A solemn day
News of Kobe Bryant’s death casts shadow on local basketball showcase
Ray Barbosa's star was rising in 2002. That was the year Barbosa carried Allen on his back from a 5-12 start to both the league and district titles, capping the remarkable stretch with a 43-point effort against Emmaus in a double-overtime championship victory at Parkland.
That same basketball year, Kobe Bryant's star was also ascending as he helped the Lakers win their third straight NBA title.
Barbosa, like many high school players of that era, was a big Bryant fan.
Sunday afternoon, Barbosa, like most people, was shocked when told of the NBA legend's death in a helicopter crash in California.
Now in his second season as the head coach at Executive Education Academy Charter, Barbosa was down after his team suffered a 83-74 loss to York in the the 25th annual Lehigh Valley Hoop Group Showcase at Parkland.
But when Barbosa heard the news from California, he felt much worse.
“No way … wow,” Barbosa said. “The Lakers' Kobe Bryant? Wow. He was one of my favorite players of all time. It's tough to process it. It's tough to take. I can't believe it. It's heartbreaking for the entire basketball community.”
News spread throughout the gym during the Executive-York game. No announcement was made, but dozens of fans bowed their heads and looking incredulously at their cellphones as the news broke.
Executive scorekeeper Chris Muniz was sitting courtside when he heard the news, but didn't want to tell his son, Jevin, until after the game.
Jevin Muniz wears No. 24 in honor of Bryant. His Raptors teammate, Kobe Magee, received his name in honor of the former Lower Merion star.
“I used to watch him all the time,” Muniz said. “I watched his post moves, everything about him. He was just an inspiration. Twenty-four was my favorite number because of him.”
Magee said that when he was born, Bryant was the biggest star in the league.
“My mom named me after him and I used to watch motivational videos featuring Kobe Bryant,” Magee said. “He inspired me to play the game I play and it's sad to talk about it. But we've got to talk about it.”
The Hoop Group event is arguably basketball's biggest day in the Lehigh Valley and attracts one of the season's largest crowds.
The Bryant news breaking while the games were going on gave the hoops
fans a chance to console each other.
Rob Kennedy said he has a picture in his office of Bryant being interviewed by Blue Ridge Cable's Bob Capasso in 1996 during the first Hoop Group at Lehigh's Stabler Arena.
“I went up to the lobby after the first game and one of our staff members asked me if the news was real, and I was like ‘What?' and that's when I learned about it,” said Kennedy, Hoop Group's president, who started the event. “It's very sad. For a whole generation of kids, Kobe was their icon. The next icon was LeBron [James].”
Bryant led Lower Merion to the 1996 state championship and played Scranton in a second-round game at Liberty's Memorial Gym. In the quarterfinals, he played against Stroudsburg at Pottsville.
He also played in numerous events sponsored by the Hoop Group.
“He was on arguably the greatest AAU team ever with Tim Thomas and Vince Carter and played in our championship game in Tallahassee,” Kennedy said. “What's a real shame is that he was just getting started with his postbasketball career and was set up to do some big things. Like Magic [Johnson] owning a part of the Dodgers and Michael [Jordan] owning an NBA team, you just knew Kobe was going to be the next guy to become a force.”
Allen coach Doug Snyder has worked the NBA's Top 100 camp for prospective players in Virginia for 25 years and he never met Bryant, but he kept hearing stories about him.
“Everybody has talked about what kind of role model he was at the Top 100 camp as a high school player,” Snyder said. “When all the other players were laying down or resting, he was working on his skills day and night and day and night. Nobody played at that level or worked at that level and that's what I told my guys about him before the game.”
The results: With two overtime games and two others decided by three points apiece, the Hoop Group did a superb job of pairing teams.
Parkland (12-7) led throughout against Shipley but gave up a 3-pointer late in regulation to the Gators' Joey Gruzinski that led to overtime. Gruzinski delivered another trey with four seconds left to beat the Trojans 65-63 in the day's first game.
“We were just one rebound away from sealing it, but we couldn't get our hands on the ball,” Parkland coach Andy Stephens said. “I've told the kids that we have three big division games coming up … and we can't let this affect us psychologically. We're disappointed because we thought we played well enough to win. But we have to bounce back.”
Nick Rappa was saluted as Parkland's MVP after he scored 14 points and added 14 rebounds and four assists.
Executive experienced similar disappointment after rallying from 10 down to force overtime. In the extra period, York outscored the Raptors 19-10.
Muniz scored 29 points and Magee 21 for Executive (10-6).
“We just didn't play our best basketball today,” Barbosa said. “We struggled with 16 turnovers and gave up 15 offensive rebounds. We sticked with them into overtime. We worked hard to get back into it and then we let it slip away in the first couple of minutes of OT.”
Allen (14-4) had a 48-40 lead at one point, but couldn't hold on against Malvern Prep, which got a 39-point effort from Deuce Turner, who moved past Wilt Chamberlain and into second place on Philadelphia's all-time scoring list.
“We had a couple of guys who didn't come to practice yesterday and some other guys who were banged up, so we played a little shorthanded,” Snyder said. “We played against a guy who scored 39 and is No. 2 in Philly history with more than 2,000 points and another 1,000-point scorer, and had trouble matching up with them defensively. The hope is by playing a team like that, we got better.”
In the one game not involving a local team, Blair Academy held off Westtown, 71-68, as four players scored in double figures.