Scholastic Notebook – 03/08/2013

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, March 8, 2013 | 6:33 PM

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It is easy to be impressed by the offensive numbers that the New Castle boys basketball team has posted this season. It is hard not to be wowed by a high school team that averages 79 points a game and 8.8 3-pointers a game.

But what New Castle does defensively also is impressive. In fact, upon deeper look, the Red Hurricanes’ defensive statistics are at least as impressive as the offensive statistics.

Maybe to full comprehend what New Castle does defensively, let’s compare their statistics to the best defensive teams at the NCAA Division I college level:

* New Castle’s opponents turn the ball over 22.3 times a game. Virginia Commonwealth leads Division I in most turnovers for opponents. VCU opponents turn it over 20.3 times.

* New Castle’s turnover margin is 12.5. VCU is No. 1 in college basketball’s turnover margin at 8.3

* And here is a really impressive defensive statistic: New Castle averages 12.3 steals a game. On the college level, VCU leads the country in steals at 12.2.

Suffice it to say that New Castle gets a lot out of its full-court, pressure defense. As for New Castle’s offense, the statistics are impressive there also. New Castle shoots .495 percent overall. The Red Hurricanes also shoot .395 percent from 3-point range. And they average 8.8 3-pointers a game.

New Castle itself turns the ball over only 9.8 times a game. Wisconsin leads Division I basketball with fewest turnovers at 9.4. Cal Poly (9.4), Michigan (9.6) and Bucknell (9.8) are the only other Division I colleges that turn the ball over fewer than 10 times a game.

New Castle is undefeated and begins the PIAA playoffs Saturday against Gateway.

Walker-Kimbrough Top 10?

The Hopewell girls basketball team begins the PIAA playoffs Saturday. If the Vikings could win a few games, Shatori Walker-Kimbrough could possibly end up among the top 10 scorers in WPIAL history.

Walker-Kimbrough, a Maryland recruit who is ranked among the top 50 players in the country, has 2,384 career points, which is good for 11^th-place on the all-time WPIAL list. Directly in front of her is West Mifflin’s Tanisha Wright (2,477) and Albert Gallatin’s Loui Hall (2,440).

Hopewell plays Villa Maria in a first-round game Saturday afternoon on MSA.

Palumbo Palooza

If you simply look at the crowds, it seems WPIAL basketball is still pretty popular.

The crowds aren’t as big as the 1960s and 70s at the Civic Arena when WPIAL basketball was in its heyday, but consider that two of the three championship sessions at Duquesne University’s Palumbo Center last weekend were sold out.

Palumbo underwent renovation a few years ago and actually lost some seating. Capacity is now 4,300. But Palumbo officials eventually had to stop selling tickets last Friday and Saturday nights. The place was jammed for the Montour-Chartiers Valley boys game Friday night. The Hampton-New Castle game also was filled Saturday night.

WPIAL officials said about 13,500 tickets were sold over the two days, not counting comp tickets. You can bet Duquesne wishes it could see such crowds at its games.

Attendance at the PIAA championships is a different story. Last year at Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center, the PIAA games drew only 14,421 fans. And that was for four boys games and four girls games – just like the WPIAL. This year, if the WPIAL had a bigger venue, the crowds would have definitely been bigger than the PIAA last year.

Attendance for the PIAA championships has dropped drastically in recent years. Attendance in 2007, the first year at Bryce Jordan, was 33,008.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons the basketball championships were moved back to the Giant Center in Hershey this year. Attendance at the Giant Center from 2004-06 was between 33,000 and 34,000.

Going for 800

Legendary former North Catholic coach Don Graham is the winningest coach in Pennsylvania boys basketball history with a record of 801-436 from 1948-99. But there is a chance Graham could be surpassed in the PIAA playoffs.

Ron Insinger, the coach of Loyalsock High School in eastern Pennsylvania, has 799 wins heading into the PIAA playoffs. Could Insinger pass Graham in the PIAA playoffs? If not, he most certainly will next season.

Insinger has been coaching for 38 years and has won 17 district championships and made the PIAA playoffs 11 of the past 13 seasons. He has 27 20-win seasons. But some of Insinger’s wins came in girls basketball. Early in his career, he coached the boys and girls teams because the girls played in the spring. He has 75 wins in girls basketball.

Triple Combo of Big Macs?

The PIAA wrestling championships started yesterday in Hershey and run through tomorrow. One of the biggest stories of the weekend is will Canon-McMillan win three titles?

It is a definite possibility that Connor Schram (126 pounds), Solomon Chishko (145) and Cody Wiercioch (170) could come back from Chocolatetown with gold medals. Schram already has one PIAA title in his career and two second-place finishes. Wiercioch is a two-time PIAA champ. Chishko has finished third twice.

Overall, seven Canon-McMillan wrestlers qualified for the PIAA championships. A year ago, Canon-McMillan set a a WPIAL record with eight place-winners.

While Canon-McMillan is well-represented at the PIAA championships, Bethlehem Catholic has a dozen wrestlers in the PIAA tournament. The 12 qualifiers from Bethlehem Catholic in Class AA is a a state record for either classification.

Football Coaching News

The list of vacant coaching jobs in WPIAL football is starting to shrink. Most recently, Plum and Pine-Richland filled their vacant jobs and both hired former Pitt football players.

Plum hired Matt Morgan as coach to succeed Frank Sacco, whose job was opened after four seasons. Plum won only one game the past two seasons and finished this season on a 16-game losing streak.

Morgan is a 1999 Plum graduate who went on to play offensive line at Pitt and played in one game with the NFL’s St. Louis Rams. Morgan spent the past three seasons as an assistant coach at Gateway.

At Pine-Richland, Eric Kasperowicz is the new coach. Kasperowicz is a former Parade All-American quarterback at North Hills who graduated from North Hills in 1994. He led North Hills to WPIAL and PIAA titles in 1993 before going on to play linebacker at Pitt.

Kasperowicz has been Pine-Richland’s offensive coordinator the past few seasons and takes over for Clair Altemus, who retired. Kasperowicz also was an assistant coach at North Hills before coming to Pine-Richland.

Football Recruiting

It looks like Washington running back Shai McKenzie will be the most heavily-recruited player in the WPIAL class of 2014. In the past week, he has picked up scholarship offers from Oklahoma and Florida State. He now has more than two dozen offers. Pitt, Penn State, West Virginia, Michigan and Tennessee were among the many schools that had offered previously.
 

Tags: Canon-McMillan, Hopewell