Impressive numbers for Carmody
Items that fell off my laptop about the high school basketball regular season and upcoming playoffs.
You’ve heard of “double double” guys, players who average double figures in points and rebounds. But Michael Carmody was a player who had near “20-20” vision this regular season.
Carmody is a 6-foot-7, 290-pound mountain of a teenager at Mars who had one of the most unusual seasons of any player in recent WPIAL history. You’ll be hardpressed to come up with many players who averaged almost 20 points a game, but whose rebounds average was slightly higher.
Carmody, a senior, finished the regular season averaging 18.6 points in 19 games for Mars, the Post-Gazette’s No. 2-ranked WPIAL Class 5A team. But he also averaged 18.9 rebounds. He finished the regular season with 359 rebounds and 354 points.
Carmody also is a 1,000-1,000 player for his career, which also isn’t common. He enters the WPIAL playoffs with 1,118 points and 1,092 rebounds.
The Post-Gazette Fabulous 5 won’t come out until the end of the season. After one or two players, there seems to be maybe 10 others who might be deserving of the Fab
5. With the season he has had, Carmody looks like one of the candidates.
• Aquinas Academy freshman Vinnie Cugini finished as the WPIAL’s leading scorer during the regular season, averaging exactly 35 points. That’s “Vinsanity,” when you consider Cugini is only a freshman.
Cugini’s average is the third highest in the WPIAL in the past 40 years. Laurel Highlands’ Rob Kezmarsky averaged 36.2 in 1989-90 and Reuben Davis, another Laurel Highlands player, averaged 35.3 in 1983-84.
Cugini seemingly is on pace to break the WPIAL all-time scoring record of 2,838 points, set by Tom Pipkins of Valley from 1989-93. Pipkins scored only 473 points as a freshman and never averaged 30 points a game during the regular season in his career. But Pipkins played in 17 WPIAL and PIAA playoff games as a sophomore, junior and senior seasons and scored a number of points in those games.
Aquinas Academy finished 6-16 this season and in second-to-last place in Section 3 of Class 1A. If Aquinas Academy doesn’t make the playoffs in Cugini’s career, he would need to continue to average around 35 points a game to catch Pipkins.
• North Catholic girls coach Molly Rottmann has won eight WPIAL titles, which ties her with Mount Alvernia’s De Porucznik and Penn Hills’ Bill Lind for second all time. North Catholic is a heavy favorite to give Rottmann her ninth championship. Only one coach has won more than eight titles. North Catholic’s Don Barth, who coached Rottmann, won 11.
• Dan DeRose won his 100th game as Penn Hills’ boys coach in the Indians’ regular-season finale. That’s pretty impressive when you consider DeRose is in only his fifth season. His record is 100-24, good for a .806 winning percentage.
• Speaking of impressive coaching jobs, Bill Cleary deserves more props than he gets as Serra’s girls coach. Did you know he will surpass 650 wins next season? That’s impressive when you consider he’s in his 33rd season. He enters the postseason with a 640-193 record, good for a .768 winning percentage.
• South Allegheny has been one of the feel-good stories in WPIAL basketball this season, winning a section title for only the second time in school history and finishing 21-1. It will certainly be interesting to see how a team with little tradition will fare in the playoffs. But expect big things again from South Allegheny next season. The Gladiators don’t have a senior on the team.
• Only nine boys teams have won three consecutive WPIAL championships. But a threepeat could happen twice this season. Lincoln Park and Mars are both going for their third consecutive championships. Never before in WPIAL history have two teams won a third consecutive title in the same year. And don’t forget New Castle is going for a fourth consecutive championship.
On the girls side, North Catholic is going for its fourth consecutive championship.
• The Lincoln Park boys will play in Class 4A next season. The Leopards have decided to play “up” in class.
• The Chartiers Valley girls enter the WPIAL playoffs on a 52-game winning streak, just four victories short of the WPIAL record of 56, set by North Catholic from 1987-89. Tim McConnell is in his second year as
Chartiers Valley’s coach and this team is very much like some of the best teams he had in 25 years as Chartiers Valley’s boys coach. In other words, this Chartiers Valley girls team is loaded with shooters.
Chartiers Valley has four players with at least 25 3pointers. Aislin Malcolm leads with 56, Hallie Cowan has 49, Abby Vaites 30 and Megan McConnell, the coach’s daughter, has 25. The four of them are shooting a combined 40% (160 of 397) from 3-point range. And consider that Cowan, Malcolm and Vaites are all sophomores.
The 3-pointers will undoubtedly continue to fly in the postseason. It’s the way the Colts run. Chartiers Valley averages 50 shots a game and almost half of the attempts (23) are 3-pointers.
• North Catholic’s Tess Myers and Kylee Lewandowski have to be one of the best one-two punches in
WPIAL girls basketball in recent years. How many teams have had two players going into the WPIAL playoffs as a senior with both having well over 1,000 points. Myers and Lewandowski have more than 2,800 points between them. Myers has 1,529 while Lewandowski has 1,299.
By the way, Myers and Lewandowski will play against each other in college. Both have signed with teams in the Atlantic 10 Conference
— Myers with Duquesne and Lewandowski with Richmond.
• How fast the strong can sometimes fall: The Cornell girls played for a WPIAL title just three years ago. This year, Cornell finished 1-21 for the second consecutive season and averaged only 14 points a game. This after averaging only nine points last year.