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Tradition!
Tradition!
Jim Meadows
Published by Swampy Meadows
03-03-2008
Tradition!

BEVERLY HILLS (MI) –- Tradition.

It can be a tough opponent sometimes.

That and a big **** frontline.

UD recruit Paul Williams and his Renaissance Phoenix teammates had to face a heavy dose of both Monday night in their MHSAA Regional matchup with Beverly Hills Detroit Country Day at RHS. DCD is the alma mater of Chris Webber, arguably the greatest HS player to hail from the state of Michigan. If he wasn’t the best ever, then surely Shane Battier was and he’s also a DCD graduate.

Not that RHS doesn’t have its own tradition, mind you: the Phoenix have won a couple of State Championships; Renaissance alums include former Mizzou star Ricky Paulding and current college hoopsters Tajuan Porter and Malik Hairston of Oregon and Joe Crawford at UK.

As for DCD, they aren’t just good in boy’s hoops, either. Football, soccer, lacrosse, girl’s hoops, track, debate -– you name it, DCD excels at it -- because DCD can “recruit” where other schools are not allowed to, so they get the absolute cream of the crop in metro Detroit.

Let’s take a look at the current DCD hoops squad: they start off with a frontline of 6’11” Deshonte Riley, 6’8” Donovan Kirk and 6’9” Amir Williams; in the backcourt, DCD features 6’2” Darnell Brown and 6’6” Jordan Dumars. Yeah, that’s right he’s Joe’s kid and he was named after MJ. I find it interesting that DCD has a much bigger starting five than our Dayton Flyers feature. The DCD hoops schedule on their website goes all the way thru the State Championship game at the Breslin Center in East Lansing on March 15th. Clearly, these guys expect to be there.

We had Joe Dumars, Pistons announcer George Blaha, Terry Foster and Rod Beard from the Detroit News in the house tonight, as well as Derrick and John, two guys that I play ball with at the Y. John actually taught Paul Williams in Middle School and said that he is a really great kid.

RHS broke out to a 10-4 lead, thanks to a pesky press that seemed to bother the DCD ballhandlers. Then Country Day came storming back and led 13-11 after the 1st quarter. Paul scored 6, going 2-7 from the field and 2-2 at the line. The game remained a tight one and DCD was only up by 2 at the half, 26-24. The Yellow Jackets stretched it out to an 8 point margin after 3 and forced to heave three pointers, to press and to foul, the Phoenix could not rise from the ashes and fell 69-55, in a game that was a lot closer than the final score indicates. DCD will be the prohibitive favorite to win it all in Class B. They play Madison Heights next in the Regional Final, a game that is essentially a walk-over.

I had Paul down for 16 points on 3-11 shooting from the field and 9-10 from the charity stripe. Paul's jumper didn't have it's usual high arc and every shot that he missed seemed flat and drew back iron. PW and Jordan Dumars ended up covering each other a lot. Jordan is a sorta chunky kid with a big behind like his dad and he’s 2” taller than Joe. He’s gonna have to drop some weight if he wants to play at the next level.

I spoke with Paul briefly after the game and he was obviously disappointed. “It was a tough game and it’s a tough loss” was his synopsis. “But” he added, “I’ve already got my championship” which RHS won in 2006. Paul said he enjoyed the Xavier game, which was his first chance to visit the arena for a game. I let him know that Juwan Staten had verballed to UD shortly after his visit, a fact of which he was not aware.

I told Paul the same thing that I mentioned to Devin Searcy at this time a year ago after his Romulus HS squad was eliminated by Manny Harris and Redford:

“Next year starts right now.”

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: swampy@udpride.com
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  #1  
By The Fat Tuna on 03-04-2008, 09:38 AM
Swampy,

C. Webb was the best MI high school player? I think you forgot about the one from Lansing.

Besides that though, I can't stand DCD. It seemed like they went away for a little while, since the C. Webb to Battier days there were very dominant. I don't remember them making the final four for quite some time. What's the change all of a sudden? Even though I do not like their program I do hope that at least one of the two big men pick MSU.
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  #2  
By Flyer 86 on 03-04-2008, 11:10 AM
great Report Swampy, thank you.

i'll take a player who has an off shooting night, but hit's 9 of 10 from the stripe.
Plus, this is way high competition.

i think PW will contribute early, unless somehwo Perry grabs the two spot or some other changes are made (thomas plays 2). i'd say by game 6 or 8 he's gettin some minutes.

Problem with guys like Kurt, perhaps Luke, london and some others (i'm either guessing or generalizing ) is that most likely their competition isn;'t regularly very good or the high quality intensity or toughness that city teams play, like those from chitown, new york and detroit.

A guy like PW should just have to figure out bg's system, fit in, and then execute. Sounds like he's got the warrior attitude it takes to get off to a good start.
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  #3  
By Bud Meadows on 03-05-2008, 12:18 AM
Swampy:

As your big brother, I must disagree with you on the greatest MI high school player. A classmate of your nephew Ed at Brother Rice, B..J. Armstrong, was unbelievable. Chris Webber is a pothead who took payoffs from a numbers runner and disgraced his alma mater. Magic didn't "spend a nickle to save his pickle" and disgraced himself and his family by contracting HIV. On the other hand, B.J. was an All-American at Iowa, played on many NBA championship teams with M.J., and always has been a class act at every level.
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  #4  
By The Fat Tuna on 03-05-2008, 03:07 PM
Yeah I would take Armstrong over Magic too. I mean the fact that he won the high school title, an NCAA title, and an NBA title in 4 years doesn't really do it for me either. Not to mention that he was the MVP of all of those tournaments. Or that he wasn't even 21 yet when he accomplished all that. You are right, I'll take Armstrong over that too.
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