Summer League Notes From Jersey City
by Ray Floriani
JERSEY CITY, N.J. – Getting to Hamilton Park for a mid-July officiating assignment, I was greeted as always by league director Pat Devaney. “Ray you will be working with Carmen (Valencia),” he said. “She’s from New York, she’s pretty good and she’s Andre Sweet’s mother.” Ironically Donald Copeland’s godfather worked the prior game, making it somewhat of a “Seton Hall” night at the downtown facility.
Officiating with the mother of a former Division I basketball player leads to quite an interesting angle. Andre Sweet starred at Rice High School in New York, and following high school he went off to play for Duke. Midway through his career he opted to transfer and played his last two years for Louis Orr at Seton Hall.
We had high school girl’s games on tap for the evening. The first one saw a local school, Holy Family Academy from Bayonne, battle an AAU team from Brooklyn. Holy Family has a good program, but they were no match for the visitors as they lost by over 20. To their credit, the Brooklyn coaches never rubbed it in. They had more talent and size but never full-court pressed, staying in a 2-3 zone all game. The coaches, as it turned out, were parents of a young lady who played for Stanford. It was refreshing to see an AAU team with coaches focused on teaching rather than running up a big score and destroying the opposition.
“You don’t see that (good coaching) all that much in AAU ball,” Carmen agreed at halftime. She has basically officiated all over New York City, but now will choose to not go certain places because the coaches and/or fans get too annoying.
Holy Family has a post player about six feet tall. She has a nice touch but chooses to shoot falling away rather than face the two inside players of the same size Brooklyn has underneath.
The game ends and there are about 10 minutes until the next contest. We discuss Andre’s collegiate playing days that ended a few years ago. Carmen wished her son never transferred. “He (Andre) had a good thing going at Duke,” she said. “I didn’t want him to transfer, but ultimately that was going to be his decision.”
She admitted that getting to the NBA was a tough call. But at Seton Hall Andre was asked to play the four, sometimes five spot. “He’s a natural three,” she said. “At Duke he could have kept his natural position, but it was his choice.”
She had good words to say about his Seton Hall coach Louis Orr, not just as a person but a coach as well. The one drawback was Orr’s handling of Justin Cerasoli, the talented guard who seemed to have a longer leash than other players. Cerasoli left the program after just one season (2004-05) and has since left Ole Miss, where he initially transferred.
Getting back to Andre, she noted this past season he played in Puerto Rico. “It’s a good situation,” Carmen said. “The area is beautiful, he has a nice condo. He enjoys it and hopes he can get a look and chance to play in Europe.” The days are gone where Europe is a lock. It’s tough to get placed in a good situation there. Still, there are favorable opportunities for those whose names are not called in late June.
The second game has one school short a player. The opposition agrees to allow Pat Devaney’s daughter, Ashley, a senior at Bayonne, to play for McNair. The game is not close as McNair has it all over the opposition. Ashley, at the guard spot is the best player on the floor. At one point the McNair coach jokingly hollers across the court to Pat, “when can we get the transfer papers ready?”
A few moments after the game, Carmen is giving tips to Ashley. She tells Ashley about her strong points but notes, “On the next level it’s not as easy to get in the lane. And when you do get in there are bigger players to contend with. You have to be ready and adjust.” Carmen then suggests a few moves and drills Ashley can incorporate in her regimen.
A mother, referee and former coach, Carmen takes all those qualities and simply wants to help kids. She has a daughter attending Central Connecticut who hopes to play there this season. She is also very well-versed on what is happening in the game today. She tells the story about bumping into Keydren Clark, a former St. Peter’s star who was a teammate of Andre’s at Rice. “I told him we were proud he was doing such a great job at St. Peter’s,” she recalled. “Kiki (Clark) simply said, ‘I could always shoot but in high school a lot of times I played behind Andre (Barrett).'”
Our third game of the night was scratched, a rare cancellation in a well-run league with high school boys, girls and grammar school division. The evening, though, gave an opportunity to get another interesting perspective and to work a few games with an excellent partner.
A night later brought another assignment of note: a battle of unbeaten teams with St. Anthony’s (11-0) facing Hudson Catholic (8-0). It saw new coach Damel Ling of Hudson facing a St. Anthony’s team he spent the last few years working for as an assistant. There was anticipation in the air. Hudson players arrived about forty minutes early, and stayed together and quietly stretched and prepared. St. Anthony’s had their regular Hamilton Park roster with A.J. Rogers, Tyshawn Taylor and Madut Bol, but tonight also added Rutgers-bound Mike Rosario. St. Anthony’s JV coach and assistant Ben Gamble ran the team while Bob Hurley took in the action at a fence behind the baseline.
For the first two minutes, there was a thought that this might be a close contest. Both teams traded baskets on two trips down and the score was tied at 4. Then the Friars went on one of their defensive-oriented transition basket tears to get out to a double-digit lead. Even when Hudson got back and stopped the break, Rosario was deadly from the perimeter, usually beyond the arc.
The final read 55-22 in the Friars’ favor, with too much transition and defensive pressure. To their credit, Hudson followed Ling’s lead and never stopped competing. Even with thirty seconds and probably in their last possession, Ling worked his ballclub.
As the teams left the floor a thought hit home. So many times St. Anthony’s goes into a game like this with the big-time reputation and could conceivably labeled the ‘hunted’. Once the ball goes up though, they quickly become the hunters.
