Players Sidelined and A Top B-W Area Matchup
Marshall Strickland, the highly respected guard who is headed to Mike Davis' Indiana Hoosier program next season, got the official word last week. The answer again is "NO."
In mid-December, the judge who had issued an injuction which enabled Strickland to play two games, dissolved that temporary order because the eventual outcome seemed clear. It was and is.
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Strickland is still practicing with the team, but as we know, that is not the same as game experience.
Tonight, Archbishop Spalding High School from Severn, MD, coming off a 3-0 outing at the Slam Dunk at the Beach, takes on the Baltimore Sun's number 11 team, McDonogh School from Owing Mills, MD. Spalding is holding down the number 2 slot in the poll, behind Baltimore City's Douglas High School.
The game will pit two of the best big men in the area, Jaz Cowan against junior Wil Bowers. Spalding also features lead guard Landy Thompson, the brother of George Washington's freshman point guard, T.J. Thompson.
A player from the Baltimore-Washington area saw his freshman season end early in the second half of the ACC opener for North Carolina State and Maryland. Levi Watkins, who prepped at Stu Vetter's Montrose Christian High School, was injured while making a shot at the top of the paint with 18:28 left in the game. An MRI examination revealed a torn ACL which ended Watkins promising freshman season.
Note: Maryland won the contest 72-65.
Finally, in a story from the Conference USA, freshman big man Brandon Bender was suspended indefintely by Louisville for a violation of team rule. This is Bender's second suspension this season.
Bender, one of the top players in the class of 2001, finally settled on his home-town school last year. His reputation (behavioral problems) had hurt his recruiting, though an uneventful and athletically succesful senior season at Louisville's Ballard H.S. had indicated things were turning around.