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As the league schedule in loaded Prince George’s 3A/2A/1A continues, the race for positioning among contenders No. 9 Potomac (Md.), No. 19 Largo, Gwynn Park, Central and Douglass will pit top teams against one another in heated battles night after night in the coming months.
As Gwynn Park Coach Mike Glick put it: “It’s going to be a blood bath.”
Glick’s Yellow Jackets (9-5, 7-2) gave a glimpse into the challenges the top teams will pose to one other’s league title hopes last week when they knocked off Largo 67-63. The Lions, led by seemingly unstoppable big man Abdulai Bundu, had upset Potomac a week earlier.
Gwynn Park’s success against the rising Lions, Glick said, was 32 minutes of box-and-one defense on Bundu that held the 6-foot-8 force below 20 points for just the third time all season.
“We couldn’t let Abdulai beat us,” said 6-foot-7 senior forward Isaiah Martin. “He’s a good player. Everything goes through him on Largo, and I feel we slowed him down from the start. We played great defense.”
Certainly Largo will anticipate that approach from the Yellow Jackets when the two meet again in the regular season finale, the first move in what will quickly become a game of strategy between contenders’ coaches who will have to face each other multiple times in the coming weeks.
For anyone who thought Potomac and Largo had turned the stretch run into a two-team race, Gwynn Park’s win also announced the need for game-planning for the Yellow Jackets’ big three: Martin (12.5 points per game) and guards Evan Joiner (14.3) and Cedric Hines (13.7).
“We have a lot of guards that can do different things,” Joiner said. “We have shooters, we have guys that can attack the rim, and we even have guys that can rebound at guard, so we know what we can do.” . . . .
A new face will likely affect the finish of 3A/2A/1A race, as big man Quadree Smith’s transfer from Paul VI to Potomac (Md.) gives the Wolverines a two-Smith (Anthony and Quadree) tandem of athleticism and girth inside to go with one of the D.C.-area’s most formidable backcourts in Dion Wiley and Randall Broddie.
As another Gwynn Park High School turnover begat another Central point, a dismayed Yellow Jacket fan slumped his shoulders and shook his head.
“Nah, man,” he sighed to his feet. Central had a 10-point lead near the midpoint of the fourth quarter. “I can’t do another Gwynn Park game. I can’t handle them.”
The fan should have realized that coach Mike Glick doesn’t lose to Central, and that he didn’t plan on Tuesday being the end of his 14-0 career record against the Falcons. With a lot of help from Cedric Hines and some tremendous defense from Marquis Holland, Glick improved to 15-0 against Central, edging out a 66-62 victory in Capitol Heights.
“Of the 15 games we’ve won, it’s like they’ve all been single digits,” Glick said. “It’s just … it’s just weird. Somehow we just escape year after year after year.”
Glick, now in his eighth year with the Yellow Jackets, has seen his fair share of Central teams both strong and not so strong. This year’s is widely considered to be one of the best, as Davon Taylor has developed into the top backcourt threat in the county, averaging 24.9 points per game on 47 percent shooting. The coach’s plan: make somebody aside from Taylor beat them, and he had just the guy to implement it.
Holland, a 5-foot-10, 165-pound senior averaging barely three points per game, doesn’t exactly leap off the stat sheet, but he was the core to Central’s undoing. With his teammates sitting in a zone, Holland played Taylor in man, face guarding the 6-foot-1 senior to deny him the ball. When Taylor did have it, Holland blanketed him and was aided by constant double-teams when needed. The result: Taylor’s lowest offensive output (14 points) on 5-of-15 shooting, his second-worst percentage (33 percent) on the year.
“He’s a tough guard,” said Holland, who finished with five points. “He’s one of the better guards in our league and I did my best — not letting him touch the ball, forcing him left, making him think. They say I play good defense and they kept making me guard him.”
As Holland anchored the defense, Hines assembled his best game to date. He scored a season-high 25 points on an efficient 9-of-14 shooting and buried four straight free throws in the final minute to keep Central at bay.
“They were sagging off of me,” Hines said. “The first half, I wasn’t scoring that much, so they told me to be more aggressive, so that’s what I did. I tried to take it to the hole.”
Meanwhile, center Isaiah Martin continued his recent stretch of scoring, finishing with 14 for his fourth straight game in double-figures.
It was another chapter in a season of close calls for Gwynn Park, which has won one game by four, another in overtime, another by nine, and lost a 50-48 thriller to Frederick Douglass.
“I hope so,” Hines said when asked if the Yellow Jackets would ever be able to enjoy a stress-free game. “But with the way we play, I don’t know. We’re getting good at winning close games. I like games like this.”
tmewhirter@gazette.net
Gwynn Park 66, Central 62
Gwynn Park (8-4, 6-2): 15 15 16 20 — 66
Central (8-3, 5-3): 16 16 12 18 — 62
Gwynn Park: Cedric Hines 25, Isaiah Martin 14, Mike Pegram 12, Evan Joiner 7, Marquis Holland 5, Jayson Johnson 2, Isaiah Miles 1.
Central: Dequan Smith 18, Gary Stewart 15, Davon Taylor 14, Jonathan Brown 8, Derek Moon 3, Andrew Wimbush 2, Kenneth Pettaway 2.
Making it to the Comcast Center for the high school state boys’ basketball tournament is hard enough. No matter the classification or the opponent, it’s still a one-loss exit fee with little room for error.
With the new sectional system the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association put into place this year, a certain cluster of schools in the 2A South Region might claim to face the most turbulent and unpredictable path to states.
One particular “district” as Gwynn Park High School’s Mike Glick called the new bracket comprised of six teams within the 2A South, is made up of reigning 3A state finalist Potomac, Glick’s traditionally powerful Yellow Jackets, always-competitive Frederick Douglass, Friendly, a rejuvenated Largo squad and Southern of Anne Arundel County.
“I think our district is the best district in the state,” said Glick, whose team lost to Potomac earlier in the year, 69-49. “If you’re talking about top level talent, this is the best district. It’s just absolutely crazy that we’re all 2A and in one little district.”
Potomac has been dubbed by several coaches as the de facto No. 1 team, since they return the two integral pieces from the 2013 team — Maryland recruit Dion Wiley and Randall Broddie — that extended their season all the way to the 3A state finals last year before dropping down to 2A this season.
“All things considered, you got to give it to Potomac with all the hype they’ve received,” said Largo coach Lew Howard, whose team defeated the Wolverines, 68-64 on Monday. “You got to come to play every night. There’s no nights off.”
Neither Howard nor Glick objected to the thought that a state-title quality game could realistically take place in the opening round, about three weeks before the MPSSAA-designated state final. Largo, Potomac and Gwynn Park have all established themselves as legitimate candidates to represent Prince George’s County at Comcast, and with the way the seeding works — only the top two teams are seeded, the rest is random — there is a fair chance that two of those teams see one another in the first round.
“The toughest road to the state semifinal might be in the semifinals or quarterfinals of the district play,” Glick said. “If you put [2013 4A state semifinalist] North Point in our district, they might not make it out of the first round. It’s just crazy that all of us are in the same pod. You got to beat two teams just to get to the region finals, and that’s not even Comcast.”
The silver lining behind it all is that the team left standing after making its way through that sectional will have already proven itself against possibly the best teams the 2A has to offer. The Prince George’s County teams, with 1A Central also included in their regular league play, may have outright the most competitive schedule from the first tip of the season to the last.
“The best team on that night is going to win,” Howard said. “And it only prepares you for when you get out. You’re battle tested. It’s only going to help you. Each level in Prince George’s County has some of the best talent in the state and even in the country.”
If and when they do get out of the sectional, any possibilities of taking a breather are off the table, because then there is the 2012 state champion Lake Clifton, the 1A state champion Dunbar team that moved up to 2A and the Edmondson/Westside team that beat Wicomico on the buzzer to win it all in the 2A last year.
In one bizarre scenario, with Dunbar and Potomac moving up classes in the same year, there could be three 2013 state finalists, of which two became state champions, all in at least the region finals.
“The competition is good,” said Largo’s Abdulai Bundu, the leading public school scorer in the Washington, D.C. region with 26.7 points per game. “People are coming at us now. They see what we have, seen what we can do. We got a bulls-eye on our back.”
Throughout the year, that proverbial bulls-eye could flip from Bundu’s Largo to Potomac to Gwynn Park and back around the loop again.
“I’d rival our league against anybody else in the state,” Glick said. “I’d put our league against the 4A, the [Washington Catholic Athletic Conference] — any of them, as proven by the play so far this season.”
tmewhirter@gazette.net
The previous three meetings, all Douglass’ wins, prior to Tuesday’s contest had been decided by just six total points. Tuesday proved no exception, as the Eagles hung on for a 50-48 win in Upper Marlboro and handed the Yellow Jackets their fourth loss in the last five games.
At no point did this one even feign the appearance of a potential comfortably-sized win, and neither Tyrone Massenburg nor Mike Glick expected any less. Given the way the past two years of this rivalry has gone, there would be no reason to anticipate anything else.
“Always,” Massenburg said. “Man, Coach Glick is a good coach. They’re always ready to play, our kids are up to the challenge and it always comes down to be a game that’s decided in the last minute. That’s what you coach for, you know, rivalry games, games against good competition. They’re a good team. We’ve been fortunate the last couple times and it’s a good rivalry.”
Neither team got off to a particularly strong start, namely on the offensive end. Douglass (5-5 overall, 4-2 3A/2A/1A League) missed all five of its 3-point attempts in the first quarter — the Eagles finished 5-for-18 from 3-point land — while Gwynn Park (5-4, 3-2) went 3-for-9 from the floor and the second quarter began with neither side in double-figures. The offense would slowly pick up from there, though it would remain a defensive struggle throughout.
“I knew I just had to be patient,” said Keyonte Frager, who led all Douglass’ scorers with 12 points despite shooting just 33 percent from the field. “Just look to open things up for my teammates, like [Cameron Hayes] and let them get to the hoop, be patient.”
Hayes lived up to Frager’s praise, scoring five straight during a 10-0 run midway through the second to turn a 14-13 deficit into a 21-14 advantage that the Eagles would never relinquish. Twelve times throughout the remainder of the game the Yellow Jackets would draw it back to a single-possession game or a tie, but Douglass didn’t budge, countering with a Frager 3-pointer here or a Hayes free throw there. Together, the two scored 22 points while Hayes made 5-of-7 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter to keep Gwynn Park at bay.
“I’m proud of Cam,” Frager said. “Cam came through big. We needed that.”
With leading scorer Evan Joiner struggling to find open looks, or just get the ball in his hands at all, Glick turned to Isaiah Martin for any semblance of offensive production. The 6-foot-7 senior scored seven of the Yellow Jackets’ 11 third quarter points and 18 of the final 48, but it wasn’t enough. Two botched close-range attempts towards the end aided Douglass in preserving its lead, and Gwynn Park’s once solid 4-1 record dropped even further to 5-4.
“It’s a great rivalry,” Glick said. “They do a great job, Coach Massenburg does a great job. They’re a very, very good program and in every sport we play every game is a one or two point game. It’s a great rivalry, a healthy rivalry.”
tmewhirter@gazette.net
Douglass 50, Gwynn Park 48
Douglass (5-5, 4-2): 8 15 12 15 — 50
Gwynn Park (5-4, 3-2): 8 11 11 18 — 48
SCORING
Douglass: Keyonte Frager 12, Cameron Hayes 10, Donnell Robinson 8, Van Dunson 7, Anthony Byrd 4, Javaughn Talley 3, Tyler Smith 2, Kyle Green 2, Trevor Johnson 2.
Gwynn Park: Isaiah Martin 18, Cedric Hines 10, Evan Joiner 9, Marquis Holland 5, Mike Pegram 4, Anwar Mack 2.
And then you meet the 5-foot-10, 155-pound Joiner and that picture is shattered.
He’s a raw bundle of athletic ability who collects 1.2 more rebounds per game (8.8) than 6-7 teammate Isaiah Martin, blocks more shots than 6-3 Isaiah Miles, and leads the Yellow Jackets in 3-point percentage (44 percent) for those who have taken more than two (he is 7-of-16).
“He’s having a huge year for us,” Gwynn Park coach Mike Glick said. “Evan’s just an unbelievable athlete, Just a tremendous jumper, great quickness, and unbelievable motor.”
Joiner says there are no tricks to his swiping more rebounds than most big men he plays with or against. Unlike many guards, he doesn’t cheat out on fast breaks to get an easy layup on the other end or hover around the 3-point line for a quick outlet pass. When a shot goes up, he zips right into the lane as if he belongs with the taller post players.
“It’s just hard work, timing, timing,” said Joiner, who leads the team with 16.4 points per game as of Monday. “I rely on my athleticism a lot. That’s how I feel my flow. It’s tough. It’s a lot of will.”
The all-around production from Joiner hasn’t surprised Glick. He oversaw summer workouts with assistant coach Kevin Walker and took note of Joiner’s work ethic, and that he went “harder than 90 percent of the guys in the league.”
“Nothing he’s done has taken us by surprise,” the coach said. “He’s improved his outside shooting but also his body. He’s always been a great athlete but he’s really bought into the speed and agility weight lifting program. Rarely do you see your best athlete spending the most time with the speed and agility training. He went from a great athlete to an outstanding athlete.”
Joiner grew tired of the hype machine promoting fellow 3A/2A/1A guards such as Dion Wiley, Randall Broddie and Davon Taylor, all Division I-bound recruits who receive a lot of attention from opposing defenses. The low profile he retained translated into a relentless summer workout regimen which has subsequently translated into his becoming Gwynn Parks’ ubiquitous playmaker.
“I took no days off, really,” he said. “I just took it one day at a time. A week or so into [summer workouts], I could feel myself getting into better shape. Last season I didn’t have to do that as much as I do this year so I had to prepare myself.”
In the weight room, he concentrated on plyometrics, box step-ups with dumbbells in hand, core work, and lunges — the essential ingredients for an increased vertical and a quickened step. On the basketball court, Joiner took to the 3-point line, his self-admitted biggest weakness heading into this season, but still begins games from the inside-out, first attacking the rim, then stretching the defense beyond the arc.
“He has a high Division I athletic ability,” Glick said. “He plays with reckless abandon. He just plays harder than most guys. I would just say his motor — his motor and athletic ability — that’s what’s going to stand out.”
Colby Community College, located in Colby, Kansas and, according to Glick, one of the top junior colleges for basketball, sent a representative to Gwynn Park’s Dec. 19 matchup with Potomac. The Yellow Jackets lost, 69-49, and Joiner had one of his lowest outputs of the season (14 points, four rebounds). He was offered on the spot.
“Some kids level out, other kids continue to improve,” Glick said. “Evan spends a lot of time on his game. He’s continued to improve. We’ve been really, really happy with him.”
tmewhirter@gazette.net
