Triple double by senior leads No. 5 Cavaliers past No. 1 St. Frances, 79-67 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- By Pat O'Malley Sun Staff Originally published January 5, 2004 Rudy Gay brought his 'A' game to Archbishop Spalding's small gym yesterday in Severn and left top-ranked St. Frances reeling. Gay, 6 feet 9, put up a triple double with a career-high 35 points, 12 rebounds and 10 blocked shots to lead No. 5 Spalding over the Panthers, 79-67. He appeared at times to be a one-man show for the Cavaliers (9-1) in the highly anticipated boys basketball showdown. "It was my best game at Spalding [in two years at the school]," Gay said. St. Frances (12-2) started with a box-and-one defense on Gay that proved futile as the University of Connecticut-bound senior scored practically every way imaginable and was 14-for-17 from the field. "When they got up by 15 [29-14] in the first half, we had to get out of it [the box], but it was too late, " said St. Frances coach William Wells, whose team had just won four straight in College Station, Texas, to win the McDonald's All-Star Classic. "We lost the game in the first half. It was won at that point. Rudy is a good player, but I'm disappointed in our offense. We never ran any offensive pattern." St. Frances was 1-for-16 from the field in the second quarter and trailed 33-22 at the half. The Panthers finished 23-for-72 (32 percent) for the game, compared with Spalding's 31-for-59 (53 percent). "We spent an hour and a half yesterday on the box-and-one," Spalding coach Mike Glick said. "But we're more than just Rudy Gay. Our backcourt and bench are very important to us. We're a defensive team before we're an offensive team." Darnell Harris, St. Frances' leading scorer, was held in the first half to two of his 23 total points by Spalding's superb defense, which has given up 60 points only twice this season. Harris had six of his team's nine three-pointers. Spalding made nine of 10 shots from the field in the final eight minutes to prevent the Panthers from getting back into the game. The Cavaliers' Justin Castleberry scored eight of his 15 points in the final quarter, when teammate Marquis Sullivan had four of his 12. "When Rudy is playing like that, it makes the game a lot easier for the whole team," said Spalding point guard Jesse Brooks, who had six points and seven assists. Gay made four three-pointers (three of them in an 11-point first quarter), hit a few pull-up jumpers in the paint and just outside it, drove the lane and dunked four times. Two dunks came with both hands, one was a tomahawk that shook the backboard and one was a reverse two-hander with his knees nearly as high as his head. Did Gay - who won the slam-dunk contest last week at the Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C., where the Cavaliers went 2-1 - show the standing-room-only crowd all his tricks? "I don't know. I've always got a few surprises," he said, beaming. "We had to come out and let everybody know we are better than them." The Cavaliers improved to 3-0 in the Baltimore Catholic League and 2-0 in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference. St. Frances slipped to 1-1 in both leagues. Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun | Get home delivery

Baltimore Sun Top 20 Boys Basketball Poll as of January 6, 2004 1. ARCHBISHOP SPALDING 9-1 2. St. Frances 11-2 3. Walbrook 5-1 4. Mount St. Joseph 9-1 5. Southern-B 8-0 6. Douglass 5-2 7. Glen Burnie 6-0 8. Cardinal Gibbons 12-2 9. Lake Clifton 5-2 10. Dunbar 4-1 11. Calvert Hall 12-1 12. Towson Catholic 10-3 13. Woodlawn 4-3 14. Randallstown 4-2 15. Westminster 6-0 16. Lansdowne 5-1 17. Atholton 5-0 18. River Hill 6-1 19. Old Mill 7-0 20. Bel Air 7-0 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Washington Post Boy's Basketball Top 20 Poll Published Tuesday, January 6, 2004 1 ARCHBISHOP SPLADING(9-1) Today: Cardinal Gibbons, 7 Last: 2 2 Oxon Hill(6-0) Today: Parkdale (0-7), 7:15 3 3 Springbrook(6-0) Today: Blair (5-3), 7 8 ON THE RISE 4 Potomac (Va.)(10-0) Today: at Forest Park (7-1), 7:30 14 5 Magruder(6-1) Today: at Damascus (4-4), 7 5 6 O'Connell(7-2) Today: McNamara (10-0), 7:30 4 7 Bishop McNamara(10-0) Today: at O'Connell (7-2), 7:30 NR 8 Friendly(5-2) Today: at DuVal (3-5), 7:15 7 9 St. John's(10-2) Today: Gonzaga (7-3), 7:30 11 10 Glen Burnie(6-0) Wed.: Meade (4-2), 7:15 12 11 Hayfield(8-1) Last night: at West Potomac 16 12 Georgetown Prep(8-3) Today: St. Stephen's/St. A. (6-5), 6 6 13 Dunbar(10-2) Today: Ballou (6-2), 7:30 13 14 Montrose Christian(5-4) Today: at T. Roosevelt (4-6), 7:30 1 15 Gonzaga(7-3) Today: at St. John's (10-2), 7:30 9 16 Herndon(8-2) Today: Oakton (6-5), 7:30 10 17 T.C. Williams(9-1) Today: at Chantilly (7-2), 7:45 17 18 Thomas Stone(7-0) Wed.: Lackey (2-6), 6:30 NR 19 Suitland(7-1) Today: at Bowie (5-4), 7:15 NR 20 Paul VI Catholic(9-3) Today: at Bishop Ireton (3-7), 7:30 20 --------------------------------------------- USA Today Boys basketball regional rankings Rankings posted Jan. 6, 2003. East 1. St. Anthony, Jersey City (7-0) 2. Mount Vernon, N.Y. (6-1) 3. St. Raymond, Bronx, N.Y. (6-1) 4. Rice, Manhattan, N.Y. (8-1) 5. Simon Gratz, Philadelphia (7-2) 6. Cardinal Dougherty, Philadelphia (6-2) 7. Archbishop Spalding, Severn, Md. (9-1) 8. Cardozo, Bayside, N.Y. (11-1) 9. Lincoln, Brooklyn, N.Y. (9-3) 10. Trinity, Manchester, N.H. (6-0)

By BOB HOUGH For The Capital Basketball teams will use a box-and-one defense in an attempt to limit the opposing team's main scoring threat, and that's exactly the defense St. Frances came out in to start yesterday's game at top-ranked Archbishop Spalding. The reason for the box-and-one was Spalding's Rudy Gay, and all the Connecticut-bound forward did was drop 35 points on the Panthers in a 79-67 win for the Cavaliers. Gay hit three 3-pointers in the first quarter and finished the day 14-for-17 from the field, as the Cavaliers spotted the Panthers the first four points of the game, but never trailed the rest of the way. "We took a calculated gamble that they would come out in a box-and-one, so we spent an hour and a half (Saturday) working solely on the box-and-one," Spalding coach Mike Glick said. "I talked to Rudy about seeing it, and I thought he and the rest of our team were well-prepared for it." Gay put on quite a show for the packed crowd, adding 12 rebounds and 10 blocked shots for a triple-double. He had an electrifying one-handed slam on a fast-break, went behind his head for a reverse dunk after beating a defender on the baseline, and cleaned up two missed shots with emphatic put backs. His 35 points was a career-high and came just five days after a 26-point, 11-rebound performance in the Cavaliers' win over Dudley (N.C.) in the fifth-place game at the Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C. "We had to come out and let everybody know we're better than them," Gay said, referring to the fact that St. Frances came in at 12-1 and the No. 1 team in the Baltimore metropolitan area. "I think this was a statement win," Glick said. "Our goal is to win the Baltimore Catholic League/MIAA, and I think this was a challenge to our kids playing the number one team in Baltimore." Gay went 4-for-6 on three-pointers and was 10-for-11 from inside the arc. He had 19 of Spalding's first 29 points and 24 of the it's first 41, as the Cavaliers built the lead to as many as 18 points in the second half. St. Frances would only get as close as 12 points the rest of the way. "Rudy is a special player, and when he gets it going the way he was tonight he's very tough to defend," Glick said. Lost in the shadows of Gay's performance was the defensive play and the guard play of the Cavaliers. Spalding held St. Frances scoreless for the first four minutes of the second quarter, as they turned a three-point lead to a 13-point lead midway through the quarter and took an 11-point lead into halftime. With the Panthers keying on Gay, guards Justin Castleberry (15 points, five assists), Marquis Sullivan (12 points, five rebounds) and Jesse Brooks (six points, nine assists) were able to penetrate for layups or kick-outs to Gay. "We're more than just Rudy Gay. We have an outstanding basketball club, I've very proud of the way our backcourt played," Glick said. There's not much time to enjoy this win, as the Cavaliers will face league foe Cardinal Gibbons tomorrow night. They just returned from the Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, which included games with nationally-ranked Edgewater (Fla.) and Dudley (N.C.). "I think the traveling gets you ready for games like this. We have not had any easy games this season, but I think with the team we have and the mental makeup of the team, we're up for the challenge," Glick said. St. Frances (12-2) 14 8 15 30 _67 Spalding (9-1) 17 16 21 25 _79St. Frances (67) Alexander 4(2) 0-2 10, Brown 4(1) 3-6 12, Chase 3 2-4 8, Edwards 3 0-0 6, Harris 6(6) 5-5 23, Leeds 1 0-0 2, Yancey 2 2-3 6. TOTALS: 23(9) 12-20 67. Spalding (79) Brooks 2 2-2 6, Castleberry 4 7-8 15, Dixon 3 0-2 6, Galinat 2(1) 0-0 5, Gay 14(4) 3-6 35, Sullivan 6 0-0 12, Angion 0 0-0 0, Bisciotti 0 0-0 0, Cornell 0 0-0 0, Jones 0 0-2 0, John 0 0-2 0, Loughry 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 31(5) 12-22 79. Published January 05, 2004, The Capital, Annapolis, Md. Copyright © 2004 The Capital, Annapolis, Md.

Via Beach Ball Classic website. Archbishop Spalding Victorious Over Dudley 64-53 Archbishop Spalding (MD) trailed for a total of 19 seconds in cruising to a 64-53 victory over Dudley (NC) in the consolation bracket of the 2003 Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, SC. Dudley's (7-3) William Graves netted the first basket of the day at the 15:29 mark. The lead was short-lived as just 19 seconds later, Jesse Brooks connected on a long 3-point basket to give Archbishop Spalding the lead for good. The Cavaliers went on to build an 11-point lead in the opening half and led by as many as 14 in the second stanza. Rudy Gay led all scorers in taking the Cavaliers to the victory with 26 points, 11 rebounds and four blocked shots. Lawrence Dixon added 14 points, while Jesse Brooks controlled the offense and dished out 11 assists, the fourth most assists in a single game in the BBC. Graves paced Dudley with 19 points and six rebounds, while Kevin Swinton added 16 points and seven boards.

by Clark Francis Hoop Scoops Tuesday, December 30, 2003 For the second straight day I caught a 5:45 AM flight and arrived in Myrtle Beach, SC in time to watch the first game of the final day at the Beach Ball Classic, which featured 6'8 Rudy Gay from Severn (Archbishop Spalding) MD against 6'7 Jr Kevin Swinton from Greensboro (Dudley) NC and 6'6 Soph William Graves in what turned out to be one of the most interesting match-ups of the entire Holiday Tournament season. Gay, who is ranked #8 nationally in the senior class by the HOOP SCOOP, finished with 26 points and 11 rebounds, but 18 of those points came in the first half, as he put on a show from both mid-range and beyond the arc (7-15 field goals and 4-8 3-pointers). Swinton and Graves combined for 35 points and 13 rebounds, but Graves was the more aggressive of the two inside, plus he impressed us with his ability to handle and shoot, as he hit 2-5 3-pointers and handled the ball some on the perimeter. In other words, Graves, who is ranked #23 nationally in the sophomore class by the HOOP SCOOP, proved that he's the better of the two, even though Swinton is ranked higher (#21 nationally in the junior class by the HOOP SCOOP). Remember, the sophomore class is much better than the junior class, plus Swinton already had a reputation for being a dominant force against lesser competition, but not as tough when matched up against better players his own size. And, while Swinton didn't back down and he did show some flashes, he still did not step up and take the game over the way he had hoped he would. And that's why Archbishop Spalding never got closer than five in the second half. Also stepping up for Archbishop Spalding were 6'5 Jr Lawrence Dixon, who finished with 14 points, 12 of which came in the second half, and 6'0 Jesse Brooks, who finished with eight points, 11 assists, two steals, and three turnovers. Final Score: Severn (Archbishop Spalding) MD 64, Greensboro (Dudley) NC 53.