Houston Hoops’ H-Town Classic summary
Posted by texasbasketball14 on April 20, 2009
The Texas D-I Ambassadors (Carter) had quite a showing this past weekend in it’s first highly competitive tournament. We finished 5-1 for the weekend and it started defensively by holding teams to 63 points or under in each of our five wins.
Saturday morning we played the Kingwood Park Panthers, a high school team from the area. They ran us off picks, curling and flaring all over the place. They had a big strong post player who was difficult to guard. They consistently made us play defense for 30-45 seconds per possession. Guss Leeper paced us defensively with several blocks to close down the middle. We were in control for the entire game and had a balanced scoring attack. We took a 24-13 halftime score and turned into a 66-39 victory.
Our second game Saturday was against the Texas Select Slam. To be honest, I don’t know that we’ve ever seen a team defend like them in off-season basketball. They were in our grill everywhere we went. We were in control of the game by 6-8 points mostly, until the last 30 seconds. We never could put them away and get that key stop down the stretch. Jean Maurice Blanchard and Carl Meyertons did a great job of scoring inside and keeping us in it. With 8 second left, down 63-61, Alex Reinking made his first free-throw making it 63-62. He missed his second and we fouled quickly. There was about 5 seconds on the clock. The Slam missed the front end of the one and one. Austin Burch dribbled the ball up the floor and got it to Dylan Elias on the right wing. Elias shot the ball from about 22 feet, the horn went off, and……..BUTTER!!!!!! Game over, we won 65-63 and win our pool. That win put us in the Platinum bracket for the first time ever.
Our first game on Sunday morning was against the Hoop Stars. Once again, a game that was controlled by us for the most part, but we could never put them away. One of the hardest working teams we’ve played. They came back down the stretch from a 5 point deficit with 1:23 left and tied the game to go into overtime. In OT, we scored 4 straight points and prevailed 66-62. WHEW!!!
Next up was TCU Select Black. An extremely athletic team who wants to play at a very fast pace. Our guards handled the pressure and we loved the pace. Guss Leeper turned up the offense inside and controlled the paint. Jalen Harris and Dylan Elias broke down the press and were dishing assists left and right. Austin Burch knocked down open three after open three. Alex Reinking and Yusuf Abdullah paced our defensive efforts. We finally completed a game and finished correctly winning 81-62. This win put us into the final four, which was extremely exciting.
Sunday afternoon we are preparing to play our 3rd game of the day without two of our key players, Yusuf Abdullah and Alex Reinking. They both had to leave for an event back in Austin. We were playing the Texas Bluechips Navy. They had beaten the Houston Hoops on Saturday. They were a well coached team with great shooters and strong big guys. Fortunately, they decided not to cover our shooters. Austin Burch, Jalen Harris and Dylan Elias unleashed a bombardment of threes that had people in the gym shaking their heads. I am not sure how many we made officially, but I am confident it may have been as many 13. When the Bluechips took a lead mid-way through the second half, Jalen Harris hit 3 consecutive shots to stop the rally and take the wind out of their sails. Once again, we prevailed 59-55 to go into the Championship against the host, Houston Hoops.
The Championship game was tough. Both teams were exhausted and cramping up. Houston Hoops was just too deep and athletic for our seven man roster. We were not able to hit our shots and completely ran out of gas. Houston prevailed 68-46.
Great weekend over all!! Now we need to build on this success as we travel again to Houston for the Pearland Classic. There the J. Prince Hoopstars Elite and Louisiana Future await us. Let’s do it again!!
2009 H-Town Classic Runner-up / Platinum Division
