There are a lot of ball games to be played between now and November and the start of the 2009-2010 basketball season for the Berkeley Stags.
First, there’s the whole summer workout thing, and don’t forget a dozen or so football games yet to be played in the fall before coach Charlie Harrison can assemble his basketball team and see how Fate will play all this out.
The Stags have played well at camps so far this summer, beating some big name opponents in the state, posting a 7-1 record against teams like Northwestern, who played in the Christmas in the Corner tournament.
“We’re playing well,” Harrison said. “We hope to carry the momentum over into the fall. If we can stay healthy, we have a chance to be pretty good.”
Harrison’s primary job will be to keep his team grounded amidst the potential recruiting frenzy that stands poised to descend on this remote corner of Berkeley County. Moncks Corner has suddenly become a well-known spot on the college basketball map as college coaches flock here by the dozen.
They all want to see Stags point guard Bruce Ellington.
“I’ve been on the phone for five hours yesterday,” Harrison said. “I had Darrin Horn sitting in my living room last night.
“Horn, South Carolina’s basketball coach, was in my living room last night and he’ll be back again before this is all over.”
Ellington exploded on the national basketball scene this spring after playing in AAU tournaments across the country after having missed most of the 2008-2009 season with a hand injury. He is ranked as one of the top college prospects in the state and one of the top point guards in the country.
“Bruce has two decisions on his hands, who to play for and what sport will he play, football or basketball,” Harrison said. “While there is significant interest in Bruce as a football player, it seems every major college basketball program in the country wants a shot at him.”
It’s not just the media circus that has Harrison shaking his head these days, there is also the cautious revelation slowly dawning on his Stags basketball program that as bad as things were last year, they could be good this year.
Very good.
While all the attention has been focused on the Stags’ three-sport star, this Berkeley basketball team is quickly rattling off some wins in summer league play.
“We’re not just Bruce,” he said. “We have everybody back and they all have a year of experience under their belts.”
Calling the 2008-2009 basketball season an experience is like saying a Mustang is just another Ford.
The Stags suffered through an excruciating 17-game losing streak that began in December when Ellington went down with the hand injury and spanned all of January into February. Upon Ellington’s return late in the season, Berkeley closed out the season with four straight wins.
“The really tough part about last season is that we never really played terrible basketball,” Harrison said. “We were in every ball game.”
Harrison added that a bad two or three minute span, or a crucial turnover, missed bucket or bad call is what cost his Stags a win: “We came very close several times during that streak and that made it even more frustrating.”
The 17-game losing streak is a distant memory and a reminder to this year’s club which returns five seniors from last year’s team, all of whom started at some point in the 2008-2009 season.
Along with Ellington, seniors D.J. Harrison, Marcus Wiggs, R.J. Robinson and Victor Williams return to give Berkeley a solid front five with strengths both inside the paint and beyond the arc.
“Bruce is a dynamic player no doubt,” Harrison said. “With him at point guard it takes the pressure of handling the ball off the other guys. Now they can assume their roles either playing the inside game or the perimeter.”
Harrison cites a monster dunk by Marcus Wiggs off a driving feed from Ellington as one of the big differences between this year and last.
“Bruce drives the lane and everybody collapses on Bruce, and then he feeds a nice pass to Marcus on the baseline and he slammed home this monster dunk,” he said. “We couldn’t do that last year.”