SOUTHERN SECTION BOYS’ BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS : DIVISION I-A : Marina More Than Sum of Its Parks

You know Cherokee Parks. Six-foot-11 guy. Floppy hair. Smooth moves around the basket. Soft jumper. Going to Duke. Probably the best Orange County high school player ever. Sure.

But who are those other guys in the blue and yellow uniforms of Marina High School?

Darren Crooks?

Sean Haselrig?

Tim Pham?

Brant Shelor?

Meet the backbone of Marina’s basketball team.

Tonight, they’ll join Parks, by now about as famous as a high school player gets, to face Mater Dei in a Southern Section Division I-A semifinal playoff game at the Bren Center.

But you can’t win with only one player, even if Dick Vitale is constantly blubbering on about how Parks will change the course of basketball at Duke. As if it needed changing.

But Parks can’t, and doesn’t, do it all for Marina (18-10).

Without Parks, it’s highly unlikely that Marina would be playing its first section semifinal game since 1975. But the four other starters have played a big part in Marina’s advancement through the playoffs.

“They’re good players,” said Steve Popovich, Marina’s coach. “Sean and Brant were second team all-Sunset League last year. You need more than one or two players at this level. You need to have some other threats.”

Good teams have role players to go with their superstars. Marina is no exception.

Crooks, a junior, and Shelor, a senior, are the starting forwards. They help Parks underneath the basket, rebounding and defending the opposing teams’ forwards.

Haselrig, a senior, and Pham, a junior, are the starting guards. They look to run when they can or pass the ball inside to Parks in the halfcourt offense.

“We’re role players,” Haselrig said. “We understand our roles. We’re not expected to compete with Cherokee.”

No, but they’re not expected to give Parks the ball, then stand and watch as he shoots and scores.

Often, Parks is double- and triple-teamed. When he gets surrounded, the other starters have to be ready for a return pass. They also have to be able to hit open shots to keep opponents from collapsing their defenses on Parks.

Early this season, Marina sputtered to a 7-9 record. Injuries hurt. But the biggest problem, according to Popovich, was getting the players adjusted to their roles.

They didn’t always understand why some drills were being run in practice or how they would help the team in games.

“(Now) they started recognizing things better,” Popovich said. “If he (Parks) is open, they dump it to him. If not, they can expect a pass back, then maybe drop it back inside to him again.”

Since squeaking past a mediocre Westminster team in overtime in early January, Marina has won 11 of its past 12 games. The only loss came against Huntington Beach, which needed a 36-point performance by Mustapha Abdi to gain a 55-44 victory.

The addition of Pham, who started the season on the junior varsity, also helped speed Marina’s rise.

The players said they’re better now on the fast break and at defending opponents.

“We’ve got better chemistry,” Pham said.

Haselrig and Shelor started on last season’s team, which finished 18-9 and advanced to the second round of the playoffs.

The differences in the 1989-90 team and this season’s are small, they said, but they’ve made a difference.

“Our point guard doesn’t score as much, but Darren Crooks is a better offensive player than Darren Fields was last year,” Shelor said. “We’re a little different this year. Our defense is better.”

Said Haselrig: “We defend a little better and we can press (this year).”

And, as always, they have the big guy to lend support.