Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oy

I've got a beef with Australia. Not all of Australia, exactly. Just a small portion of it. That portion dedicated to developing websites with basketball statistics.

Hoops stats aren't complicated, and database-driven web design isn't exactly particle physics. Plenty of American basketball folks have built incredibly user-friendly, information-rich portals to greater roundball insight. Ken Pomeroy comes to mind, as do the folks at Basketball State, among a very many others. Individual leagues and teams, too, do a nice job collating and displaying information. Of note, the CAA, GTB's league of choice, has a particularly nice stats package, as does the Tribe.

Down Under, though, some combination of copious sunshine and Coriolis Effect seems to have conspired to render easily-accessible statistical analysis more rare than the black kookaburra.

Case in point, the Sydney Kings. The last place team in the NBL certainly has a colorful website, but I'll be damned if I can easily find anything worth a damn on it. And I'll be dipped in Vegemite if I can find a simple table of Kings season statistics. There's a 'Stats and Ladders' link, but that takes one to the NBL's website, where it requires several more clicks to finally get to a comprehensive table.

Where the league can't even agree on how many decimal places to use. Jerome Randle of the Adelaide 36ers led the league with 23 points per game. Not 23.0, like a right-thinking American league would say. No, just plain old 23. Meanwhile, Corey Webster of the New Zealand Breakers averaged 20.48. He's obviously a more precise player.

I waded through this morass of Aussie numberjumble to track Marcus Thornton's progress during his rookie season as a professional. What I learned, for the most part, is that the greatest player in W&M history has some work to do. While he had some bright spots (I'd tell you more about them, but I can't fucking find game by game stats for individual players.), he finished the season as the 6-22 Kings' fifth-leading scorer, tallying 12.75 (precise!) points per game on 37.7% shooting (only 28% from deep). His assist totals were modest as well, which doesn't augur good things for a player learning to play the point.

In January, the Sydney Daily Telegraph published a generally critical story on Thornton, which featured Kings' coach Joe Connelly's criticism of his young guard and his need to improve his distribution and defense in order to have a chance at the next level. “I think he needs to work on doing other things beside scoring. If you look at the stat sheet, he played 22 minutes (against Illawarra) and had one rebound and (one) assist, and you’ve got to do more things than just try to put the ball in the hole. To his credit he was trying to be aggressive, he got to the hole and missed some easy shots, but the game is more than scoring."

The erstwhile Wren seemed to wear down as his first professional season wore on, his scoring dropping from the 15+ points/game he scored in his first ten games. In all, it appears that the game taught young Thornton some lessons the hard way in his first campaign.

But all we know about Thornton suggests that he's a willing and hard worker, and while year one might not have gone as planned, that's about exactly how his freshman year in Williamsburg went. And that situation turned out pretty well.

Maybe there's hope for the Aussie hoops web after all.

Go Ask Alice

We watched a William & Mary basketball player compete at the NBA Combine yesterday.

I'll let that sentence sit there for a minute.




For many college basketball fans, that doesn't even merit a second thought. Andrew and Aaron Harrison were in Chicago for the Combine yesterday, too, by I doubt many Kentucky fans spent much time thinking about it. But for us, this is the stuff of fantasy bizarro realms, like unicorns, or Clarence's magic liver restoratives.

Marcus Thornton recorded the fastest time amongst all players in the 3/4 court run. He registered the day's second-highest vertical leap, reaching 43". (Notre Dame's Pat Connaughton went 44" - the second highest mark ever recorded.) And he scored 10 points (on 2-5 FGs and 6-6 FTs), grabbed four rebounds and dropped two assists in five on five play, proving at the very least that he belonged on the court.

Courtesy of William and Mary Sports Blog, here's what ESPN's Fran Fraschilla had to say about Thornton (with a bonus Seth Greenberg shoutout to Tony Shaver***):

*** - Go to the link if you want to hear the comments, as it seems Facebook's video embed code doesn't play nicely with Blogger's editor.

Fraschilla's probably right: Marcus' realistic ceiling this year is a high-level European league. (Although, earlier in the day, Fran described Marcus as a potential second-round steal.) But a W&M player stood toe to toe with guys that'll be on NBA rosters. And there's no reason to think it impossible that he'll be one of them some day.

The Mad Hatter suddenly seems sane.

The Twelve Days of Gheorgemas: Day 4

On the fourth day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Four Years of Marcus
Three Scummers Picking;
Two albums to look forward to; and
A fat guy in a jersey

At nearly every other school in college basketball's Division I ranks, the arrival of a skinny 6'4" kid with a good but not 5-star pedigree would be almost entirely unremarkable. Kids like that are roster fodder at the Dukes, Kentuckys, and Arizonas of the world.

But at William & Mary, still one of only five original NCAA programs never to have advanced to the NCAA tournament (stop me if you think that you've heard this one before), it heralded a four-year stretch that resembled nothing in the program's less-than-storied history. For the Wrens, Marcus Thornton was, is, and likely always will be sui generis.

Recruited by Jamion Christian, Thornton honored his commitment when the now-Mount St. Mary's coach joined Shaka Smart's VCU staff. Even after the 2011 Gatorade Maryland State Player of the Year signed with W&M, there were those that questioned whether his slight build would withstand the rigors of what was at the time a very tough mid-major conference, home to nightly rockfights, and players like VCU's 6'9", 235-lb Juvonte Reddic and Delaware's 6'9", 240-lb Jamelle Hagins.

It was a play against the latter mid-way through Thornton's first season that first got our attention. From our post that week:

With 8:04 remaining in W&M's game against Delaware, and the Tribe trailing by 8, freshman Marcus Thornton drove the lane, elevated, and cocked his arm back with malicious intent. Delaware's Jamelle Hagins, a 6'9", 240-pound sophomore who averages 2.6 blocks per game, rose to meet him. As the 6'3" Thornton's hammer dunk attempt crashed against the back of the rim and rebounded high in the air, I leapt from my couch with an audible gasp.   

Thornton's missed dunk was notable not for the result, but for its sheer audacity. Never in my 23 years as a Tribe fan (dear, sweet God in heaven - 23 years?) have I ever seen a W&M player even contemplate such a play. It was at once thrilling for what it portends and sobering for what it illustrates about the Tribe's current state of affairs.

Though W&M scuffled to a sadly not untypical 6-26 record that season, Thornton averaged 11.1 points per game playing in the shadow of W&M great Quinn McDowell. The freshman scored 28 in a memorable overtime loss to VCU, making 10 of 12 from the floor and 5 of 6 from the three-point line against a team that would eventually reach the Final Four. He was named to the CAA All-Rookie team, and served notice of his potential.

There were rumors after that season, possibly apocryphal, but entirely believable to the fragile-minded W&M fan, that several ACC schools inquired about Thornton's interest in transferring to a level where his athletic ability and obvious skill might be more suited. I have no idea if those whisperings were ever more than myth, but I choose to believe that Thornton stayed at William & Mary because he's a loyal kid who liked his coach and his school and his teammates.

Thornton made the leap in his sophomore season, becoming the guy in the wake of McDowell's graduation. His scoring average jumped to 18.8 ppg as he improved his shooting percentages to .440 from the floor and .435 from deep (from .371 and .336, respectively). He was named to the All-CAA Second Team, and became the third W&M player ever to be named First-Team NABC All-District (I don't have any more idea what that is than you do). He became a more consistent scorer, dropping double figures in all 30 games, even as he battled a tendency to play a bit too fast, turning the ball over a career-high 3.1 times per game. The Tribe improved by seven games, finishing at 13-17 and losing in the CAA Tournament quarterfinals.

In 2013-14, his junior year, Thornton and his teammates faced an entirely new challenge: expectations. Despite our preseason attempts to deny the obvious, W&M entered last season as a team on the rise. And despite the occasional stumble, Tony Shaver's squad at least met expectations, finishing third in the CAA with a 10-6 conference record (20-12 overall). Thornton remained a consistently dangerous scorer, despite being the focus of opponents' defensive game plans. He averaged 18.7 points per game and was named first team All-CAA, and almost carried W&M all the way to the dance.

Numbers don't tell the entire story with Thornton, though he's on pace to put up some of the most dazzling digits in W&M history. Even as Shaver has steadily improved the overall quality and depth of W&M's program, bringing in highly competitive CAA players like McDowell, Tim Rusthoven, and current sophomore Omar Prewitt, never in William & Mary's 322 years has a player with Thornton's combination of skill, athleticism, and that-guy stone-cold killer instinct worn green and gold. Athletic arrogance, we've called it here before, intangible but obvious in the way the greats carry themselves, their body language speaking volumes. Thornton has it in spades, and in truckloads greater quantities than any Tribe player before him.

As evidence, the single greatest Tribe basketball moment I believe I'll ever witness, authored by Thornton last January:


It's a measure of how Thornton has changed our expectations for W&M hoops that he had a hand in authoring perhaps the single most disappointing Tribe basketball moment I may ever witness, too. His last-second 18-footer against Delaware in the 2014 CAA Final looked good, right up to the moment when it didn't.

Never in my life did I expect a W&M player to hit a game-winning shot to send us to the NCAA Tournament. But I did with Marcus. Not once did I make it a point to attend a Kenner League game just to see one guy, one of our own, at that. I did that twice for Marcus. Never have I asked a serious question about whether a W&M player might be able to make an NBA roster. I do with Marcus, even it it's a longshot. And never, not ever, did I go to a W&M game knowing that our team had the best player on the floor. For at least three years now, I do with Marcus.

We're down to the final 22 games or so of his sublime collegiate career (depending upon how far W&M advances in March), with Thornton predictably scoring 18.9 points per game despite a slow start (his career-high 37 against Richmond helped push that average back where it belongs). As of this writing, he's 383 points from becoming W&M's all-time leading scorer and 34 three-pointers from passing David Schneider to top that category's leaders. The young Tribe owns a somewhat disappointing 5-3 record after a pair of close losses to Richmond and High Point.

But as a very wise man on social media once said, #inmarcuswetrust. And so we do, for just a few more months. It would be a shame, to some degree, if the finest player ever to take the court for the home team in Kaplan Arena were to complete his college career without a postseason tournament appearance. It would not, though, diminish what Marcus Thornton means to William & Mary. It's been an honor and a joy to watch that skinny, dreadlocked 6'4" kid from Maryland play for our team.

If Not Now, When? If Not Us, Who? Or Is It Whom?

In March, gutted, we posted this:

"But W&M has made three finals in seven years after a recent history devoid even of hope. We're brutally disappointed today, but there will be a tomorrow. As Tony Shaver said last night, "The thing I get angry about is people trying to define whether or not you made the NCAA Tournament as whether you had a good year. If our goal is to make the NCAA Tournament, we can move into a conference that has the same academic restrictions we have. We choose to play at a higher level. I think that's admirable to be honest. We're not going to let the NCAA Tournament define our team." (We're grateful to Defiantly Dutch for finding us that quote.)

In 2003, the New York Yankees came from behind to beat the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series on an Aaron Boone walkoff homerun. That's the worst I ever felt after a sporting event. Second worst, I guess. But one year later, that pain was long forgotten."

Today, on the cusp of a new season, hope's eternal wellspring is renewed, and we're a few short months away from one year later. Time will tell whether we're Kevin Millar or Charlie Brown. (I've asked TJ to frost his tips, Millar-style, to bring the Wrens luck. Still awaiting his answer.)

Hoping to give a few more fan bases that look.

I've spent the last few days trying to figure out a unique angle on this campaign, but the dominant storyline is so obvious as to be unavoidable. There's only one angle. The greatest player in W&M history plays his last season in green and gold. Last March, Marcus Thornton was a quarter of an inch from sending the Tribe to its first NCAA Tournament ever. This season is about him.

Thornton begins his senior season with 1,519 points, best in school history over the first three seasons of a player's career. He trails Chet Giermak, W&M's all-time top scorer, by 532. While it's not a foregone conclusion, Thornton scored 599 points last year, so Giermak's mark is in sight. Thornton also enters the season second in Tribe history with 223 made three-pointers, trailing David Schneider's knuckling jumper by 55. Marcus is also in the top 5 among returning NCAA Division 1 players in career threes.

Beyond the numbers, though, Thornton's the most electric player ever to wear a Tribe uniform, a gym rat who's added a new dimension to his game in each of his seasons in Williamsburg. When we checked in on him this summer, his even-keeled, no drama demeanor was augmented with a bit of an edge, a hardness in the final minutes of a decidedly informal game that we'd only seen glimpses of before. As one of only two seniors on what's suddenly a very young Tribe team, Thornton's going to be called on to lead in a very different way.

The CAA's beat writers tapped Thornton as the league's preseason Player of the Year, while picking the Tribe to finish second behind Northeastern. Though last year's conference Rookie of the Year, Omar Prewitt, joined Thornton on the all-league first team, and Tony Shaver's team is just one year removed from a 20-win season and a CAA finals appearance, there are those that question such lofty expectations. W&M lost six seniors, including career 1,000-point scorers Tim Rusthoven and Brandon Britt, and athletic wing Kyle Gaillard.

All hands on deck on defense around the rim this season.

Despite Thornton's reassuring presence, there's no escaping the fact that this will be a very different flock of Wrens than the one we've watched grow up over the past few seasons. W&M has a roster with excellent size - no eligible player is listed as shorter than 6'4". Ironically, with all that height, the team's biggest question mark will be the frontcourt. 6'9" junior Sean Sheldon averaged 3.4 points and 3.0 boards a game backing up Rusthoven last season, and while he's added muscle (and adopted a Rusthoven-esque longer hairstyle), he'll be hard-pressed to match the departed center's production. Senior Tom Schalk and redshirt freshman Jack Whitman fill out (in a manner of speaking) W&M's interior options. Deep, we ain't.

The size and skill of the guards and wings on Shaver's roster, though, offer the veteran coach a fascinating menu of potential options. The projected opening-day lineup pairs 6'4" redshirt freshman Michael Schlotman with Thornton in the back court, while 6'6" soph wing Prewitt, and hard-working 6'5" junior Terry Tarpey join Sheldon along the front line. 6'6" freshman Oliver Tot is a long-armed, strong guard with international experience, having played for the Slovakian men's national team. 6'5" guard Daniel Dixon blossomed as a defensive stopper and occasional scorer during his freshman season. 6'8" freshman wing Paul Rowley needs to gain weight and learn to create his own shot, but he's deadly from deep, and if he can prove he can defend his position, may get some run.

Tot jokes? Why yes, we have some of those.

As is usually the case for a Tony Shaver team, we expect this group to be able to score on just about anyone, especially given the versatility of the unit, though we'll be looking in the early weeks of the season to see who emerges as a reliable third scoring option. The challenge for these Wrens, though, will be on the boards, and in the defensive end. Teams with talented big men will be a tall order (my bad) for the Tribe's youthful front court. Northeastern's Scott Eatherton, in particular, has to be salivating at the chance to take on this roster twice. Tarpey's a tough, athletic hardass, and led the team in rebounding last season, but he's going to be playing the four at 6'5".

We're less than three weeks away from the season-opener at (gulp) Florida. The non-conference schedule offers several decent tests, all on the road (the Tribe plays at the Gators, UNC, Richmond, and ODU), and a handful of winnable confidence-builders. More than most years, the out of conference slate is a feeling out opportunity. We'll be perfectly happy with 5-5, as long as it looks like progress, and we've figured out how we're going defend the post.

This Tribe season starts for all practical purposes on January 3, when W&M hosts the College of Charleston. We know better than to make predictions about our team, and we know from painful recent experience the pitfalls that come with even the most mildly positive expectations for Tribe hoops. But as the hashtag goes, #inmarcuswetrust, now more than ever, if only for a few more months.

This Week in Wrenball: In Which the Basketball Gods Smote the Weather Gods

We follow sports for lots of reasons. We do it for a sense of community, for tribal affiliation (pun only intended after the fact). We do it for camaraderie, for bonding with friends across time and distance. And we do it on the off chance that we might get to witness the moment, the holy shit cathartic yawping joy that happens when preparation meets opportunity meets sublime skill and the best of luck.

We just can't quit you, Wawa.

Yesterday in Philadelphia, the Teej and I were blessed by the fates, and got to see a pair of the best basketball games we could've imagined, capped by one of the top five individual performances either of us have ever seen from a William & Mary player. We also spent two hours driving through a snowstorm, visited the same rural Maryland Wawa twice, raged impotently at Philly's snow removal efforts (mostly, the lack thereof), solved a young man's life problems, connected with old friends in the CAA hoops community and met some new ones, drank beer with an Irishman, and blew up on Twitter. To borrow from the noted bard Ice Cube, it was a good day.

A view from the Uecker seats at La Salle.

Despite encountering an unexpected (mostly because we hadn't bothered to check the weather forecast) snowstorm, we arrived at La Salle's Tom Gola Arena ten minutes before the noon tip between the Explorers and VCU. In another nod to our lack of preparation, we nearly missed out on getting seats to the sold out contest, lucking into a pair that VCU had returned. Bob Uecker would've called our seats bad, but in the 3,400-seat old school field house, no seats were truly awful.

At various points in the game, each team appeared ready to run their opponent off the floor. VCU led by 11 midway through the first half, but a combination of poor free throw shooting and indifferent halfcourt offense (note to those filling out an NCAA Tournament bracket - if the Rams face a team that protects the basketball and can defend a bit in the halfcourt, they might be in trouble, though FOGTB @VCULitos disagrees) allowed La Salle to creep back to within four at the half.

The roles were reversed in the second frame, as the Explorers took a 10-point lead with 5:15 to play to the raucous delight of the Gola faithful. But Treveon Graham (34 points, 12 boards) and Juvonte Reddic (27 and 15) took over for VCU, scoring all of their team's final 14 points in regulation (and all seven of VCU's points in the first overtime) to keep the Rams alive.

I'm pretty sure La Salle's mascot is modeled after Father Guido Sarducci.

With 2:39 to go in the second bonus stanza and the score tied at 82, VCU sharpshooter Rob Brandenberg (who'd been quiet for most of the game) finally gave Graham and Reddic a rest, draining a huge triple. He followed it up with another longball after a La Salle turnover, giving the Rams a six-point lead they'd never relinquish, and sending the visiting fans (of whom there were a considerable number) home with a thrill. For us, the buzz of the game was nearly equaled by the excitement of watching Briante Weber play basketball. He's like a turbocharged octopus on defense - as I said to my traveling companion, if you have the ball and you don't know where Weber is, you're going to lose it. He finished with 5 steals.

Famished, the Teej and I scored a pair of dry, semi-stale Philly 'soft' pretzels on the way out of the gym and stepped out into a heavy snow and a slushy mess. On our way back to the car, we passed ESPN's John Saunders (who'd called the game with Dan Dakich on ESPN2) standing by himself on the sidewalk with a bag in each hand, looking for all the world like he'd been forgotten by his ride. A combination of gullets crammed with pretzel and surprise conspired to rob us of our opportunity to kibitz with Saunders. But I'm sure our repartee would've been witty.

Worst. Pretzel. Ever.

La Salle's campus is about eight minutes away from Drexel's. On a normal day. Yesterday was not a normal day. After saying a few Hail Marys and a couple of curse words, we managed to creep up the icy, snowy hills that lead from La Salle back to the highway. At which point we cruised at a crisp 25 miles per hour. For a putatively Northern city, Philly's snow removal brigades sure did a great Washington, DC impression.

"Survive and advance", said TJ, and we did, arriving at the John A. Daskalakis Athletic Center on Drexel's urban campus eight minutes before the W&M/Drexel tip. The DAC, as its known, seats 2,500, many of whom are within five feet of the playing surface. It's got a really cool, almost menacing vibe. As W&M coach Tony Shaver said after the game, it's a very tough place for road teams to play. We scored much better seats for the second game of our twinbill, winding up four rows behind the W&M bench - close enough to see the bristles of Shaver's mustache. (And, as it turns out, catch his demeanor in the late-game huddle that preceded the stunning end.)

We splurged for seats with backs to them at the DAC. Was money very well spent.

BEASTHOVEN

Drexel's Chris Fouch and the Tribe's Marcus Thornton did their best 'Nique/Bird impression in the first half, as Fouch dropped 19 on W&M while Thornton tallied 13. The Dragons closed the half on an 11-4 run that seemed for all the world a harbinger of their inexorable push to victory. As Shaver noted in the postgame presser, W&M went to the locker room a beaten team, the atmosphere that of a 'morgue'.

But W&M young assistant coaches did a terrific job of pumping up a team that had been on the road for five days and got "their fannies kicked" (per Shaver) at Hofstra on Wednesday. Lesser W&M squads (read: most previous W&M squads) would've packed it in and been run out of the gym. The partisan DAC crowd certainly expected that outcome.

When Kyle Gaillard and Thornton sandwiched three-pointers around a trio of Tim Rusthoven (15 points, 5 boards, 4 assists) buckets, though, the Tribe had run off the first 10 points of the second half to take the lead, and the game was on.

Drexel fought back to take a seven-point lead on a Freddie Wilson jumper at the 9:45 mark. The offensively-challenged Wilson's made shot (TJ and I took to exhorting him to shoot every time he touched the ball) caused Shaver to raise his hands in the air in exasperation.

Perhaps the saddest display of fan chest painting I've ever seen.

Once again, however, given a chance to fold, the Tribe battled back. As I told TJ, this was as hard-nosed a performance as I've ever seen by a W&M team. Despite being overmatched physically (Drexel's big men are strong, and in the case of freshman Rodney Williams, incredibly bouncy.) and playing in a loud, tightly-packed gym, the Tribe gave as good as they got. W&M scored 11 straight to take a four-point lead with 5:07 to play. Rusthoven again keyed the run, scoring seven of the 11, and converting Thornton's pretty no-look dime to give W&M a 58-57 edge.

Thornton's pass made freshman Daniel Dixon smile as he headed back on defense, but the youngster gave his coach and W&M fans reasons of their own to feel good. Though he didn't do much on offense, Dixon was critical in slowing Fouch down in the second half. While the Drexel sixth-year senior finished with a career-high 31 points, he only made two of seven shots after Dixon got the defensive assignment on him.

This kid was absolutely my fan of the game. Just an amazing display of fashion.

One of the game's great little moments came during a timeout with 3:12 to play. Dixon had missed an open three-pointer, making him 0-4 on the evening. His disappointment was visible in the huddle, as he dwelled on his miss. Senior Brandon Britt (who scored 9 efficient points) rubbed Dixon's head and whispered encouragement. Not much to see in the box score there, but terrific leadership by Britt, and a sign of a team playing as one.

Frantz Massenat hit a vital three for Drexel to draw the Dragons within a pair with two minutes to play, and then Fouch scored on consecutive drives to put Drexel on top. The last of his 31 points came on a tough floater with Dixon all over him, giving the home team a 66-65 advantage with 8.1 seconds left.

Shaver called timeout, and addressed his team in the huddle. He got down to his knees, and damned if he wasn't smiling. Amidst the maelstrom, he radiated calm and while we couldn't hear him, it sure looked like he was telling the Tribe how much fun the whole thing was. TJ noticed it right away, saying, "Look at Shaver! He's smiling!" 

At that moment, I turned to TJ and said, "We've got Marcus". Meanwhile, he was tweeting, #InMarcusWeTrust. If we knew where the ball was going, it sure seemed to be news to Bruiser Flint. The Drexel coach only applied token pressure on the inbound pass, and didn't attempt in any way to deny Thornton the ball. The junior guard dribbled the ball upcourt against Major Canady, with the imposing Dartaye Ruffin (who makes Greg Oden look cherubic) lurking to deny a drive to the basket.

Allegedly, W&M had five players on the court, but there was nobody in the gym that expected four of them to see the ball. Thornton weaved his way into the frontcourt, drove hard towards the right, then froze Canady on a crossover before stepping back, elevating, and shooting.


You know what happened next, as do millions of Americans, thanks to yesterday's SportsCenter Top 10. The last three of Thornton's 26 points snapped through the twine, a few dozen W&M boosters went bonkers, the Tribe bench erupted, and 2,000 Drexel fans went dead silent.

Which was good, because it meant we could hear Flint's expletive-laden assault on the officials. The Drexel coach's demeanor contrasted sharply with Shaver's grace under pressure, and while Flint may have had a point (W&M was only called for five second half fouls, an undeniably favorable whistle for a road team.), he came off for all the world like a deranged lunatic.

I'll take our guy, thanks.

Thanks to a gracious recommendation by FOGTB and Drexel fan Dan Crain (@metsox1, and the proprietor of the well-written Dragons Speak blog), TJ and I made our way to The New Deck Tavern for postgame recovery drinks and the first real meal we'd had all day.

TJ had the presence of mind to record a Vine of the Thornton shot, which blew up all over social media in the hours after the game. He kept exclaiming with amazement as first a trickle, then a flood of people retweeted and passed the video around. Even a couple of national outlets got into the act. (We got to see which of them were willing to steal a video from a hard-working blogger without attribution, too. Not naming names, but let's just say one of them is a national sports outlet that starts with N and ends with BCSN.) We got back to DC around 10:00, fairly well convinced that we'd witnessed as good a day of basketball as we're likely to see anytime soon. At least until the CAA Tournament in Baltimore.

It was a terrific day of hoops. But the chance to hang out with my man TJ might've been even better.

Sports, my friends. They're awesome.

#gtbhoopsroadie was a rousing success. See you all in Baltimore for Part Deux.

Gheorghe: The Tease

As we work diligently on the recap of yesterday's blessed hoops road trip, here's a little Tony Shaver and Marcus Thornton to tide you over. If you look very closely from 0:20 to 0:22, you'll see a seated guy wearing green and an over-excited guy in a brown and white sweater (just to the left of Tim Rusthoven's elbow). You might recognize them.

Jabbo Step

Steve Weingarten was the 2010-11 Atlantic 10 Student-Athlete of the Year, when he averaged 4.7 ppg and 3.2 rpg as a senior at LaSalle. Since then, he's played a bit of professional ball in Australia, but it's hard to determine how well he's played.

The guy at lower left might be a college hoops coach.

Today, he scored at least 35 points, making 7 of 8 threes, and was by far the best player on a team that included former Georgetown standout Austin Freeman. It may have been the best game he's ever played.

Such is the way of things at the Nike Pro City Jabbo Kenner College/Pro Summer League. The Kenner League, as it's known, has given D.C.-area collegians and professionals a place to play high-level offseason ball since 1981. (Note: defense not necessarily included in the 'high-level' description.) Held at Georgetown's venerable McDonough Arena, the Kenner's a vital part of the hoops scene in the Nation's Capital.

Oldtimers still talk about the time Allen Iverson debuted in the Kenner a few short weeks after being released from prison - before he ever suited up for John Thompson, Jr. Iverson, who hadn't played organized basketball in over a year, dropped 40 in a Kenner quarterfinal in front of a standing-room only crowd. Allegedly, footage exists somewhere - it's the league's Bigfoot Legend.

According to the Georgetown Basketball History Project, AI's exploits paled in comparison to an on-court battle that took place 6 years later:

Iverson's 40 points was not the Kenner record, however. Six years later, another memorable game saw Maryland star and NBA veteran Steve Francis face a local team led by Curt (Trouble) Smith. Smith, the younger brother of Georgetown All-American Charles Smith, had all the basketball tools but his academics had its share of "trouble", so to speak, and was not offered a scholarship to Georgetown. Smith played briefly at Drake but settled back in Washington and added to his own local legend in a 2000 Kenner game cited at ESPN The Magazine:

"Last summer Steve Francis walked into McDonough with a team he called Francis' Hitmen, sporting a lineup that included himself, The Wizard, Moochie Norris, Jerome Williams and Cuttino Mobley. And lost," wrote Chris Palmer. "[They] dropped a 121-120 decision to a group of D.C. playground legends who made their names against these very same players years ago. They still talk about the battle between Curt Smith, little bro' of former Celts guard Charles, and Francis. The Rockets point guard gave the street legend 59 points from all over the court. The treys from the hash mark, wicked crosses and cradle dunks were enough to make sure Smith would never show his face in the gym again. Except for the fact [Smith] scored 62 himself."

Despite the fact that the Kenner's been in our backyard forever, we'd never made time to check out the action. Several Gheorghies rectified that yesterday, heading to McDonough to catch a couple of games, including one featuring W&M's own Marcus Thornton's On Point squad take on The Tombs.

We arrived early and managed to catch all of the afternoon's first game. Moments after The Teej took and tweeted the photo above (which may or may not feature an NCAA Division I head coach whose attendance would be a violation), the announcer warned the fans not to take any pictures and definitely not to do any tweeting of pictures. On the court, former South Florida big man Gus Gilchrist dominated the action for his A. Wash Associates squad. Fatigue took its toll, however, as Team Oohs and Aahs took advantage of the fact that A.Wash only had 5 players to close the gap down the stretch. Despite their lack of depth, A. Wash managed to eke out an 82-77 overtime win.

As expected in a summer league, the play was at times ragged, as was the officiating. But players on both teams took the game seriously, and the winners were notably happy.

Before the second game began, I said to my daughters, "See the kid with the long braids and the orange shoes? That's Marcus Thornton. He goes to William & Mary. That's who we came to see."

A tall, slim older man two rows in front of us turned around and looked at me. "You mean, number 12?", he said. "That's my son." And so we met Marcus Thornton's father, who seemed amused that we thought so highly of his kid and proved later to have a great sense of humor and equanimity.

Minutes later a much taller, much less slim older man wandered, bearlike, into the gym and took a seat on the far side behind the players' benches. The aforementioned Big John Thompson held court throughout the rest of our time in the arena.

Mr. Thornton turned to us as the beginning of his son's game and asked, 'Do you guys know when the other William & Mary player graduated?", pointing out a 6'7" balding guy. Though he looked familiar, I couldn't place him until the P.A. announcer said his name. 2010 graduate Danny Sumner was actually the leading W&M scorer for On Point, tallying at least 23. He's put on a significant amount of muscle - the lean, high-flying wing of my memory replaced by a much thicker, more confident model.

For his part, Marcus Thornton wasn't at the peak of his game. Though his skills and athleticism were the equal of anyone on the court, he wasn't helped by the physical nature of the game, and he seemed at times tired as On Point ran the entire game without subs. On several occasions Thornton burst to the basket, only to get knocked down without getting a call. In one case, he clattered to the court with enough force that the W&M fans in attendance audibly gasped. I leaned forward and asked his father, "Didn't you tell him not to get hurt out there?"

"He's 20 years old. I can't tell him anything," came the wry response. Even as his son struggled, the elder Thornton remained unruffled - you can see where Marcus gets his unflappable on-court demeanor.

OnPoint led by 7 late until Freeman decided he was actually going to play a bit and spurred a run to give The Tombs a lead. OnPoint countered with a driving layup and a defensive stop to claim a 73-72 victory. Thornton finished with a meager 7 points, though he spent much of the second half playing point and not looking for his own offense.

But regardless, we counted ourselves winners. Team G:TB made a new friend. Mr. Thornton shook our hands on his way out of the building and accepted our best wishes for his son. He and his wife are headed to the Dominican Republic with the Tribe next week, as W&M makes it's one-in-every-four years sanctioned summer trip overseas. We got to hear the pounding of basketballs and the squeak of sneakers on hardwood from great seats in a historic barn. We might've seen Steve Weingarten's finest moment. And my kids didn't kill each other. That's a decent Sunday afternoon.