Stepinac’s Conroy Baltimore shoots over Horace Greeley’s Matt Townsend during one of the final games at the Slam Dunk Tournament at the Westchester County Center in White Plains today. Photo by Seth Harrison
Stepinac defeated Horace Greeley 61-42 to win the championship game. Look for tournament coverage at Lohud.com and in tomorrow’s edition of The Journal News. View a gallery of photos from Stepinac vs. Horace Greeley.
7 Comments
appears like Greeley’s not ready for prime time yet.. One big man does a team not make..If Stepinac’s defensive pressure was too much, what will MV’s be like. hmmm
Great picture of two of the best players around going at it.
spacecadet,
Good point about Greeley. I give them credit for stepping up to play a top local team. The crickets from the couple Greeley fans who were on the blog talking an awful lot the last couple days is not surprising. It seems like Kennedy faired a little better against Mount than Greeley did against Stepinac – I think that has to do with Kennedy having a very good pg. Some Westchester fans don’t realize the difference in speed from a suburban game to a city game – you need to have a talented pg who can handle pressure and is strong enough to take some bumps to play with a MV, Stepinac, Mount or even New Ro and usually White Plains. I also wouldn’t assume MV is that far ahead of Stepinac this year. Stepinac took a very good St Raymonds team down to the wire. best of luck the rest of the way
Hoops Fan: I don’t know if you are aware, but Justin Ciero is a great PG and he is still injured. Just wait until he is healthy.
Greeley put fourth a nice effort but they are not in the class of MV, New Ro, Pok, NFA, etc. Townsend has skills but he is the only scoring threat. He can create on his own and has a nice mid range game. Ball handling, team speed, overall size and strength are what is lacking when it comes to Greeley. In terms of the match up Stepinac’s guard play wore them down. Chilemi, James, etc were too quick and were creating open shots. Dribble drive penetration was non stop. They exploited Greeley’s defense. Baltimore is easy to root for. He is a defensive minded player. Excellent shot blocker. He needs a lot of improvement on the offensive end though. He doesn’t show a mid range game, a handle or a first step. His points are off rebounds. He is not a scoring threat at all. Julian Wright is more of a threat.
Honestly Hoops, after watching both Mount and Stepinac last night, Mount is more of a threat to win the league. I haven’t seen Hayes, so I am basing it off the top two teams I know. Mount has a pure scorer in Aguilar, three other guards who are productive and two nice big men. They are very physical and deep. Stepinac is NOT deep. If Tapps and Baltimore get in foul trouble, they are in for a long night.
Now if you match MV up against Step, I think MV beats them handily. They would wear them down, they are faster and no one could guard Hinds. MV would also get Step into foul trouble.
The other games were a nice learning experience. I always look at them from a coaching point of view. Peekskill is def. in the mist of a down year. They don’t belong on the court with Mount, but they did with Burke…and still got mauled. Aside from Carter(who is a better roll player than lead man) there isn’t too much to work with yet. Panazero plays everybody and is giving anybody a chance to rise up. Not going to happen this year. Mookie’s brother is a big boy, but he is young and will have time to develop. Totally different player from Mookie. The team is not in sync, they are not running an offense. Its street ball without positive production.
Lastly, I loved Kennedy’s effort. They were outmatched in every facet of the game, but hung in and played hard. Never t backed down and they played with true passion. Kudos to the coaches game planning as well. I walked away a fan of this team. Josh you were right in saying this team is a threat to win the A. I have seen all of the contenders thus far and they are right there with PR and TZ.
Guest,
Thanks for the info. It will be interesting to see how Ciero fares vs. WP, New Ro or MV in the playoffs.
HRs,
Mount returns most of the same kids from last year’s team, Stepinac lost three good wings, but picked up three new wings and a strong frontcourt player in Taps. I believe Mount and Stepinac split last year. I’d highly suggest getting to one of the Mount/Stepinac games this year if you can – those are always battles and I think you’d enjoy them. They tend to bring the best out of each and look like a good matchup again.
I disagree with your assessment on Stepinac and it might be a result of you seeing them only once. First, Stepinac returns 3 players who played a lot on last year’s championship team – Baltimore, Chillemi and Wright, but the next five players are new – two junior transfers Taps and Iacuone, two sophs James and Omess and the freshman. I think it will take the new players on Stepinac a little longer to adjust to the level of play and probably take the team a little longer to come together as a whole. Mount’s team is essentially intact from last year so they’re probably much more of a finished product than Stepinac at this point. Regarding Baltimore and foul trouble – keep in mind, Baltimore was in big foul trouble vs St Rays, yet Stepinac managed to play very close with Baltimore out. Chillemi didn’t have a great Slam Dunk offensively, but he was huge against St Rays and big in last year’s playoff run. While you’re right that Stepinac is not deep in size, keep in mind last year Stepinac didn’t have anyone after Baltimore in terms of size and still won the title, this year they have another big, strong, talented kid in Taps – I look at that as a positive step up from last year. In order for Stepinac to beat Mount and Hayes this year I think you’re right that they’ll have to keep Baltimore on the court – which he did manage to do last year – and for Chillemi to continue to step up in big games. Julian Wright has been playing really well this year and looks much improved offensively from last year. I think the juniors are solid and have shown they can step up and by the end of the year – James and Thomas – the soph and freshman will be very, very tough. So to paraphrase my whole Stepinac diatribe – I think the jury is still out – check back after their 4 matchups with Hayes and Mount.
By the way, I hope the Stepinac/Hayes and Stepinac/Mount matchups get some good coverage this year from the Journal News. Considering that MV looks to be ahead of New Ro at this point and way ahead of anyone else in AA, the Stepinac/Mount and Stepinac/Hayes matchups could be the best local games of the year.
Just a little correction. Mt. beat Stepinac twice last year. Since Step. won the title it doesn’t matter at all.
Mount only returned two starters from last year, Gill and Aguilar. White played some on the Varsity but Cunningham was injured all year and did not play. The other kids who play were on the JV.
Fordham Prep is very good and will likely be there at the end.
the chsaa “a” as always has a ton of parity and presents alot of interesting/surprising results in the post-season. that’s what makes it a great league! it will be the same again this year. to much hype on 1 team can be detrimental – ask iona. lot of good teams, lot of good coaching, lot of good officiating.
mount and stepinac should be a good one.
happy new year!