{"id":1568,"date":"2015-03-18T20:59:10","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T20:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=1568"},"modified":"2015-03-18T20:59:10","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T20:59:10","slug":"smith-mcinnis-top-my-fantasy-five-basketball-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=1568","title":{"rendered":"Smith, McInnis top my Fantasy Five basketball stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Terry<\/a><\/p>\n

TERRY MOSHER<\/p>\n

\"CK<\/a><\/p>\n

ALEX SMITH GRABS REBOUND IN CROWED ACTION<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to pretend to be a college recruiter, with the emphasis on pretend since I have no experience doing such a thing. However, I\u2019ve been watching basketball since I was about eight when my second-oldest brother Ronnie was playing high school basketball, so I do have some experience.<\/p>\n

Besides, I have nothing else to do right at this moment, which is rare in itself. I am watching juvenile ducks float on Phinney Bay and ma and pa raccoons shuffle around in our backyard, so I am doing something.<\/p>\n

However, last night (March 17) at Bremer Student Center Gym at Olympic College I covered the West Sound Senior High School All-Star Basketball Games put on by Rick Walker\u2019s Sports Beyond for the 13th<\/sup> time and going to pretend that I\u2019m a college recruiter on the basketball trail for prospects for our first-year college program, which in this pretend world will be St. Bonaventure, which is the school I grew up with in Western New York.<\/p>\n

Years ago I came up with the name Sun Super Six, which were our annual choices at the Bremerton Sun (now Kitsap Sun) for the top six local high school basketball players. So this time it will be the Fantasy Five, since this is after all a pretend group of stars.<\/p>\n

Since my pretend head coach will be a combination of real coaches \u2013 Melvin Milkovich and Eddie Donovan, who later became coach of the New York Knicks. Milkovich and Donovan were coaching at St. Bona when I was the most avid fan of the then Brown Indians (later changed to Bonnies to ensure political correctness). Anyway, they have given me the full authority to put together the starting five on the Fantasy Five.<\/p>\n

These picks will come from last night\u2019s boy\u2019s game at OC. I have been given the chance to take the first five guys from the game because, well, because I\u2019m the writer of this story.<\/p>\n

My first choice is Alex Smith, the 6-foot-7 kid from Central Kitsap who was very impressive last night. He has jumper knees, but says they do not bother him when he plays basketball, and boy does he play basketball.<\/p>\n

After picking Smith, it gets tougher. But we need at point guard at St. Bona, so I\u2019m taking Olympic\u2019s Makaleb McInnis, who might have had the best play of the game last night when on a break he tossed up the ball against the glass and got out of the way as six-foot-10 Calvin Dennis of North Kitsap, the trailer on the break, soared through the air and with two hands slammed the ball through the hoop.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m tempted to take the three Bainbridge players who played in the game with my next three choices. You can tell that the Bainbridge Spartans play against some of the best players in the state in the Metro League because Blake Swanson, Oskar Dieterich and Ben Beatie were stunningly good.<\/p>\n

But I have to be careful here because if I\u2019m wrong chances are good I could be fired by my pretend coach. There are plenty of good players to choose from, but I got to take Sequim\u2019s six-foot-four Alex Barry, who can do it all and is a true scorer. I have to go with Olympic\u2019s Damarius Johnson, a six-foot-five guy who seems to have a lot of fun playing the game and can be extremely dangerous in open court and above the rim where he soars often.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m down to one more choice and it\u2019s difficult to choose between Swanson, Beatie, Dieterich, Dennis and Bremerton\u2019s Dallas Chapman, who may have been one of the most underrated players along with South Kitsap sharp-shooter Travis Delgado.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got to go with the six-foot-eight Beatie, who can play the game inside-out.<\/p>\n

So there you have it, my Fantasy Five. You can take my picks and about six dollars and buy a cup of java at Starbucks with it.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n

Be well pal.<\/p>\n

Be careful out there.<\/p>\n

Have a great day.<\/p>\n

You are loved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TERRY MOSHER ALEX SMITH GRABS REBOUND IN CROWED ACTION   I\u2019m going to pretend to be a college recruiter, with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-column","category-mosher","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1570,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions\/1570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}