Playing Friends - Serra vs Bellarmine

On Saturday, Dre Miller is sitting at my kitchen table eating with my family and just hanging out like we did much of the summer together.  On Thursday night he is on me like glue at the Bellarmine gym doing everything in his power to make my basketball life miserable.  He is very good at that.

This summer I played AAU with the Oakland Kings which was awesome and definitely worthy to be the subject of another entire post of it's own.  The Kings on it's roster had four current Serra varsity players (Matt Jajeh, Josaf Zamora, Henry Caruso and Andre Miller).  So I spent a lot of time with these guys this spring and summer practicing, playing and traveling.  We won a lot of games together.  I am Grant or Jimmer to those guys.  They are great guys and real studs on the basketball court.  Dre is now just considered part of my family.

He warned me that he may be guarding me as he is the starting point guard, super quick and an outstanding defender.  Serra's defense was as always really strong, aggressive and provided constant pressure.  We failed to execute at all in our half court offense and gave Henry (Caruso) too many good looks down low which he made us pay on every time.  Jack Fordyce kept us in the game in the first half with his play.

It was a fairly typical Bellarmine/Serra game:  very intense basketball, student sections yelling at each other and almost fighting in the parking lot, Bellarmine fans chanting "Coach (Rapp) is on the court",  many illegal screens, and some real good players going at it.  I failed to make it the typical close game as most of all of our last games were decided by three points or less.  We never really made it close.

Back to practice and the film room and working to execute in the half court because it is not going to be any easier in the jungle on February 3rd.

I can now go back rooting for Dre, Jo and Henry until then.

Box Score:

Serra 56, Bellarmine College Prep 46

Serra                   12"‚13"‚15"‚16--56
Bellarmine College Prep 8"‚ 6"‚15"‚17--46

Serra (12-2, 3-1) -- Barsochini 3-0-7, Miller 0-4-4, Biggins 2-0-4, Damonico 1-1-3, Jiminez 3-2-8, Grosey 4-0-8, Caruso 6-6-18, Jajeh 1-2-4. Totals 20-15-56.

Bellarmine College Prep (9-5, 2-2) -- Mendy 1-0-2, McCue 2-2-4, Vermeer 3-5-12, Gion 1-0-2, O'Hara 2-2-6, Fordyce 6-3-15, Straka 0-1-1, Galli 1-0-2. Totals 16-13-46.

Three-point goals -- Barsochini; Vermeer.