– Drew Hind scored 29 points in a 66-41 victory at Hamburg & went over 2,000 career points scored. The senior knocked down 5 from long range, grabbed 7 rebounds & dished 5 assists in the 25-point win.  Here is where I will take the opportunity to tie WNY basketball together.  As I’ve heard for years and again this season, anybody could score all those points playing that competition… Those guys don’t play anybody…blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah blah blah.  It’s the great short sided argument.  Hamburg is a team with victories over Sweet Home, Williamsville East, and Starpoint this season.  They compete in Class AA2.  Good basketball is good basketball & good players will thrive anywhere.  I will guarantee you there’s not a person who attended the game in Hamburg on Monday night that left thinking Hind or Randolph is overrated.

 

– Tre Paulfrey reached the 1,000 point career milestone in his junior season at Nichols, against Timon on Friday night.

 

– Harlem Brannon now owns the all-time record for career steals at Ken West.  At last check, he already had 188 thefts in his junior season.

 

– Gavin French became the all-time leading scorer at West Seneca West.  He finished with a career-high 31 pts in a 74-67 win over JFK.

 

– Elijah Greene scored his career-high in a 72-32 win over City Honors.  The Park junior finished with 31 pts in the victory.

 

– Pine Valley's Cameron Slade scored a career-high 30 points in back-to-back games last week, a pair of wins over North Collins & West Valley.

 

– Alden defeated Tonawanda, 44–19, on Tuesday.  In the victory, all 14 Bulldogs on the roster recorded points in the scorebook.

 

– Zach McGuire scored 27 points with 12 rebounds in Westfield's 87–42 win over Brocton on Tuesday.

 

– Carson Swanson became the all-time leading scorer in the Southern Tier, when he scored 39 points in the team's victory over Brocton, surpassing the mark of 2,258 points held by former Jamestown legend Maceo Wofford on a #BOOM.  Apparently, Swanson had a roll of dimes in his pocket when he went for the record-breaking dunk, because dimes were spilling everywhere.  Swanson also broke the school record for assists in a game that night, spilling 16 dimes.

 

– Antoine Williams had 26 points along with 15 rebounds in East's 58–47 win over Maritime.

 

– Jerrell Neely scored a career-high 30 points in Medina’s 75–53 win over Barker.

 

– Jackson Griesmer was honored for becoming the all-time leading scorer in Spartan history, prior to the start of Starpoint vs Will South last week.  Starpoint then went on to claim a big 61–51 win with Cohen Vogel recording a triple-double performance.  The senior scored 16 points, while handing out 11 assists & earning 10 steals.  For good measure, he grabbed 9 rebounds in the win as well.  

 

– Andrew Spiesman was all over the glass in Panama's 75–40 win over Sherman, coming down with 19 rebounds in the game.

 

– Salamanca's 62-54 loss to Falconer last week was the first local loss of the season for the Warriors.  The victory for the Golden Falcons was their only win in their last 7 outings.  The implications are wildly similar to a situation from last season, when Salamanca was rolling along until losing late in the year at Fredonia.  That loss set up a quarterfinal rematch with the Hillbillies in the postseason and was one Salamanca had hoped to avoid.  The late season loss to Falconer puts Salamanca in the same spot as last season, now eyeing up a return visit from Falconer in the Class B2 quarterfinals.

 

– Nakyhi Harris dropped his career-high of 35 pts in Timon's 78-71 win against Nichols.  The senior also grabbed 10 boards in the victory.

 

– Antonio Andrews scored a career-high 33 points & grabbed 18 rebounds in a 75–58 win for Amherst over over visiting Sweet Home.

 

– Ellicottville sophomore Rylan Benjamin earned 6 steals while scoring a career-high 25 points when the Eagles knocked off North Collins, 61-37.  The team went on to earn an impressive win at Portville on Thursday.

 

– Starpoint finished the season with 3 consecutive victories, including a big one on Tuesday night, when they knocked off visiting Williamsville South, 61–51.   The return of 6-8 senior Jack Kemp to the lineup is a game changer for the Spartans heading into a wide open class AA2 bracket. 

 

– Nate Henry finished with a career-high 31 points in Chautauqua Lake's 76–53 win over Pine Valley.

 

– Brady Eick must’ve gotten into something good at Silver Creek… After banging 10 triples in a WNY season-high 47-point performance, the senior has followed it up with a 30 & 33 point performance in victories for the black Knights.  He has – knocked down 25 treys in his last 3 games and has a total of 38 long range bombs over his last 5 outings!

 

– Clymer scored a big victory over Southwestern, who was coming off recent victories over Allegany-Limestone & Fredonia. With 15 seconds left, Blake Beckerink picked up a loose ball on an inbound play and was fouled.  He went on to convert both free throws, lifting his team to victory.

 

– Orchard Park sophomore Max Mancabelli finished with a career-high 25 points, along with 7 steals, in the Quakers' 70–49 victory at Frontier.

 

– If St. Joe's & Canisius meet in the Manhattan Cup Championship game on Saturday, March 1st, it would mark the first time this century that the teams played three times in a season while ranked #1 & #2 in each meeting.

 

– There are 5 teams in WNY scoring over 70 points per game…and two averaging less than 30 ppg.

 

– Teams opting out of sectionals has always been a tough one for me to grasp.  One of the teams that has opted out won 4 games this year.  Makes no sense.  We talk a good game about providing opportunities for kids and then turn around and take them away.  As if the players on the team only want to lose games in the regular season.  Everybody except the champ loses its last game.  I played on some bad teams when I was growing up, never once did I wish to play one less game because of it.  Anytime you gave me the opportunity to go out and play a game, I was all about it.  Is it fair that kids go out for a team, practice all season, travel to away games, etc., and then are told that even though every team gets a free pass to the postseason, we're not going?  Apparently so.  But in my opinion, if Section VI allows ALL teams to qualify for the playoffs, the only valid reason to take that away from the players is a lack of available players to sanction a game.

 

-🏀centercourt🏀