With the 2023 HAECO Invitational Basketball Tournament being complete, I was thinking back today/Sunday at how super this year’s tournament was….I am going on record on saying that this year’s tournament was among the Top Five All-Time Best Ever…
Just think back to the crowds that jammed the Greensboro Coliseum Fieldhouse on Thursday night…You could barely move, when it came time to hit the restroom at halftime of the Smith-Dudley boys game…The Smith-Dudley boys game drew over 3,000 fans…The Fieldhouse seats just over 2,350 from what they tell me, and I think the end zone seats where the Page fans were sitting for the Page-GDS boys game, I think those were bonus seats, and the fans that were just standing and watching made the crowd hit the 3,000-plus mark…
They stopped selling tickets on Thursday night…No more fans were allowed in the building once it reached capacity, and unless you had a pre-purchased ticket, you could not enter the buidling…..
The electricity of the Smith-Dudley boys game carried over to the Greensboro Day School-Page boys game…That game right there, Page over GDS might be on of the top games in tournament history….Not just because Page was able to knock off the #2 seeded GDS Bengals, it was how the game was finished…Big Alex Jones from Page going 6-6 at the free throw line and 2-2 from the field…Alex Jones hit two late free throws to help carry Page over the Bengals, and one of his shots was a Bank Shot, that smacked the backboard so hard, I thought I saw the square shaking….But, it went in and that is all that matters/counts…
Jackson Sellars from Page made it to the big stage of this HAECO Tournament and put his name up there with not only the top players in the Triad area, I am talking Sellars is up there with the tops in the state…He hit for 27 points Friday night, and he posted 35 points two weeks ago at Southwest Guilford HS…Sellars told me he enjoyed being able to grab the inside of his forearm after his shots, because that means when he makes the long threes, that he has icewater in his veins…Other kids were doing it too…I forgot to that when I was putting up my shots at the court on Sunday, but I was shooting mostly fullcourt layups…Just a note, I did hit 11 straight regulation distance free throws in the pitch black dark on Sunday, as I was finising up my basketball shoot-around…They didn’t give us a shoot-around for the radio announcers at the HAECO, maybe next year…
GreensboroSports Radio was the only radio station at the HAECO and have been there for over 30 years….That is good stuff for the Gate City Basketball Scene…GreensboroSports Radio gets the job done for you…
Thursday night was buzzing, and Friday night was buzzing too…The Smith-Page boys final was a very good one…Smith with their big three of Jaylon Bumpass(MVP), Gage Lattimore, and Kenny Miller Jr., plus Smith is much more than their Big Three with Micah Cowan making the All-Tournament Team, Tayshawn Mann playing big minutes for the Golden Eagles all week long, Gavin Palmore gave Smith a big boost off of their bench…Also key Smith minutes from the Southside from Ben L. Smith’s Jamil Jeter and Justin Leak…And the man of the hour, and he just seemed to be the Most Popular Player in the tournament, and I am talking about the “fan favorite”, ‘Little Myke’ Hunter, from Smith High School…When this kid hit a shot, the crowd would roar…I like this kid…And Myke likes it there in the “pressure cooker’ too…He handles it all very well, at around 5’3/5’4…Can you say Muggsy Bouges size??? A more physical look for Muggsy, but the size is very similar…Myke Hunter can get it done….The Jaylon Bumpass shots late in the Smith Title win were huge, and Gage Lattimore survived a shot to his face/mouth area to finish strong….
Smith boys to Men Champions….And another thing on that Page-GDS game…Late in the game, Jackson Sellars missed the second of two free throws, but he races to the other end of the court to block the shot from GDS’ Will Otto…And there’s a name for you….Will Otto…If anybody works any harder than Will Otto, have them call me, I will check them out and then print their name…We like to call him “Ottomatic”…Very good shooter….
Girls action just as exciting, and you have to wonder if the Greensboro Day girls’ coach Tamera Thorpe has been able to get any sleep yet…Liz Wyrick, not to be confused with her sister Caroline Wyrick, Azaria Scott, Endia Smith, Maja Rohkohl, little Sophie Montana, and we saved the BEST from last week for last…Candice Williams….I like to call her Will Dog, because she is very intense and very dedicated to her cause…She wants to win it all…She wants it for her team, and she wants it for herself too, becasue Candice Williams has put the time in…She is very gritty and she is like the other players from both the boys and girls teams that made it to the Finals…You have to be a Finisher, and those kids were Finishers, and Candice Williams/Will Dog, is a Finisher….Being a Dog is a good thing…The Dog is the top player in my mind…I called Candice Williams, Jasmine Williams in an interview earlier this season, and that was due to the fact that she is right there with the best, like Jasmine Harris from Northern Guilford…
When the Bishop McGuinness girls lost Adelaide Jernigan after just six minutes of the Villains first game of the tournament, the Villains quickly became the ‘Battling Bishops’….Kiersten Varner picked up much of the slack, Emma Wagoner was strong for Bishop, guards Claire Sullivan and Jenna Moore were playing their tails off…Little Jenna Moore reminded me of one of the kids in the movie, “Remember The Goal”(Girls cross country movie)….
This goes down as one of the Top Five Best-Ever HAECO Invitational Basketball Tournaments…All-around High Fives for the Greensboro Sports Council led by Charlie Hall, James Gentry, and Brett Weathersbee who did an outstanding job(YES, 2023 Top Five All-Time Best)…..Charlie Hall, the Tournament Chairman, James Gentry, the Tournament Co-Chairman, and Brett Weathersbee, the Hononary Tournament Chairman…All of the Greensboro Sports Council members were excelling and Rob Goodman had the Media Area covered, Len Reynolds had the Officials and Game Personel covered….Leslie Johnson had the HAECO Invitational.com website covered, Bryant Roche from the News and Record had the newspaper and online coverage, even saw media man Bob Sutton, formerly of the Burlington Times-News at the game….Brian Hall from WFMY TV 2 was all over the HAECO with his usual outstanding video work, plus Timmy Hawkes from FOX 8 Sports had every video angle covered you could think of….I guess Spectrum News was there, but I do not know their people…John Johnson from WXII 12 was probably in the house, just didn’t see him….
I loved the HAECO Tournament this year…Last year, I was sick as a dog during the tournament, with a huge killer cold, but I got through it somehow…This year, Smooth Sailing, from Start to Finish…And must say GreensboroSports.com and GreensboroSports Radio were Finishers too…We were able to get it done, with good people like Dennis White, Nile Harris, Don Moore, and Don Tilley sailing the waters with us….
Don’t know about you, but I kind of like having the Tournament before Christmas…We knock it out and have the Holidays OFF until The Sheetz hits the fan on Wednesday….Time to get back out there, and get it done…
Done for now, and enjoy this post, and IF nobody else has told you this today….And I learned this from Busta Brown on his radio show…Busta said, and we say it to…”You Are Loved”….And we highlight and say this too….Merry Christmas….And I will put the bow on it with this Holiday Statement that I always liked from the Salvation Army…“Jesus is the Reason for the Season”……