Head coach Babe Kwasniak and Villa Angela-St. Joseph of Cleveland got a big win over Archbishop Carroll of Philadelphia earlier this season at the famed Marshall County Hoopfest.
Photo by Wayne Litmer
Conveniently, LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers are on the road this weekend.
That leaves no doubt as to what will be the marquee basketball game of the weekend in Cleveland, Northeast Ohio and all of high school basketball, for that matter.
National No. 3
St. Vincent-St. Mary (Akron) — LeBron's alma mater — will take its unbeaten record to the home court of No. 9
Villa Angela-St. Joseph (Cleveland) on Saturday night.
"It sold out in two days," Villa Angela-St. Joseph head coach Babe Kwasniak said of the highly-anticipated matchup. "St. Vincent-St. Mary's allotment sold out in 11 minutes. It's truly the toughest ticket in town."
Joshua Williams, St. Vincent-St. Mary
Photo by Ken Reabe Jr.
The game will be televised locally and there is also a burgeoning secondary market for tickets. One Villa Angela-St. Joseph student reported via Twitter Thursday that tickets were being passed on to interested parties (scalped) for $30 or more.
"There are people that I don't just
like, but
love, that I have had to tell, ‘I don't have a ticket for you,'" Kwasniak said.
So what makes this one of Cleveland's biggest hoops showdowns in recent memory?
St. Vincent-St. Mary (19-0) is the surprise story in high school basketball this season. Top prospect V.J. King transferred to Paul VI (Fairfax, Va.) over the summer, dramatically adjusting outside expectations for the seven-time state champions.
None of the five media outlets MaxPreps uses in the
composite rankings recognized the Fighting Irish in the preseason.
But under the direction of 13th-year head coach Dru Joyce, St. Vincent-St. Mary shook off King's departure with early wins over national powers St. Benedict's Prep (Newark, N.J.) and Sunrise Christian Academy (Bel Aire, Kan.). Statement victories over Dunbar (Dayton) and North Central (Indianapolis) have followed.
"In a way, I think it's a good thing for high school basketball for that to happen," Kwasniak said of SVSM's success without its departed star. "I think it's a testament to the difference between high school basketball and AAU."
Saturday's contest lines up as a potential storybook scenario for Villa Angela-St. Joseph (17-2), whose only losses this season have come against national No. 1 Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.) and NEPSAC post-graduate power MacDuffie School (Granby, Mass.).
Carlton Bragg, Villa Angela-St. Joseph
Photo by Mike Braca
VASJ will be at home in a newly-renovated Viking Village on senior night with a chance to shatter a nationally-ranked opponent's perfect record.
It will be a goodbye to a deep and decorated senior class that includes 6-foot-8 forwards
Carlton Bragg (headed to Kansas next season) and
Dereck Pardon (Northwestern), point guard
Brian Parker Jr. (Marist) and sharpshooter
Simon Texidor IV.
There are nine seniors in all on the roster, many of them key players on the program's 2013 state championship team. The Vikings also reached Ohio's Division III title game in 2014.
A storybook ending to the regular season looked unlikely a month ago after a disappointing loss to MacDuffie at the Dunk 4 Diabetes showcase in North Canton.
Instead of taking his team to task, however, Kwasniak took them to the movies.
The movie? "American Sniper" — not a surprising choice for a team led by a West Point graduate and former All Army men's basketball coach.
"I told them we might stink at basketball right now but I'm going to at least show you how to be good Americans. I'm not sure all of them understood the message but we haven't lost since," Kwasniak joked.
Tip time for Saturday is slated for 7:30 p.m. St. Vincent-St. Mary has bragging rights in the series, beating Villa Angela-St. Joseph 73-60 last February.
