Friday, January 27, 2012

Friday notebook

Pitt basketball fans can see heralded recruit Steven Adams, a 7-0 center from New Zealand, in person Sunday when Notre Dame Prep (Mass.) plays Massanutten Academy (Va.) at the PBC Legends Classic at Ambridge.The game is at 2 p.m.
Adams is considered one of the top senior prospects and Pitt's biggest recruit since, well, Khem Birch, who has transferred to UNLV.
* Never heard of a police investigation into a high school football program. It's happening at Peters Township.
This has the potential to be a big story depending on the results of the investigation.
* If the Fort Cherry girls basketball team beats North Catholic Saturday and finishes the regular season with an undefeated record, the Rangers deserve the top seed in the WPIAL Class A playoffs.
* After covering the Montour at South Fayette boys basketball game last week, the guess here is that the Spartans will be very difficult to beat once Ryan Lewis gets into basketball shape.
* Fort Cherry senior Corey Garry will decide between Robert Morris and Clarion over the next few days.
Garry, an all-conference linebacker on three occasions, has offers from both schools. He's also the top-ranked WPIAL Class AA heavyweight wrestler.
Tanner Garry, his cousin, recently accepted an offer to be a preferred walk-on at Bowling Green. He tried to get Falcons coaches to taker a close look at Corey.
"I had as much drive to get Corey to come to school with me as I had to get into school," Tanner Garry said. "I showed the coached Corey's highlight film and pictures of Corey just so they could see how big he was."
* Monessen junior Chavas Rawlins was visited by Penn State Friday and received an offer from Pitt Wednesday. The quarterback figures to be one of the WPIAL's most coveted football prospects.
Just don't expect the 6-3 Rawlins to solely concentrate on football.
Rawlins plays football and is also part of the boys soccer team during the fall. He plays basketball in the winter and has played baseball at Monessen. This spring, Rawlins will play baseball and add track to his of athletic duties.
That makes Rawlins, who sports a 3.3 GPA, a five-sport athlete.
* Chartiers-Houston boys basketball has steadily improved during the two years that Eugene Briggs has been the head coach.
Briggs believe his team took a significant step with Tuesday's home win against Bentworth.
"I think it validates that we're a decent team," Briggs said. "We're three possessions away from being 13-3. There's a big difference between 10-6 and 13-3, especially when people look at your record. To beat a team that had one loss coming in, that was big."

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lets slow down here at CH. They played Jeff morgan,Carmichaels,Mapletown,Beth Center,Avella and South Allegheny. Their combined record is 25-85. Call it what it is. Soft scheduling. Did it at FC and now CH.Wow!

mike_kovak said...

When is the statement "steadily improved" mean going too fast?

Scheduling is part of rebuilding.

And when was C-H boys basketball strong?

Anonymous said...

I understand that your job depends on stories, dealing with coaches and administrators and most of all trying to sell as many newspapers as possible. Been reading your articles for awhile now but i never see you go against the grain when the evidence is right their to be seen. You know the non conf schedule is soft. Example of what im getting at. Back in the early part of the decade when the wash high girls were pretty good,the OR came up with these all OR teams.They had girls from all these schools on the list and all but 2 Emily Briggs and Rachel Phillips would have even played probably but they were OR selections anyway and left many of the WH girls off the list. If 7 of the best 10 come from a school then so be it. shouldn't discount their play to sell papers

mike_kovak said...

I've never once had the thought of selling papers when compiling an all-star team for the newspaper. Never.

Nor do I believe that seven of the best 10 players in the area were all on the same Wash High team. I saw that team multiple occasions over several years. That though never ran through my mind either.

I really don't understand your problem with the non-conference schedule. The vast majority of teams in this area do it. Only three teams - SF boys, Monessen boys, FC girls - play a challenging non-conference schedule IMO. Not surprisingly, I expect all three teams to do well this postseason.

If a coach is charged with the task of building a program, and many of the basketball programs in this area aren't very good on a yearly basis, one of the steps is to get kids believing they can win.

Anonymous said...

Mike-some people will never be happy. Now you know what its like to be a high school coach around here.
Keep up the good work. I enjoy everything your doing for the kids.

Anonymous said...

Briggs is doing a very good job at CH. FC didn't appreciate what he did there and lost a dedicated coach, not only to basketball but all the students of the district. CH also played McGuffey tought this year and beat SSB twice, which was picked as one of the top two teams in the section before the year started. CH is a wrestling school. What he is doing there is very good.

Anonymous said...

Mike please chech this out if you can. it is true that C-H has never been the hot bed of basketball, but according to the post-gazette there were omly 2 teams of the 22 teams in the district that did not have a losing season from 2000 thru 2010 washington and C-H. I would not compare C-H to Washington, but I am very shocked that they did not have a losing season from 2000- 2010 can you check this ouy

burg. blue devil said...

If that is true about C-H's 2000 to 2010 record, then that is impressive.

Also impressive is the fact Burgettstown has made the playoffs for 9 or 10 straight years. That streak probably will end here in 2012.

Anonymous said...

CH was 10 - 13 in 99-00, 6-16 in 00-01, 10-14 in 01-01, 11-12 in 02-03, 10-13 in 03-04, and then were 12-12 in 2004-05.

Anonymous said...

Not sure who cares about this,but here are the facts.I took over the program at C-H in the 01-02 season through 09-10 our record for any one who cares
01-02 12-12
02-03 13-12
03-04 11-13
04-05 12-12
05-06 13-11
06-07 14-11
07-08 12-12
08-09 12-10
09-10 13-7
in my 9 seasons we had 1 losing season. Coach Briggs is doing a very good job no need to give him a hard time. He is a good coach and a good man.
Blue Devil the boys are still in it, if they win out, and they have the ability to do so, they are in the playoffs.I wish them the best of luck as they finish out
Jerry Cypher

Anonymous said...

Did some research on anon 1-29-12 statement this is what I found I think it is correct info. Washington was the only team that did not have a losing season during that time. There were 3 teams that had only 1 losing season during that same time Burgettstown, South Fayette, and Chartiers-Houston. Also, in the answer to Burgettstown I believe they made the playoffs the last 9 years.