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Sunday, January 25, 2009
Georgia High School Basketball: Come March, it will be Norcross-Wheeler all over again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
From what I’ve seen and read, it was a nice weekend for Wheeler and Norcross in boys basketball.
Wheeler beat No. 8 Milton and No. 5 Walton on back-to-back nights, and Norcross defeated a couple of Florida powers Friday and Saturday.
Are we headed toward another Wheeler-Norcross final in Class AAAAA next month at the Gwinnett Arena? That’s how I see it.
On Saturday, I saw Wheeler beat Walton 106-95. Prorated to an NBA game of 48 minutes, that comes to 159-143 and probably 27 dunks. The PA announcer said 600 fans were still outside Wheeler’s gym when capacity was reached.
It reminded me of some of those Wheeler-Marietta games a few years back when Marietta had Chris Ellis and Patrick Ewing Jr. Funny thing was, I was randomly sitting next to Charlie Hood, Marietta’s coach, who had the night off and got to see Wheeler for the first time since Marietta upset the ‘Cats in the 2006-07 season.
I won’t divulge all we discussed - from AAU coaches to the era of transfers - but I don’t think he’d mind if I shared that he would now favor Wheeler over McEachern, the team that is ranked No. 3 and plays in Marietta’s region. And that was minutes after he’d raved about McEachern. But Hood was impressed w/ the big guys Richard Howell (28 points, 20 rebounds) and Ari Stewart (20 points, 4 blocked shots), whom I began to call Predator I and Predator II. Does any other team have a pair of 6-8/6-9 types that are this athletic? Both will be playing in the ACC next season.
Then in the second half, it was guards Tahj Tate (23 points) and Phil Taylor (22 points) that stood out. This Wheeler team is no more talented than the one that lost to Norcross in the 2008 final, but it will have spent more time playing together, as Wheeler has four returning starters still learning to play as a team. That will be the key.
Yet if I were ranking teams, I’d put Norcross No. 1 until a Georgia team beats them. The Blue Devils defeated Florida’s No. 1 team in AAAA, Monsignor Pace, 80-66 on Saturday. They also beat another top Florida team, Choice Learning Academy, pretty easily the night before. Taariq Muhammad had 19 pionts, eight assists and six steals vs. Monsignor.
The current No. 1 team is Centennial, which I’ve not seen play this season. Centennial beat Wheeler. But I notice Centennial lost to Miller Grove and beat Roswell by only two last week. It seems every time I see a Centennial summary that Lorenzo Brown is the leading scorer. Having four guys score 20-plus vs. Walton was impressive for Wheeler. Is Centennial too dependent on Brown?
I’m sure that the coaches at McEachern and Centennial don’t mind me saying this since it’s just more motivation for their guys. But from my vantage, it’s going to be Wheeler vs. Norcross next month for the title of Team of the Decade.
How do you see it?
Todd talks back: Chat about basketball all week with Holcomb here in the Extra Point blog.
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