Some victories are more significant than they seem at first glance, either because they turn a season around or serve as a coming out party for a player transitioning from a starter to a star. And some wins are less significant than they seem either because a team got a lucky break and didn’t really deserve to win or because the other team was at less than full strength.
Redondo’s 64-49 win over Long Beach Poly in the championship game of the 64th Annual Dijon Thompson Pac Shores Basketball Tournament Saturday night fell into the latter category.
And Redondo Head Coach Reggie Morris knew it.
“Poly played hard and played smart, but they were missing three of their players tonight – two big guys and their best player,” Morris said minutes after the hard-fought game was over. “There’s no solace in this victory at all. We did what we were supposed to do. If we play them again then we’ll see if we’re better than them.”
Wasn’t there anything positive Morris could take from a game in which the Sea Hawks fell behind 13-5 right out of the gate, clawed their way back to a one-point lead at half-time, and finally pulled away in a fourth quarter in which their stifling, suffocating press started producing turnovers and fast-break buckets that yielded a 15-point victory?
“Well, it’s always good to win your own tournament, and it’s better to be 4-0 than 3-1,” he said. “It’s a good start to a long season, but we know we have to get better.”
Still, there were several unmistakable signs that Redondo, once again, figures to be one of the top teams in the South Bay and a contender for a state title this season.
Start with its incredible depth. While the Hawks don’t have a single great player that other teams have to game plan against like 6-foot-10 Billy Preston was before he departed Redondo in mid-season last year, they have six players who could start for any team in the area and those six are backed up by a bench full of talent just waiting for a chance to strut its stuff.
Five of the six – guards Leland Green, Elijah Nesbit, Ryse Williams, Morgan Means and forward Cameron Williams – have been playing together for several years and have developed great chemistry on the court.
And the sixth player – 6-foot-8 starting center Wesley Gilbert, a senior who played at a Sacramento high school last year – just happens to fill the biggest void this year’s team was facing: a player good enough and tall enough to match up with the huge board bangers most elite teams will throw at them this year.
LB Poly, for example, still had Zafir Williams, a 6-foot-9, 250 pound junior who led the Jackrabbits in scoring with 18 points and inhaled 12 boards against Redondo. But Gilbert, along with 6-foot-5 Cameron “Stretch” Williams, was able to keep him from completely dominating in the paint.
And there was another sign of Redondo’s great depth: even though the 6-foot-3 Green is their best player, he didn’t make the all-tournament team. That honor went to the 6-foot-1 sharp-shooter Means and the 5-foot-3 Nesbit, a mach-speed defensive pest who is the key to their 32-minutes-of-hell full court press. Nesbit is also not afraid to drive right into the trees and create opportunities for himself or for the outside shooters — particularly Means, the Hawk’s best pure shooter. Nesbit finished with 8 points, 3 steals, 8 assists and 4 rebounds, while Means had 12 points and two dagger three-pointers in the second half when the game was still in doubt.
And Green, who is the team’s best athlete as well as its overall best player, also did not win the tournament’s Most Valuable Player award. That went to Stretch Williams, who projects to have a big senior year after losing most of his junior year to a severe groin pull that kept him out until late in the season when he took up some of the big-man slack created by Preston’s mysterious exit.
But all those good signs were off-set by the Sea Hawk’s sluggish start when they fell behind by 13-5 as Zafir Williams continually attacked the rim and led the Jackrabbits to an early lead that forced Morris to call a timeout.
“I told the kids it was time to wake up and compete,” he said. “We like to hit first rather than get hit first.”
Green, who finished with 19 points – many of them coming on late foul shots when the game was already decided – stepped up to lead the first half comeback, driving hard to the hoop and finishing with his left-hand several times to avoid lunging defenders.
Gilbert, who is even taller and thinner than Stretch Williams, finished off the comeback with a 10-foot baseline jumper to give the Hawks a 26-25 lead at the half.
Poly surged out to a 32-26 lead at the start of the third quarter behind some intense board banging by Zafir Williams, and the lead changed hands several times as both teams battled for control of the game. As the third quarter neared an end Means drilled a cold-blooded three on a beautiful feed from a streaking Nesbit, and then Stretch Williams scored a layup off another clever feed from Nesbit and tipped in a Nesbit tear-drop miss to give Redondo some breathing room as they finished the third quarter with a 43-38 lead.
The fourth went exactly according to plan, as the Hawk’s game-long full-court press finally produced the tired legs, crazy cross-court passes and no-chance desperate shots that lead to the kind of steals and fast-break buckets it is designed to produce.
“We feed off those kinds of mistakes,” Means said after the game.
And there was one more good sign for Redondo’s future, both in terms of this season and future seasons when their five senior stars — Ryse Williams is the only junior among the top six – are gone: Lucas Hobbs, a highly talented 6-foot freshman guard who created quite a buzz while at Hermosa Valley School over the last few years, chose Redondo over Mira Costa High School, even though he projected as an instant starter at Costa but did not play a minute Saturday night.
“He’s going to be a good player for us,” Morris said. “In the future and in the games ahead of us this year.”
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