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MWL/SWC Blog
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Written by DRH
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Wednesday, 02 July 2008 17:13 Hits: 611 |
Until recently, I had always treated summer basketball like the month long NFL exhibition season in August. While I’m ultimately glad something is around to busy me from the monotony of watching my beloved Seattle Mariners drop further and further out of contention (or, this season, dropping further and further out of next-to-last-place), it’s hard to get too excited for games that don’t count.
But that tune has changed over the last year or so, especially given the talent that’s come up through the MWL/SWC area. Summer league is kind of like a second season these days, with future Division 1-A recruits trying to build the foundation for potential championship runs in the winter, more coaches buying into the concept of a summer league to devote to player development, and overall participation at an all-time high.
Not all teams are at full strength – in fact, few of them are – due to football and family obligations, but summer league still opens an intriguing window into the season that’s still over four months away from tipping off.
Thurston hosted a large tournament over the weekend, featuring numerous expected 5A and 6A contenders. Living a hop, skip, and a jump away from Thurston’s campus and Springfield’s Regional Sports Center, where the bulk of the action took place, I did what I could to take in the summer season.
Churchill
Churchill has been the story of the off-season, adding Willamette transfer (and 2007-08 MWL second teamer) LeRon Bennett into the fold of a team I already had pegged as the easy 2008-09 MWL favorite. Churchill is still looking for a coach to replace the departed Steve Minney, but whoever takes the job will be walking into a great situation – no doubt about it, Churchill is the most talented/best team in the MWL, if not the entire MWL/SWC region (kind of like how North Eugene would have been champions of a mythical, combined MWL/SWC league last year).
Bennett, one of the MWL’s premiere slashing forwards and top returning scorers, is taking the summer opportunity to mesh with my 2008-09 preseason MWL MVP pick, PG Jordan Myers, and P Brendan Means, a second league MWL pick a year ago. I had all three on my preseason first-team when I drew up my original round of predictions last month, before hearing of Bennett’s transfer; nothing’s changed.
And that’s why summer league has become so successful. Before, transfers only had pick-up games in the off-season to learn to play with their new teammates. And while non-formal workouts are still intrical to the game, the summer sessions gives all the more advantage for teams trying to fit new pieces into the jigsaw puzzle to have all the kinks worked out by November. See Thurston last year; the Colts graduated four starters from a successful team that finished a game shy of reaching Mac Court for the 5A quarterfinals. The Colts reloaded in the off-season with two transfers and a returning player who didn’t play basketball the year before. The result? A seemingly effortless transition from pretty-good second round program to third place finishers at state. Only there was effort involved; a lot of it went down in the summer.
Churchill’s shining moment of the off-season came at a tournament held at Barlow, where the Lancers took the top prize by beating Beaverton in the semifinals and the host Barlow Bruins in the championship. They crushed quality Gresham and Wilsonville teams along the way. Churchill has also had an entertaining double round a bout with North Eugene; each team has beaten the other once already.
Thurston
Summer league was huge for the Colts last year, and they helped develop a strategy that Churchill appears to be putting into play this year – get those difference-makers up to speed, quickly. Last summer, Thurston welcomed Drew Wiley into the fold, a high scoring 1A forward from McKenzie. Wiley’s summer introductory course into Coach Piquette’s system helped pave the way for Thurston’s 8-2 non-league start.
This summer, like last, sees Thurston in need of replacing four senior starters. Promoting four kids from within the program (no transfers this year) into the starting unit and getting everyone on the same page has been the name of the game, with decent results so far. Thurston’s top performance was a 70-66 win over South Medford, the defending SWC champions. SG Calvin Green shot the lights out, and looks to be ready to make the transition from role player to focal point. There are plenty of posts available to man the paint, and I’ve always been a fan of PG Payton McCalligan’s game.
What I couldn’t help but take from Thurston’s performance is that everybody can shoot. Everybody. You can’t zone this team, or leave anyone alone in a corner without fear of somebody knocking down a long jumper. I’d love to see a game or H-O-R-S-E with the starting five. Starting post Kevin Keebler might just win it.
Thurston has also done an about-face from their Mac Court performance in last Spring’s state tournament; THS lost to Century in OT a few weeks ago (Thurston beat them handily in the quarterfinals), and beat down Corvallis (who they lost to in the semifinals) last Sunday.
South Medford
The Panthers have a bit of retooling to do, starting with a replacement for PG Michael Harthun. That said, SM does return 6-6 EJ Singler (who I’m told has Oregon, Washington State, and St. Louis high on his list of potential colleges), who was the best player on the court in every summer league game I saw him in. His cousin, Mitch Singler, is back as well, and took charge out on the perimeter.
Harthun was hurt for a bit at the end of last season so I’m sure there are viable options, and a few kids (didn’t get any names) looked pretty good running the point this weekend. I expect SM to battle it out with cross-town rival North Medford for the SWC crown.
EJ has his jumper down. I just don’t see how anyone’s going to successfully defend him when he’s able to pop an 18 footer one possession, and post up for an easy deuce the next.
North Eugene
Perhaps Thurston lost more starters, but no area team lost more impact players than North Eugene did to graduation. 2006-07 5A Player of the Year (and two-time MWL POTY) Brian Conklin is off to St. Louis, 2007-08 co-MWL POTY Markus Baker leaves a vacancy at the point, and the sweet shooting Drew Laird departs as North must replace the core of it’s back-to-back league championship teams.
The good news is that North brings back one of the taller players in the state, 6-10 Joe Kammerer, who came on at the end of his junior year and has carried it over into the summer. When he’s active and aggressive, he can be a force down low; and without Conklin, he’ll need to be on a nightly basis. His career-high 17 points in the regular season finale (at Marshfield) helped save North’s undefeated league mark on a night when Conklin didn’t have his best stuff, and NE was able to squeak by the potential upset 46-44. That’s the Kammerer North fans hope to see.
NE split a pair of games against Churchill at the beginning of summer, which, that I know of (but that doesn’t make it official), is the only game Churchill has lost this summer. North’s also lost to Crescent Valley and cross-town rival South Eugene. North lost to Churchill by a point in the summer finale, without the services of Kammerer.
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