Friday at the 2009 Sabes Invitational

3 sessions on a light day 1 of the 2009 Howard Pulley Sabes Invitational.

Session 1
Grassroots featuring Kevin Noreen and Carlos Emory from MN Pump N Run. They're playing ECI with Joe Terfehr but no contest in the first few minutes that I watch as Grassroots jumps out to a 12-1 lead. Howard Pulley White leading early after MSB got out to a quick 7-2 start. Playground Elite 16s vs Comets 16s. Much to my horror, Jayme Moten has taken Minnesota's greatest hair and turned it into cornrows. I couldn't find Kevin Mays or Darrell Longstreet for Playground Elite, 22-21 late in the 1st half. Ah, Longstreet is playing up with the Playground Elite 17s as they lead Team Nebraska 40-31 at the half. But their 2nd half defense of pick and roll is porous at best. Up 3 late, Playground turns it over for a layup. Cinmeon Bowers (big body, that surprised me as I thought he was Jon Macklin) with 1 of 2 with 30 seconds left for a 2 point game. A Team NE miss, 1 of 2 and the miss putback by Playground and they win 72-69. Howard Pulley Black all over All Iowa Attack Black 47-27 when I first look in. AIA cuts it to 14 with 7:30 to go but HP rolls from there 74-50. Chad Calcaterra with 3 blocks that I saw.

Session 2
I stay in the main gym for KC Pump N Run vs SYF in the only 17U game of the session (schedule changes), but anybody worth noting for SYF wasn't there (i.e top 10 stud Dominique Ferguson). 18-13 SYF with 8:15 left in the 1st half when KC PNR goes 2-3 zone and SYF has no answer. The zone works for a 20-5 run to end the half, 33-23 KC. The lead gets cut to 6 and then 5 late but Trevor Releford won't let KC lose. They win 70-65. U of M visitor Ricky Kreklow with a nice performance in this one and there was no good answer for Releford. Moral of the story, watch SYF again tomorrow.

Session 3
The main event of the night and we event have the Star Tribune on hand watching Harrison Barnes and All Iowa Attack Red against the Illinois Warriors. We get underway late thanks to the Warriors late arrival, but after a quick warmup, its only 5 minutes late. After a 6-0 Warriors start, Attack responds with a 12-2 run of their own for a 12-8 lead at 11:45. Oregon State signee Ahmad Starks then goes nuts for the Warriors once, twice and give me all 3 of these sick step back triples. Add in a layup for 11 straight Warriors points. 24-21 Warriors with 7 minutes left in the half. Brandon Spearman then with a triple and coast to coast to beat the halftime buzzer and that cuts the Attack lead to 39-35 at the break. Spearman 11 and 5, Starks 3 triples for 13 points for the Warriors. Harrison Barnes 12 and 8 with a block but only 4-12 shooting and Zach McCabe with 8 points for All Iowa Attack.

Barnes keeping it going in the 2nd half. 52-45 Attack leads with 11:21 left and Barnes has 20. 57-56 Attack with 7:30 to play but Barnes starts a run with a layup and a dunk. Add on an Attack triple and the lead is out to 8 with 5 minutes to play. Then Antonio Jones explodes. He has a sweet putback dunk and on the next possession he goes up with 1 hand grabs a rebound and cocks it back and almost rips the rim off while getting fouled to send the crowd into a frenzy. He also had an earlier putback dunk that got caught on front iron that would have been huge too. That dunk was even better than Carlos Emory posterizing Marquis Mason 2 weeks ago. But he misses the FT and the Attack still lead by 1, 68-67, with 2:15 left. Spearman getting the assigment guarding Barnes down the stretch but after the teams trade buckets he fouls out on a cheap foul with 1:32 left. Dwayne Evans goes back to guarding Barnes and Barnes immediately takes him for a lefty layup with 1:20 left. Attack by 3 at that point and Barnes with a block on the other end. Starks with a bucket with 1 minute left as the Warriors got the loose ball and then Starks with the steal with 30 seconds left. He throws the lob to Jones who almost gets undercut. He makes the 1st and misses the 2nd but the misses is tipped out of bounds to the Warriors with 21.6 left. We're tied at 72. The Attack give 3 fouls on Starks, the last with 4.6 left and then put Barnes on Starks for the final play from around halfcourt. Starks gets the ball in the backcourt, goes by Barnes and has a clean look at an NBA 3 that's no good and we'll play OT.

A quick trade of buckets to start the OT. Barnes cuts the Warriors lead to 2 with 1:03 left before Jones gets another dunk, this time on a alley-oop. The Warriors then try to give the game away. They miss a front end of the bonus, then leave Zach McCabe for 3 and miss another 1 and 1 with 20.9 left. The entire building knows where this ball is going. Barnes gets the inbounds, brings it across the timeline and uses a high-screen to his left. 8.2 left when the whistle blows. Its one of our favorite officials Al Sharpton and he's got a 5 second call on Barnes. WOW! Barnes had the ball the entire time (12.7), but with the high screen you usually get separation. Can't say if the call was good or bad, but it was gutsy. After 1 Warriors FT, the Attack have 1 more chance with the ball being inbounded from halfcourt. Barnes gets the ball 15 FT away right baseline and tries to go up over a double team. No chance and the Warriors win 82-80 in a classic.

For All Iowa Attack Red, Harrison Barnes finishes with 31, 11 and 3 blocks on my stat sheet. I had him 10-25 from the field and 10-12 from the line. Zach McCabe with 19 points. Lefty Brandon Stubbs did a nice job on both ends against the quicker Warriors guards. Trayvonn Wright continued to build on his nice performance at the Jayhawk Invitational last week. He's a thin 6'8 but he's a nice presence on the defensive end for them.

For the Illinois Warriors. Ahmad Starks finishes with 20 points. Definitely the leader of the team, quick and a streaky shooter. Brandon Spearman with 15 points. Both him and Dwayne Jones were very physical when guarding Barnes which I think contributed to the poor shooting performance.