Josh will be on hand to see Mount Vernon take on the boys from Rochester. Be sure to follow him @LoHudInsider for updates.
Today’s schedule:
Mount Vernon vs. Bishop Kearney at Christl Arena, West Point, 2 p.m.
Stepinac at Molloy, 3:30 p.m.
While I won’t be covering high school hoops today I will be at Iona College to see the Gaels take on Manhattan. Both teams (Iona-Tavon Sledge, Spring Valley; Manhattan-Sky Williams, Tuckahoe) have local players. Feel free to follow me @LoHudCollege for updates on the game if you are interested.
38 Comments
Hey Josh –
I see that Sky Williams has not gotten any playing time this year for Manhattan – is he a red-shirt?
Sorry I meant Dan…
Why did he go to Manhattan College.? He could be a real scorer at Mt St Vincent.
Gonna be at WP today to see MW BK. NY sportswriters has MW 9 and BK 13 in the state. BK has a record of 2-3 coming into the game
Coach Reeves,
I don’t see him on the roster anymore (he was listed on it earlier this season) which leads me to believe he has red-shirted. I believe he was considered a walk-on and wasn’t on scholarship so it is very possible. I’ll see what I can find out today.
-Dan DeFrancesco
HOOPSGUY,
MW?
YOU MEAN MV
1Q OVER;
MV-21 B.K-11
POINT GUARD FOR MV OUT WITH 2 FOULS
I SMELL A BLOWOUT
BRANDON M. BACK FROM SUSPENSION ALREADY HAS 12 POINTS
35-29 Mv halftime
MV UP 1 3RD Q
END OF 3;
MV UP 50-43
THE SMELL IS COMMING BACK,MV ON A 18-5 RUN
71-61 Mv,final;
BRANDON Martin-24 points 16 rebounds MVP,great return,section 1,here they come,knock knock, guess who,LLLLLLOOOOOLLLLL
I had it 74-62
‘WOOD, Glad to hear your sense of smell is coming back. We’ll take a 10 point victory whenever we can, right? Amazing how a team like Bishop Kearney with so much height on their front line can’t be more competitive than their 2-5 [?] record seems to indicate. Maybe they move like the Ents in the Lord of the Rings.
Let’s see how MV is going to fare when the home cooking begins. I imagine there will be tighter competition with New Ro and White Plains this year…nothing automatic this year.
Martin had 13 rebounds
MVHS65,
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND MVHS66,WE WILL GRIND OUT VICTORYS,THIS TEAM IS TOUGH AND HARD NOSED
Thanks for the updates Haywood!
KINGSTON BEAT ST. MARYS BY 14 POINTS,YOUR WELCOME,WESTROCK
‘WOOD: Kingston is up in my neck of the woods and they are a gritty bunch. Lost to NFA by a point and should contend with NFA and Middletown for the Section 9 title.
And a Happy New Year to you…and Mrs. MVHS66 sends her regards.
Thought you’d like this bit of info.
I recently had Xmas dinner with my son in law’s family. His uncle [Doug O’Brien] played on the LaSalle University [Philly] team back in late ‘60’s. Ken Durrett was a 2 time All-American at LaSalle and later an NBA player with the Sixers and Kansas City Kings.
We got to talking about BILL PLEAS MVHS Class of ‘67 and one of the greatest legends out of Mount Vernon behind Gus ‘The Wizard’ Williams. He stated that he believed Pleas was an all-around better athlete than Ken Durrett and should have had a stellar NBA, if it not for “personal issues” that got in the way.
He also corroborated how he witnessed first hand Pleas picking off quarter from the top of the backboard….nd being a natural born killer at blocking shots and put back slam dunks on rebounds. NOW THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!
MVHS65,
AS ALWAYS A GREAT STORY,LLOOLL
it’s official.. 65 is back in the house
welcome back my brother.. hope all is well
Not many think the quarter trick is possible, others think it’s just MV folklore. Crazy thing is there are quite a few who swear they saw it. I know one thing, the guy took two steps from under the basket and swatted my 35 foot corner jumper off the wall at Washington HS so hard the ball hit me in the back of the head. I gotta believe it’s possible..
spacecadet…thank you for the warm welcome back….Being an “upstater” these days I don’t get to many games down your way, so I will have to count upon your eye witness accounts and expertise to carry me through this ‘12-’13 season.
But I will gladly hold forth on my “back in the day” historical recollections. And it would appear that there are many who have BILL PLEAS stories to recount which weighs heavily on his ‘cred’.
To repeat my own eye witness accounts..I very much did see him jam two balls in one jump during the warm-ups of a championship game at the County Center [vs. Peekskill].
And I did see him rise about ten inches above his opponent to control a jump ball from the MV foul line and swish the shot [which the refs waived off b/c they’d never seen anything like it before].
And I did see him knocked silly banging his head on the backboard rising up to throw one down.
His vertical was David Thompsonesque and to any disbelievers out there who doubt that what I’ve said is ‘WORD’, then my lovely wife of 45 years, MVHS66 will put you in your place…because she was there…...and she never, ever lies.
sitting at brush park a few years ago having a beer with Gary “Turn” Johnson class of 72. He described a dunk Pleas did on a young Earl”The Black Jerry West” Tatum to me.. Packed 4th street play ground, people hanging out the project windows watching Bill Pleas doing his thing. This was his playground, make no mistake. On a fast break he did dunked on Tatum so hard his knees hit Earl in the chest and sent him flying to the ground. A lot of people fully aware that Earl was the next superstar for MV had to turn away…
your word is more than enough..
Bill Pleas stories are legend and still talked about today, almost 50 years later, in MV. I wish I was born about ten years earlier so I could see it in person.
Mvhs65,
That sounds like a great Xmas dinner conversation!
You mount vermin groupies are out of your minds…spacecadet drinking in public is a crime… bill pleas was no marty conlon..happy new year..and please know i am just kidding with you all..
step fan: calling us Mt. Vermin groupies will be taken with a grain of salt.
I had zero tolerance for Stepinac grad for classmates, when was a frosh at Iona College. Regardless of the fact that there was a dress code at IONA, come lunch break many of them wound up well-dressed, sloppy drunks. Glad I moved on to greener pastures at SUNY Albany.
Ultimately, it was a lot more real drinking a 24 oz Colt 45 out of a paper bag at Brush Park than ‘getting faced’ at the Beechmont Tavern on North Ave, New Rochelle.
Finally, with all due respect to Marty Conlon, an excellent and established NBA player…........ HE WAS NOT THE MAN THAT LEGENDS ARE MADE OF….BILL PLEAS IS.
Please don’t insult Marty Conlon career in NBA & in Europe. I do realize he was not flashy, but he had a very long NBA & Europe career & right now still works for NBA oversees. He is has done very well for himself. No one will compare him with some of the Mount Vernon greats. But he probably has a lot more to show for it, because he was more realistic life style. He may not be a legend but he can probably buy & sell $$$$ all the legends you are talking about. But he is probably driving a 95 bronco !
& has quite a few Million in the bank!
mvhs2012…well put and I couldn’t agree with you more. I wasn’t trying to insult Marty Conlon in the least and in fact called him “an excellent and established NBA player”.
Legends are often tragic figures as well. In this case, Pleas, an athlete with immense abilities…able to do things that are hard to believe, even when seen. Yet possessing a tragic flaw that prevented him from realizing greatness.
I am told that Sam Williams, Gus Williams younger brother, also was something special…but never rose to that level of greatness.
Earl “the Goat” Manigault was one of NYC’s greatest hoop legends…...and what a waste of pure talent!
mvhs2012,
All good points and I agree.
step fan,
I understand you are trying to be funny, but it starts unnecessary fights and doesn’t represent Stepinac fans well. Any real Stepinac fans have a lot of respect for MV’s program – maybe you do too, but I’m not sure it comes across.
mvhs65,
I don’t particularly care for ‘step fan’s’ comments, but I don’t think you want to lump all stepinac grads into any one category just as you wouldn’t want anyone lumping all mvhs grads into one category. As far as Bill Pleas vs Marty Conlon it is a no contest. Conlon played 9 or 10 seasons in the NBA. Pleas was a very good HS player at MV, but Conlon was a completely dominant HS player at Step. Conlon beat MVHS at least once, maybe twice. He put up 36 and 24 against Kenny Anderson’s Archibishop Molloy team with future NBA Center Robert Werdann in the CHSAA semis. I’m sure Pleas was a bigger playground legend because of his leaping ability, but it is not even close as basketball players.
Hoopsfan Can’t argue with you on Conlon vs. Pleas. Never said Pleas was a better player than Conlon plus the fact that we’re talking about two altogether different positions [big vs. small forward]. And yes…his legend was established in high school and in the playgrounds and overseas in Israel NOT in the NBA. But we can always dream about the what if…he had his head screwed on straight.
In regard to lumping Stepinac grads into one category…you are also correct. I was angry with the young lad, step fan [I assume he’s a young lad b/c of the way he writes] and wanted to give him a dose of his own stereotyping medicine.
But the thread of truth in my post was that it was a tough and grating transition, going from a liberal, culturally-diverse public high school [MVHS] to an all male and strictly run, small Catholic college as Iona. It seemed like over half the student body were grads from surrounding parochial high schools [Iona Prep, the Mount, Stepinac, St. Raymonds, Archbishop Malloy, etc etc] and I never reached a comfort level with those guys. But that is as they say water under the bridge.
mvhs65,
Talking about Bill Pleas and the comparison of MV and Stepinac this year has brought up some old memories. If I remember correctly Bill Pleas’ MV teams beat Stepinac in his Sr year and maybe his Jr year as well. There were a couple of good guards on those MV teams as well – i don’t remember the names. ‘67 would’ve been Artie White’s Jr year at Stepinac. Stepinac beat MV in ‘68 behind Artie White who was unstoppable in HS, ‘69 and ‘70. But MV went on an incredible run in the 70’s and Step might not have won again in the 70’s. I don’t remember if Step played MV in your class of ‘65 – that was Rudy Bennett’s team, right?
Yes Hoop fan… It was Rudy [may he rest in peace] Bennett’s team.
Nice front line with my buddy Ken Singleton and Galen ‘Squid’ Smalls & Goose Seward. Bill Gray wasn’t too shabby in the backcourt either. Believe our squad lost out to New Rochelle [w/ the moose George Starkes who later was a Washington Redskin Hog lineman in the ‘70’s] in a close AAA championship game up at the County Center.
Don’t think we played Stepinac in ‘65 although my memory is a bit shaky on those specifics.
mvhs65,
Rudy Bennett was a player. ‘65 wasn’t a great season for Stepinac. It didn’t help having a couple league games against a fairly decent Power Memorial squad led by a guy named Lew Alcindor!
Rudy and I had one on one wars in our 10th grade phys ed class at A.B. Davis [pre-Edison/Davis merger to MVHS]. At 6’3” I couldn’t out jump him but I did know how to shoot a little, box out and be relentless off the boards. All of that said, Rudy usually wound up prevailing. Kind, funny and caring, Rudy Bennett was a truly decent human being and I was deeply saddened by his death.
Alcindor…now there’s a legend who cultivated and extracted every last drop of talent he had in his body. Always remembered how his freshman team at UCLA thrashed the varsity, albeit, they were reigning national champs.
65,
Some people forget about how good those Power teams were. Not only did they have Alcindor, they had several other D1 players on each of his teams. Alcindor was in a class by himself.