| By
Tricia
Lafferty TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, July 15, 2007
It may be the offseason for high school basketball, but the gym at Moon
High School this past Thursday night indicated otherwise.
Because of the increased participation in summer league basketball in recent years, the sport has become a year-round activity for most Western Pennsylvania teams. Take for instance Serra Catholic, who defeated Burgettstown in the Class A/AA championship game, and North Allegheny, who defeated Allderdice in the Class AAA/AAAA final of the Pittsburgh Basketball Club's summer league Thursday night at Moon. Those teams, which are comprised of the schools' returning players and coached by the teams' head or assistant coaches, emerged from an eight-game regular season and a 90-team pool. |
Sure, this championship doesn't mean nearly as much as the WPIAL title games in March, but Serra Catholic coach Bob Rozanski learned a lot about his team in the past two months. Serra Catholic, which is in its third year in the summer league run by Pittsburgh Baketball Club director John Giammarco, was knocked out of the WPIAL playoffs in the semifinals.
"For me, I see what we need to work on," Rozanski said. "Every team seems to have a different personality to them each year. Some strengths and weaknesses change. I think I saw some weaknesses that we need to work on, so I have, however, many months now to go to organize in my mind what I need to do and how to do it."
Although Bethel Park defeated Moon last year in Class AAA/AAAA to win the summer-league crown before going on to claim the WPIAL Class AAAA title in March, coaches don't put too much stock in the offseason performances. It is, however, a good opportunity to play against future competition and have players work out together before conditioning starts in the fall.
"It's huge to keep them playing and keep them involved," Moon coach Jeff Ackermann said. "I tell my guys all the time, 'It doesn't guarantee anything at all.' They still have to do other things, but it gives these guys a chance to see where we are.
"It lets everybody kind of see where they fit in right now instead of having to wait until the season. You have an idea of what the coaches are thinking, and if you're a young guy, you have a chance to prove yourself."
Moon also played in a Sunday league hosted by Peters Township, but Ackermann said the Pittsburgh Basketball Club's summer league is the most popular in the area. Giammarco started the league in 1994 with just eight teams, but nowadays, it attracts the majority of the WPIAL and City League schools in addition to squads who come from as far as Johnstown and West Virginia.
The league also attracts college scouts. Giammarco said approximately 30 recruiters attended games this summer, but the majority of the traffic passed through Moon this past week during the playoffs.
"In the early 90s, basketball was sort of on CPR in Western Pennsylvania," Giammarco said. "I sort of put out a plan in my mind that I wanted basketball to be the way it used to be when I was growing up with good teams and good competition. The first thing you needed to do was have more kids playing basketball."
Tricia Lafferty can be reached at tlafferty@tribweb.com or 412-380-5666.