St. Edward's Marsalis Hamilton will be one to watch underneath the basket for the Eagle team this winter.By Larry Sheehe
Correspondent
LAKEWOOD A good start.
Five games into 2011-2012 basketball season, St. Edward Head Coach Eric Flannery's Eagles have a (3-2) record with wins over Lake Catholic, Villa Angela St. Joseph and Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary, the last a 66-63 squeaker at St. Ed's last Friday night.
The Eagles, who have a 10-day break in their schedule before traveling to Myrtle Beach, S.C. to play four games in the 16-team Beach Ball Classic, lost their season opener, a 102-93 double-overtime heart-breaker to perennially powerful St. John Jesuit in Toledo and, most recently, to a very good Cleveland Heights team, 63-58, last Saturday.
The 2010-2011 Eagles were a young team (four seniors) that finished the season with an 18-6 record, before bowing out to Garfield Heights, 79-72 in the Regional Semifinals. Two of the graduating seniors, sharp-shooting guards Delbert Love and Kyle Pisco, were multi-year starters. A third starter, junior guard Elijah Brown, now attends national basketball powerhouse Mater Dei High School in Los Angeles where his family moved after his father, former Cleveland Cavalier Head Coach Mike Brown, was named the coach of the NBA Los Angeles Lakers this summer.
“I think we were just beginning to scratch the surface of how good (Elijah) could be,” said Flannery of the younger Brown who would have been one of the premier juniors in Ohio this season. “The good news is, he’s going to be fine playing at Mater Dei. It just gives another guy another opportunity to play for us. That’s kind of how we look at those things when somebody gets hurt or somebody goes down: it’s just another opportunity for somebody else.”
Despite the hole created by the loss of the three guards, Flannery's cupboard is not bare. Senior starters Myles Hamilton (6-1) and Mike Newton (5-10) return to form the Eagles starting back court.
"I think that's going to be our strength," said Flannery. "I think when you bring back your starting point guard, (Newton) that he kind of stabilizes everything. And Myles now gets to move over into kind of a guard role, which is probably his true role. So, we're getting two seniors there at those positions who can still handle it and play. James Crawford (5-10 senior) is our first guy off the bench and he was our back-up point guard last year. So we're bringing back our starting and back-up point guards to this year's team. We definitely have lost a lot of perimeter scoring. Three-point shooting is going to be hard to come by this year, but I think we have guys that can score in other ways. And it's our job to put those guys in positions to use their abilities to score."
The remaining starters are 6-3 senior guard/forward, Mark Murray, 6-6 senior center/forward Mike Mason and a 6-3 sophomore guard/forward in Marsalis Hamilton.
“Mark Murray played some quality minutes for us off the bench,” continued Flannery. “Mike Mason had a knee injury last year and missed most of last year. We are a little bit bigger and longer. Even at the guard spot, when you have Myles Hamilton at 6-0 and Mark Murray at 6-3, and then Marsalis Hamilton at 6-3, we have a few bigger guards. We don’t have the luxury of a true big big-guy, but I think we’re a little bit bigger, stronger and we have a little bit more length this year.”
The remainder of the Eagle roster consists of senior guard Kevin Boyer (5-10), senior forwards Kevin Craighead (6-4) and Joseph Dever (6-3), junior guard Royal Eddie (6-1), junior forwards Tim Stainbrook (6-3) and Colin Popson (6-3), junior center Brandon Simpson (6-5) and sophomore guard Tony Vuyancih (6-2).
“I like our team. I like our makeup,” said Flannery. “We have eight seniors on the team this year, which is somewhat rare to have that many seniors on a basketball team. (They’re) quality kids. As much as we lost last year, we still have a lot of experience on this basketball team. I think we have more of a blend than we did last year. I think we’re still more guard-heavy, guard-focused. We are going to continue to play up-tempo. However, this year, different that last year, I think we are capable of playing more half-court basketball and being competitive with teams that have size. I think we can be a little bit more comfortable playing them more half-court and trying to slow the game down, if needed. So, we are a little bit different than last year, but this year’s team is probably more similar to last year than any other of the teams that I’ve had. If you’re going to win you’ve got to have good guards. And we’ve got them. So that’s why I think we’ll definitely be competitive with a lot of teams because of our guard play.”
In the Beach Ball Classic, the Eagles have a first game match-up with undefeated (14-0) and nationally ranked St. Augustine of New Orleans, the top-ranked team in Louisiana. The tournament, a virtual who’s who of national prep basketball powers, also includes Whitney Young (Chicago), (four-time Utah state champion) Lone Peak and Las Vegas (Nevada) Bishop Gorman, a team that starts three of the top 150 prep players in the nation.
After returning from South Carolina, the Eagles have home games against St. Ignatius, Willoughby South, Strongsville, Garfield Heights, and Benedictine. They will play Warren Harding and Huntington (West Va.) Prep in Sunday afternoon contests at CSU’s Woodling Gym and University of Akron’s JAR Arena, in addition to traveling to Toledo Central Catholic, Columbus Northland, St. Ignatius and Shaker Heights.