashon was running around in the 3rd quarter already throwing up wild shots and crazy drives to the basket that had no chance of going in when they were only down by 12. had they taken more of a deliberate approach to the game and worked for a better shot i feel it would have been far more fruitful. on the other end of the court, popular bluff did exactly that. patiently getting it across the time line, working the ball until tyler got open or when it got so unbalanced with double and triple teams, they then took the bunnies presented. you all can preach vashon was deliberate and disciplined all you want, but it sure looked to me that the deliberate and discipline was on the popular bluff side of the floor.

unless you never even saw the game ace. did you see the game?

[billiken_roy]

i wasnt faulting vashon for their schedule. i was just stating a fact. they play the majority of their games vs public league teams with all-star players that many times would have been the star players for the teams that they are playing against. why in the world would they be expected to lose those games?

[billiken_roy]

but if we are going to sign a wing anyway in this next recruiting class to replace anthony drejaj, and if that wing is as good as say ben hansborough or jarod leonard and also leads to leon powell the following year who is loaded with potential, makes one think about it.

[TheGoat]

So Roy, let me get this striaght. You would rather take a lesser of two players (statistically) in one year in order to ATTEMPT to sign a POTENTIALLY better player down the road? If that is indeed what you are implying, and please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, then I must whole heartedly disagree. I'm sorry, but I will take the better player out of the gate every time and hope that the player to take the next year, Powell in your example, would realize that the team is overall better even if it is without his friend, Hill in your case. Sorry, I know you probably know a lot more about local HS kids than I do, but that idea just seems ridiculous to me when you have the opportunity to improve your team immediately and you delay it to HOPEFULLY improve it later. Sorry, just my thoughts.

[ACE]

"I seriously doubt that anyone on this board is a racist in the sense that George Wallace was a racist. But I am disappointed to read the same old stereotypes about black players getting by on raw athleticism and lacking fundamentals while athletic white players are hard-nosed with high basketball IQs."

I think 3-star nailed it, so put away your martyr act.

I did see the game and have seen Vashon play several times over the years. The kids consistently play hard and tend to overachieve. Both Hansboroughs were more athletic than anybody Vashon had. Poplar Bluff was quick to loose balls. Their role players certainly handled themselves well. Poplar was the more talented team. I never once believed Vashon was close to being the number 1 team in the country. They overachieved. After Powell got into foul trouble, Vashon was undersized. They had to try to press and turn it into a 90 foot game. It was really their only chance of winning by trying to neurtralize T. Hansborough. Each team they collapsed on Tyler, Poplar had kids who could hit the open 3.

[billiken_roy]

and if you read my previous post you will see i agreed that ben hansborough was as athletic as the vashon kids. but the rest of popular bluff wasnt. HOWEVER, the rest of popular bluff did all the right things playing that game like work the clock, play solid defense without fouling and unselfishly pass the ball and show good patience and judgement. but other than tyler and occasionally ben, i did not see them any popular bluff players that were better athletes than the vashon players.

[billiken_roy]

good thing you added "statistically". because that is the only aspect that i considered better other than maybe shooting the ball. as far as running, jumping, and size, i felt both hills were better prospects.

[TheGoat]

Well, at the risk of sounding too cliche, isn't the proof in the pudding?

[billiken_roy]

if that was true, then why arent you advocating signing that nathan guy you found the great stat line on below?

[TheGoat]

simply b/c i have firsthand knowledge of the teams he plays against and the caliber of his team. Look, all I am saying is that given two guys, I am more inclined to take a run at the more talented one unless I know i have no shot at him. I, personally, would not take a waiver on a guy who marginally deserves to be on a roster just b/c I want his buddy there two years down the road. Besides if Powell really is that important and the time comes to recruit him then I am sure our good buddy Dwayne Polk can help us out. He does have a little pull over at the V.

[AlumniFan]

Seems that Bernie M. is getting called out for racist comments regarding the Vashon vs. Poplar Bluff game, too. I did not see his article on the game, but BM posted a letter or e-mail that he received from a Vashon graduate in which the writer was pretty direct in his criticism of BM's article.

I highly doubt that Roy or Bernie meant anything even remotely racist in their comments, but I guess, as this situation has proven, perception is in the eye of the reader (I may not like Bernie, but I don't think he is a racist). However, readers should not pretend to read people's minds either.

As for the Vashon/PB game, maybe Vashon had an off night or maybe PB is just that good, but Vashon did not appear to be very well organized when I was watching the game. I am certainly not a basketball expert by any stretch of the imagination, but others watching the game with me had similar comments. I posted immediately after the game that Vashon's offense seemed totally incoherent. I have no idea if that was due to coaching or what, but they just didn't seem to be able to execute against PB.

The bottom line is that you don't win 60 games if you don't have a good basketball team so Saturday night was probably just an odd coincidence of great play by PB and an off night by Vashon.