Mike Rosario Plays like Michael Jordan in IS8 playoffs
Posted: Saturday, November 04, 2006
by Joseph Jagde
The IS8 playoffs had set into full gear on Sunday October 22, where I saw the last 4 games of the day all of which included the highest ranked teams left in the tournament except for the top 4 which got a bye to the second round.
The big game of the day turned out to be Holy Cross verses the Playaz Club Juniors where two players were particularly dominant.
An interesting player on the Playaz with him was 6’7 Ken Fareed, who wasn’t dominate but was very aggressive to the basket,as he hit open shots and dunked with a nice blend of ferocity and beautiful smoothness. I spoke to him and he mentioned Boston College,South Carolina, and Rutgers as schools where there is a mutual interest.
For Holy Cross, Sylvan, later named the MPV of the whole tournament, was dynamic as usual in scoring 43 points to Rosarios 35. I call him the Tiger Woods of high school basketball, he has the long drives or the deep jumper, he sees the fairways for both the driving and passing lanes extremely well, and he has a putters touch, in which he displays uncanny ability to hit floaters in the lane where he takes a little bit off the shot and shoots kind of a soft hanging shot that invariably finds the basket. Sylvan Landesberg continues to show he is a prolific scorer but he really has a superb handle which gets him in great position for his shot. Holy Cross has potential I think of being a top 25 team nationally this year if all goes well and any number of players on their roster are quite proficient.
Another game was Mount Vernon against the Long Island Lightening. The game started out tough, with the Long Island Lightening taking a lead into halftime. Standing out this particular game was Kevin Jones, a 6’7 forward, for Mt. Vernon who is now a junior. It looks like he can be a major conference player, for example I could see him in the Pac 10. He is a quick strong leaper inside who really plays hard. As the game went on, he showed he is just about automatic once he warms up from 15 feet, with more a set shot than jumper that he shoots quickly.
For the Long Island Lightening, Mike Cavateo, looked like a high potential player. He hasn’t really played much at all yet in high school despite being a senior, due to a transfer and an injury. He could be that diamond in the rough, hitting tough in your face J’s and then going under for alley oop high rising jams despite being only 6’4 and he displayed nice court sense as well. Also for the Lightening, Mike Sands, who true to his name looks like one of the blond haired surfer types from the California Coast, showed tough hands, tough moves and the ability to convert down low. At one point he blocked numerous shots in a row and Pete Edwards, said," It’s a block party." His reputation is that he can hit the jumper as well, although he didn’t play even 3 quarters in this game due to a rotating lineup, at 6’7 and growing, he might really emerge in college and his choice is Yale University.
Nick Walsh showed he has a nice deep lefty jumper, although he lacks height. Chris Delarosa who is committed to Siena College has a beautiful handle and cadence to that, but needs to be a bit more aggressive in also shooting himself and putting up some numbers to keep the defense guessing.
The Shooting Stars against St. Dominic’s was an interesting matchup in that St. Dom’s held the lead most of the way. The dominate player was Russell Davis of St. Dom's really sliding to the basket well and often for scores and then hitting the set shot occasionally as well. He had 31 points. He later was named second team all IS8. But as usual, Samardo Samuels, who didn’t have fellow front line player James Southerland with him this game, did all the work up front and was eventually the victor in the wars down low, despite some tough D by St.Dom’s and there just wasn’t anyone who could contend with Samuels. If he doesn’t power up for a jam, which is unusual, he has excellent ability angle his drives in traffic.
The Metro Hawks, absent all their big star players, lost to the B.C. Eagles. Trinity Fields showed excellent ability to hit floaters in the lane in garnering 21 points for the Metro Hawks. Everybody on the B.C. Eagles shot well, players such as Georgio Mulligan, Jeff Ryan who was their best player, Quillen Marion, Terry Colman and Justin Rutty all showed they can work effectively and hit shots. Terry Coleman is a tough high potential guard with highlight reel type plays more often than not.
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