By Jim Stout
MaxPreps.com
FAIRFIELD, Conn. - No one is ever surprised when a team from Bridgeport challenges for the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference boys basketball championship. In fact, it's a given that the Park City will be represented among the FCIAC elite. Warren Harding and Bridgeport Central are perennial state title contenders as well.
This season, however, Bassick High is threatening to alter the pecking order. In some ways it already has.
Though the Lions have almost always had talent, they've seldom been able to put all the important elements together at once.
This season has been different.
After undefeated and top-seeded Trinity Catholic, Bassick is the hottest team in the FCIAC, if not one of the most entertaining. The Lions won their 15th game in a row last Saturday, outlasting seventh-seeded Stamford, 100-93 in overtime in the conference tournament quarterfinals at Fairfield-Warde.
Not only will second-seeded Bassick (17-2) be playing in the FCIAC semifinals on Tuesday night here, coach Harrison Taylor's team will be challenging for Bridgeport bragging rights in its eagerly-awaited rematch against Harding.
Bassick beat Harding during the regular season, 70-66. It has also beaten one of the other FCIAC semifinalists, Danbury, 81-54, en route to its 15-game winning streak. Danbury knocked off Bassick's other City rival, Bridgeport Central, in the quarterfinals on Saturday.
Trinity is the only team left in the conference playoffs that has beaten Bassick, scoring a 78-70 win over the Lions on Opening Night.
"I think we've come a long way," said Bassick guard Jovan Holden. "We'll see what happens."
Holden played a super role in sending Bassick into the semifinal round. The sturdily built, 5-foot-10 senior scored a game-high 40 points in the OT win against Stamford, with 34 of those coming after intermission. His hyper-explosive drives to the basket and extraordinary body control were virtually impossible for Stamford to stop once he got going.
Holden didn't score his seventh and eighth points of the game until early in the third quarter, but his surge that followed lifted Bassick out of an eight-point deficit and into a 71-58 lead.
Stamford itself then rallied behind Trevor Thompson (32 points, 10 rebounds) to force overtime, but Bassick scored the first seven points of OT to pull away for good.
Of his slow start in the game, Holden said:
"I knew I had to be patient and pick my spots and wait for the game to open up. I had to let the game come to me and not force anything. I thought if I did that, my time would come and the time for my team would come."
"Holden did a hell of a job," Taylor said of his star guard. "Because of him, we're playing another day. We're happy to be here. It's been a hell of a season for us."
Bassick also boasts a major force in the middle in 6-foot-5 senior forward Dexton Williamson (31 points in the quarterfinals) and a sharp-shooting guard in Lamar Preston (7-of-7 from the foul line in the win over Stamford.
"Bassick can play with anyone," said Stamford coach Jim Moriarty. "Holden is one hell of a player and Williamson is tough. If some of their other guys step up, they have as good a shot as anyone of winning this."
Greenwich coach Bill Brehm, whose team lost to Harding in another FCIAC quarterfinal game on Saturday, essentially concurred with Moriarty.
"Personally, when we played Bassick three days ago, I thought they were a better team than Harding," Brehm said.
"I mean, Holden is the best player in the league. I think Charoy (Bentley, of Harding) is a very close second. But what Holden did against us and everybody else . to me, he's impossible to guard. Not that Charoy isn't, but Holden just does it all. He's so quick, like he's shot out of a cannon."
And because of it, Bassick for a rare time has been shot into the spotlight.
Trinity Catholic Continues to Roll
Trinity Catholic (21-0) overcame a slow start against eighth-seeded New Canaan and eventually scored a 60-44 win over the Rams in Game 4 of the FCIAC tournament quadruple-header on Saturday.
"Any time you play New Canaan it's a tough game," Trinity coach Mike Walsh told the Stamford Advocate.
"(New Canaan coach) Jeff (Bussey) always does a great job. He always has them playing hard. We were fortunate tonight. We had trouble early, but got the shots we wanted in the second half to extend the score."
Sophomore Tevin Baskin led the top-seeded Crusaders with 18 points, eight rebounds and five steals.
Trinity will face No. 5 Danbury (16-5) in the tournament semifinals on Tuesday immediately following the Bassick-Harding game. Danbury had lost to No. 4 Bridgeport Central during the regular season but turned the tables on the Hilltoppers with its 70-67 quarterfinal win.
Trinity beat Danbury 88-54 to open the season, but Walsh expects a different type of game on Tuesday.
"Danbury is an excellent team," he said. "They have four good guards who are really quick and love to run the floor. We'll have our work cut out for us, no question about it."
SCC: Amity Stuns Fairfield Prep
After losing to Fairfield Prep twice during the regular season, Amity produced a major story at the SCC tournament as it stunned the No. 4 Jesuits, 68-42, in a quarterfinal game at East Haven High.
"We were confident from the beginning; our leaders stepped up," Amity coach Jeff Nielsen told the New Haven Register.
Fifth-seeded Amity (13-8) built a 10-point lead midway through the opening quarter and never trailed. Mark Skogg led the Spartans by scoring 21 points and helping set up a conference semifinal game on Monday against top-seeded and defending state Division I champion Hillhouse.
"(Hillhouse) has lots of talent, but I am not overwhelmed by them," Skogg said.
Amity, which is appearing in the tournament for the first time since 2001, had last won a SCC playoff game in 2000 as the No. 8 seed, upsetting No. 1 Hillhouse.
Fairfield Prep (17-4) hit just 16 of 48 shots from the floor.
In another SCC tournament win by a lower-seeded team, Hamden's Keith Myrick scored a game-high 18 points to lead his sixth-seeded Green Dragons to a 61-46 win against No. 3 Xavier. The two sides had split their two regular-season meetings, with each winning on the road.
Xavier (14-7) held the lead late in the first half, 23-21, but Hamden (16-5) scored the final five points of the second quarter, then scored the first six points of the third period to take a 32-23 lead. Hamden will play No. 2 Wilbur Cross in the other SCC semifinal game.
NVL: Holy Cross, Sacred Heart, Crosby and Torrington Win
Ta-Quon Zimmerman scored seven of his team-high 14 points in the fourth quarter to lead top-seeded Holy Cross over No. 8 Naugatuck, 69-40, in the quarterfinals of the Naugatuck Valley League tournament at Wilby-Waterbury.
Derek Ward Jr. added 11 points for the Holy Cross (19-2) and George Bradford scored 13 points. Holy Cross will play Sacred Heart on Monday at 7:45 p.m. at Wilby in the semifinals. Sacred Heart ripped Seymour, 84-64.
B.J. Monteiro registered 37 points, 12 rebounds and five assists to lead No. 2 Crosby past No. 7 Wilby, 87-60.
Lavar Moore added 19 points and Anthony Ireland scored 12 points for Crosby (19-2), including 10 from the foul line; he added seven assists. Crosby will play Torrington on Monday at 6 p.m. in the semifinals at Wilby.
Torrington beat Kennedy, 74-48, as Jordan Williams had 20 points and 10 rebounds for the No. 3 Raiders. Andre French added nine assists and five steals.
SWC: Change of Venue Agrees With Pomperaug
For the first time in recent memory, the quarterfinals of the SWC tournament were not held at either Masuk or Bunnell. The influx of new facilities in the conference compelled the SWC to go elsewhere this season for both the quarterfinal and final rounds.
The move to Pomperaug for last Saturday's quarterfinals could not have worked out better for the host Southbury school.
Pomperaug center Kyle Flisher had 24 points, five rebounds and five blocked shots to lead the Panthers to a 58-38 win over Stratford. Chip Dylag scored 13 points and had six rebounds for Pomperaug (16-5), which will play the state's second-ranked team, Kolbe Cathedral, on Tuesday at Masuk in the semifinals. Masuk and Weston will play in the other semifinal game.
Jim Stout is the MaxPreps.com Master Photographer for the Massachusetts/Rhode Island area and a Northeast Region columnist. He may be reached at 203-563-2297 or at j.stout@jmstout.org.
