Bosco’s Cage Tourney Goes National With N. Y., Alaskan Teams

Since he started the Bosco Tech Summer Hoop Spectacular six years ago, tournament director Jorge Calienes has been longing to give it more of a national flavor.

The tournament has always attracted most of the top high school teams in Southern California.

But with the addition of national powers Christ the King of New York and Anchorage East of Alaska this year, Calienes said the tournament is finally headed in the direction he had originally mapped out.

“It adds a lot to the tournament and it puts it in the perspective of being a national tournament,” he said. “We almost had a team from Florida, but they backed out at the last minute.”

Despite the added national flavor, it is a South Bay team--Westchester--that is seeded No. 1 in the tournament from Monday through July 24 at Bosco Tech in Rosemead and East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park.

The Comets, who won the 128-team L. A. Games tournament in June after finishing with a 20-6 record and reaching the L. A. City 4-A semifinals last season, are led by 5-9 guard Sam Crawford and 6-7 forward Zan Mason, both All-City selections as juniors. Crawford was named most valuable player of the L. A. Games and Mason was chosen the state’s top junior by Cal-Hi Sports News of Sacramento last season.

Westchester has two other standouts in forwards Renaud Gordon (6-6) and Booker Waugh (6-5).

Other South Bay teams in the tournament are Rolling Hills, Palos Verdes and Locke.

Rolling Hills is the only other South Bay team that is seeded. The Titans, seeded No. 5, have four starters from a team that finished 21-7 last year. The leader is 6-4 center John Hardy who averaged 38.5 points in four games in the recent Carson Tournament.

Another top Titan is 6-2 guard Mark Tesar, an excellent outside shooter. Palos Verdes, which lost all of its players from last season to graduation, have a good shooter in guard Ian Chatfield.

Westchester and Rolling Hills have first-round byes. In first-round games Tuesday at Bosco Tech, Locke faces Kennedy of La Palma at 5:15 p.m. and Palos Verdes meets Blair at 6:30 p.m. In second-round match-ups, Westchester will open against the winner of Monday’s Ventura-West Covina game at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Bosco and Rolling Hills will face the winner of Tuesday’s Hoover-Paramount game at 2:30 Thursday at East Los Angeles.

Calienes said there could be more teams from the East and some from the Midwest next season.

“We’re barely scraping at the national scene,” he says. “By getting teams from New York and Alaska it’s something to start with, but we think we can get even more next year.

“There’s a lot of interest from teams, but they said they had made commitments to other places.”

Calienes hopes to have two teams from Florida along with schools from Tennessee, Detroit, Kentucky and New York.

The key, he said, to the growth of the tournament is television coverage.

“I spoke with people from ESPN and they said they would have been interested in covering it if we could get at least four teams from the East,” Calienes said.

“If we can get television backing (funds to help the schools pay expenses), we can get as many teams as we want.

“I think next year there’s a very good chance that we can have six instead of two (from outside of California), and I’m not just talking about teams from Oregon and Washington.”

But the addition of teams from New York and Alaska is not the only way this year’s tournament is expanding.

After having 38 teams in last year’s tournament, there will be 50 this time, a number that Calienes had been pointing toward.

“That’s what I was trying to shoot for (originally),” he said. “I could expand to 64, but that would be the maximum we would want to have. Next year I’m looking to go to either 48 or 64. Those numbers are a little easier to work with in terms of working out pairings.”

The tournament is not only expanding, it is moving out of the cozy confines of the Bosco Tech gym.

Calienes, basketball coach of Bosco Tech for 11 years, was recently named coach at East Los Angeles College and will be taking the tournament with him. This year’s tournament will split games between the two sites, with the finals at Bosco Tech, and next year’s tournament will be played at the college and called the East Los Angeles Summer Hoop Spectacular.

Calienes said the decision to change location was mutually agreed upon by him and Bill Nuanes, the new basketball coach and athletic director at Bosco Tech.

“Bill Nuanes has said that he does not want to take over the tournament at this time with all the other things he’s doing, so I’m going to take it over there,” Calienes said.

Wherever the tournament is played, there is no question about the caliber of teams.

Other top-seeded teams are perennial New York City power Christ the King at No. 2 and Orange County powers Ocean View at No. 3 and Mater Dei at No. 4. Other clubs include Glendora, Dominguez and defending state CIF Division I champion Manual Arts.

Ocean View, which has been impressive in summer leagues and finished third against a strong field in the Mater Dei Summer Tournament, features 6-7 forward Todd Norman and 6-1 guard Mike Frohn.

Mater Dei is rebuilding after winning its fourth straight CIF 5-A title last season, but the Monarchs have an outstanding guard in 6-2 senior Dylan Rigdon and a surplus of size with front-line players Mark Moneypenny (6-10), Derek Stone (6-9) and Charlie Andres (6-7).

One of the most watched players figures to be Glendora’s Tracy Murray, a 6-7 senior who averaged 31.5 points and 11 rebounds in leading his team to a 28-1 record last season. Murray, an All-CIF 4-A selection, was named the top junior in the state by USA Today last season. Dominguez also has an excellent shooter in guard Dijon Bernard (6-2).

All the more reason why the tournament attracts college recruiters from throughout the nation.

“For the college recruiters, it’s a perfect situation,” Calienes said. “We’re showcasing these players (in two nearby areas) instead of them having to go all over town to watch them.”

The championship game of the double-elimination tournament will be at 9 p.m. July 24 at Bosco. Santa Barbara defeated Bishop Amat for the title last year.