rjonas, Thu, February 14th, 2008

Some observations from last weekend’s Suburban Council Tournament at Albany’s Washington Avenue Armory:

• Guilderland is the best balanced boys basketball team (try saying that five times fast) in the Suburban Council, and that’s why the Dutchmen are the best hope that the Suburban Council has to end the Big 10’s stranglehold on the class AA title.

Watching Guilderland beat Colonie 61-56 in Sunday’s Division I final, it’s going to be difficult for any team to shut down the Dutchmen’s offense for an entire game. If a team focuses on stopping Brett Marfurt (which many will, given that he’s the league’s Player of the Year), Guilderland has at least four good options to turn to – Andrew Smith, Dan Gejay, Kevin Kost and Jon Terry. Any of them can easily hit for 10 points, and on a good day Smith, Kost and Terry can each hit for 15 or more points.

Case in point: when Colonie got within three points of Guilderland late in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game and took Marfurt out of the Dutchmen’s offensive flow, Smith stepped up with a pair of driving layups that effectively ended the Garnet Raiders’ comeback bid. Terry also came up big when the situation called for it, driving for tough shot after tough shot on his way to a 16-point night – second only to Marfurt’s 24 points.

By contrast, Colonie’s offense seemed to flow through only its big three of Tashan Newsome, Herb Tedford and Jim Bacher. I don’t have an accurate statistic of who took what shots, but it seemed like Newsome, Tedford and Bacher took close to 80 percent of Colonie’s shots against Guilderland. The shots were more evenly split between Guilderland’s starting five of Marfurt, Smith, Gejay, Kost and Terry.

Granted, when you have three talented shooters like Newsome, Tedford and Bacher, you’d much rather see them shoot the ball than pass it to someone else. But if Colonie has any hopes of making a run at the class AA title, it can’t afford to have anything happen to those three players – either foul trouble or injuries. If one of them has to leave the game, more than likely that would spell disaster for the Garnet Raiders.

Guilderland’s depth makes the Dutchmen a more likely Suburban Council candidate to get to the class AA finals. It doesn’t mean they will get there, especially since they will have to likely go through Christian Brothers Academy in the semifinals, but I’d rather go to battle with five offensive options than two or three.

• I like how the Shenendehowa and Bethlehem girls basketball teams play defense. Shen’s full-court press is disruptive, and Barb Shea and Carey Turner are great at poking the ball out of a player’s hands. On the other side, Bethlehem is tenacious at pursuing the ball in its half-court set, and Sarah Thompson and Alex McCullough are great at rebounding.

The one thing that will prevent Shen or Bethlehem from beating Amsterdam – the state’s No. 1 ranked class AA team – in Sectionals is their offenses. Shen still has difficulty shooting from the perimeter with accuracy, and Bethlehem’s offense is inconsistent. Neither is a good quality when facing a tough all-around opponent like Amsterdam.

The defenses will keep Shen or Bethlehem in the game, but the offenses may prevent them from winning the Sectional title.

• The Washington Avenue Armory was a gracious host to this year’s Suburban Council Tournament, but its urban location seemed hardly fitting for a tournament featuring suburban teams. Perhaps that’s why the arena was only half-filled at best for Sunday’s Division I finals. People didn’t want to drive into midtown Albany, look for on-street parking and then walk as many as three blocks to get to the door. A more fitting suburban location such as Siena College’s Alumni Recreation Center or the University at Albany’s SEFCU Arena might have brought out bigger crowds.

We’ll never know the answer, though. The Suburban Council Tournament won’t be renewed next year as the league shifts to a two-division format. That means each team will play a 16-game league schedule, eliminating the need for the post-season tournament. Oh well.

Maybe the Washington Avenue Armory can host Sectional playoff games. I’d imagine people would jam the old castle-like brick building for a class AA boys semifinal game between Bishop Maginn and Colonie, except that the class AA semifinals are in Glens Falls. Some sort of contractual obligation, I think.

Actually, I’d like to know the purpose of having any class AA boys playoff games in Glens Falls. There isn’t a class AA team within 10 miles of Glens Falls. It seems like an inconvenience to keep sending class AA teams up to the Glens Falls Civic Center for one round before holding the finals at the Times Union Center.

Perhaps there’s some sentimental reason for it, seeing as how the class AA finals haven’t been held in Glens Falls in several years. Maybe Section II feels guilty for moving the class AA finals to Albany and wants to give North Country folks a chance to see the big schools play. That would be the most logical reason – honoring the tradition that is playing in the Glens Falls Civic Center in March.

Sentiment can only go so far, though. Holding the class AA boys semifinals at the Washington Avenue Armory won’t deprive downtown Glens Falls of anything except one night of revenue. Hardly a cause for concern since Glens Falls hosts all the other Sectional finals, as well as the state and Federation tournaments.

Hosting 12 games in two days with the same level of professionalism as when it hosts an Albany Patroons home game makes me believe the Washington Avenue Armory deserves two class AA Sectional playoff games.

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