Hoops season arrives
Mitty girls, O’Dowd boys ranked nationally
No one knows what any of this will mean come March, whether basketball victories or losses in December — or January and February, for that matter — will carry much weight when championships are decided in the season’s final month. But for some area basketball teams, the early returns are pretty good.
The Mitty girls team, which brought back nearly everyone from last year’s squad that reached the state Open Division playoffs, is ranked No. 2 nationally in MaxPreps’ Top 25.
The Monarchs opened the season Saturday with a 78-52 victory over Bishop O’Dowd.
“That’s a storied program with a tradition of success,” coach Sue Phillips said about the Dragons. “As a coach, you’re looking to be better in certain areas. This team, because they’re so incredibly versatile, I am exploring a variety of different combinations and lineups.”
Mitty left Wednesday for Hawaii to take part in the ’Iolani Classic, a highlevel tournament that also will include Salesian, the team that beat Mitty in the state playoffs in March. Later this month, Mitty will be part of the Nike Tournament of Champions in Arizona.
“If you go by rankings, which is something in paper, there are a lot of people out there who think we’re pretty good,” Phillips said. “We — the coaching staff and kids — recognize that we still have a lot of work to do. Certainly, our goal is to be one of the last teams standing. But that remains to be seen.”
Boys basketball
Bishop O’Dowd has maybe the best boys victory thus far in California, a 70-63 win over Bishop Montgomery — Cal-Hi Sports’ preseason state No. 1 — at the Tip-Off Classic two weeks ago at Newark Memorial. O’Dowd, which fell to 17-15 last season after winning the state’s Open Division title with Ivan Rabb in 2015, is now ranked No. 19 nationally by MaxPreps.
The Mitty boys, n coming off a 15-14 season, opened Friday with a 9688 overtime win at home over Moreau Catholic, a team that made the state Open Division playoffs the past two seasons. Riley Grigsby, a 6-foot-5 junior forward, had 28 points and 14 rebounds for Mitty.
“It shows some of our resiliency,” Mitty coach Tim Kennedy said. “Just the amount of turnovers we had and the amount of offensive rebounds we gave up and still being able to pull out a game like that, it shows some toughness, which is impressive for this early on in the season.”
Moreau standout n Damari Milstead scored 44 points against Mitty. The 6-2 senior — rated among the state’s top prospects by 247Sports — had 27 points in a 72-63 season-opening win over Immanuel-Reedley at the Tip-Off Classic.
“He’s a real tough matchup,” Kennedy said. “He can hit shots going either way, left or right. He has knack for getting into your body and drawing contact. From a defensive standpoint, he has great timing getting into passing lanes and popping the ball out of you.”