Orlando Comets

(KB - 07/13/05) The Comets Red team endured their worst lost EVER this afternoon after being pasted by the Georgia Metro Nike Elite team, 93-59. Even boys AAU team teams have not beaten the Comets Red by such a lopsided margin. The Comets, who are now 63-2 on the year, have never lost to any girls team by more than 13 points.

SG was at this game and we were amazed not so much by the magnitude of the loss but by the method in which it was inflicted. The Comets led this game by a score of 15-1 two minutes into the game. The game looked like five thousand other wipeouts the Comets inflicted on bigger but unsuspecting foes. The girls were pressing and getting easy baskets. The Metros looked confused and disorganized.

But if there was an unsuspecting foe on the court today it was the team from Orlando. After falling behind by 14 points, the Metros stormed back. They started hitting jumper after jumper. And when the defense extended to challenge the jumpshooters the Metros lobbed the ball inside to Mya Moore, whose precise moves in the paint befuddled the usually sure-handed Comets center Krystal Thomas. By the time Krystal swung to block Mya's shots the ball was already lacing thru the nets. Mya shoots on the way up, not at the top of her jump.

Georgia took a 47-34 halftime lead. Still, we thought the Comets would prevail. They'd been playing their subs while the Metros made their comeback. We expected a different scenario when the Comets' starters re-entered the game.

Nope.

The Metros scored the first 11 points of the second half to blow this game open. The Comets guards committed turnover after turnover in the face of nominal pressure. The Comets coaches instructed the guards to get Krystal involved in the game. Every possession the Comets guards would penetrate and loft the ball up to Krystal as she curled to the basket. The Metro girls simply leapt up and grabbed the alley-oop pass out of the air. The planned play never worked. Krystal only scored once all game.

More than this, the Metros pounded the Comets on the boards. The Comets, never too big to begin with, simply could not cope with their beefy players in the middle. The Red team is missing power forward Jordan Coleman at this tournament. She is preparing for D1 AAU 14U Nationals in Virginia and cannot also play D1 here. The Red team is also missing forward Sharece Taft. She tore her ACL a month ago and is out indefinitely.

Every time the Comets mounted a mini-run, Metros guard Janay Stokes(#12) would lace a silky trey through the nets. Janay finished with 20 points and hit five 3-pointers. Mya Moore was unstoppable in the paint, finishing with 25 points.

For the Comets, Brooke Thomas and Alexa Deluzio finished with 14 points apiece--mostly in the first half. None of the Comets players were effective in the second half.

It was an historic loss.

But the Red team did not stay down for long. In the second game, the Red team missed Krystal--who dashed off to attend the Adidas Top 10 camp. (She'll be back for the second day of bracket play). The Comets guards stepped up and ran away from the Tennessee Elite, 72-44. Stephanie Thomas led a determined effort with 20 points as the Comets exploded defensively in the second half to seal the win.

The Red team is now 3-1 in pool play with a final game against the Ohio Blaze scheduled for tomorrow. The Comets must win that game or lose by less than 9 points to secure second place in Pool I.

2005 AAU 16U Pool Play Scores

(The photos to the right are of this year's 16U class when they were 13U players in 2002)

(KB - 07/12/05)  The Comets Red 15U opened pool play at AAU 16U nationals with two superior (13+) wins over the Fox Valley Rebels and the Boo Williams Miracles today.    The Comets scorched Fox Valley 68-27 and outlasted Boo Williams 68-53.   These wins leave the Comets tied for first place in Pool I with the Ohio Blaze and the Georgia Metro Nike Elite.    Both the Blaze and the Elite posted 13+ wins over their opponents today.

In the early game, the Comets came out smoking.   Led by Gabby Claxton the Comets jumped on Fox Valley at the outset and never allowed them to get into the game.   Gabby made several tough defensive plays that allowed her to score unhindered as the Comets piled up an early lead and coasted in the second half.

It was just the opposite in the late game.    The Comets did jump out to a first half lead, but Boo Williams made some halftime adjustments that allowed them to play the Comets tight in the second half, much to the chagrin of Comets Coach Garfield Blair.    "We allowed them back into the game in the second half", groused Blair.     "You can't do that at this level."

Why not, we wonder?   They ARE playing up.

The Comets will get their mouths bloodied tomorrow when they square off against the Georgia Metro Nike Elite.    This team finished second in the 16U gold division at the Boo Williams tourney in April.    It is doubtful the Comets will be allowed to pile up a 25 point cushion before the game becomes interesting.

The Comets have Tennessee Elite on tap in the late game and the Ohio Blaze set for Thursday.

In other games of note, the Hollywood Sun Eagles 16U went 1-1 on the first day of pool play.    Hollywood beat the Dayton Lady Hoopstars 57-52 in the early game, but stumbled before the DBL Phoenix, 70-59, in the nightcap.   If that's so, we don't wish to see the Phoenix until late.     The Suns are the only team to beat the Comets this year.    We would not have predicted a loss for them on the first day of competition.

In Pool H, Jacksonville Team Ball was crushed by Indiana's Finest, 97-62, in the opening game.   They came back to beat OK Magic 88's in the nightcap.

In Pool A, the Palm Beach Waverunners lost their opening game to the MI Livingston Sting, 76-71.    Also in Pool A, TN Flight pasted the Florida Fire, 109-21.

In Pool D, Orlando Girls Got Game downed the Connecticut Storm Black, 61-52, in the opener and then extended their record to 2-0 with a 73-69 win over the Phoenix Phenoms.

And in Pool M, Madd Skillz went 0-2 on the day with losses to the Fairfax Stars and the NJ North Stars.

2005 AAU 16U Pool Play Scores

(The photos to the right are of this year's 16U class when they were 13U players in 2002)

(KB - 07/03/05) AAU has released the pool schedules for AAU 16U nationals at Disney starting July 11, 2005.

First off, SG is not and does not pretend to be an expert in the AAU. b.1988 division. We know as much about the AAU 16U division as any given referee knows about making traveling calls in the NBA: We're blind. We don't know the teams, we don't know the players, we don't know the coaches.

But we DO know how AAU pools are situated. We know how AAU teams earn seedings. Beyond that, we can't really say who will beat whom when AAU 16U Nationals start in a couple of weeks. We will simply say we hope the whole tournament comes down to a single game between the Hollywood Suns and the Orlando Comets and leave it at that.

But before we get to that point, lets talk about what we can derive from last year's finish and this year's seedings. 

According to the AAU website, SE Tennessee Shelbyville Sports Shop won 2004 AAU 15U Nationals last year. That win earned a #1 seeding for the SE Tennessee association, not the Shelbyville team.

A quick check of the 2005 AAU 16U teamlist shows that Shelbyville isn't attending AAU Nationals this year. We don't know why they elected not to defend their crown. They may not have qualified this year. They may have broken up. But a more logical conclusion would be that Shelbyville elected to sign with a shoe company and is obligated to attend that shoe company's events. As teams get older, that seems to be the trend.

In Shelbyville's absence, TN Team Flight has inherited the #1 seed. They are the top seed in Pool A. Team Flight evidently won the Tennessee association championship this year. Tennessee routinely sends progressively stronger teams to AAU nationals, so it would be unwise to assume that Team Flight is any less formidable a team than Shelbyville.

The same logic applies to the #2 seed. The NY Gazelles finished second last year and earned a #2 seed for the Metropolitan association. No team from that association is attending AAU 16U Nationals this year. The #2 seed therefore falls to...the NorCal Heat from California?!?

Yes. They are the top team in Pool Q. They received the #2 seed after the Gazelles elected not to return AND EBX elected not to return. EBX would have earned the #3 seed based on their third place finish last year. They didn't return and Norcal inherited their seed. And since the #2 seeded association didn't send a team, Norcal moved up into the #2 spot.

See how that works? We won't go down the list of last year's finishers and explain how each team received their seed. Using the above methodology, you can do that yourself. We will mention that the top seed gets assigned to the first alphabetic pool(A), the second seed gets assigned to the last alphabetic pool(Q), the third seed gets assigned to the SECOND alphabetic pool(B), the fourth seed gets assigned to the SECOND TO LAST alphabetic pool(P), and so on. That's how seeding works.

Rather than continue this lesson in AAU A-B-C's, let's talk about how the Comets and Suns are seeded.

The Comets are the fourth ranked team in Pool I. The Suns are the sixth ranked team in Pool G. Notice we said "ranked" and not "seeded". Neither team is "seeded". Seeds are only passed out to AAU associations based on last year's finish. Since neither team competed at AAU 15U Nationals last year, the ranking earned by the Suns and Comets is done by a random assessment of their capabilities. 

It's ridiculous to assume that two teams that only have two losses between them this AAU season can be ranked so low. But AAU doesn't know that. They, too, have to fly blindly with teams that don't have an AAU track record.

The Comets are pooled with Tennessee Elite, who obtained a #4 seeding (not ranking) via inheritance from Tennessee Team Pride. (Team Pride is attending this year. They must have finished behind the TN Elite in their AQT this year). The Comets are also pooled with the Ohio Blaze, who finished out of the money at the Garden City Roundball Classic last weekend. Those are the only observations we can make about this pool. As we said, we are not in any position to make predictions about the 16U division.

We do know that the Hollywood Suns are pooled with a fairly decent team. The DBL Phoenix out of Philly finished tied for ninth last year and they ain't nuttin' but nice. Whether they can beat the Suns is not a matter for conjecture here.

But let us assume that both teams win their pools. The winners bracket matchup would have the Comets facing the Suns in the Elite 8. The teams can only separate across the bracket if one of them loses in pool play.

The Suns beat the Comets Red at 2005 Disney Spring Fling. We want to see the rematch.

2005 AAU 16U Pool Play Scores

(The photos to the right are of this year's 16U class when they were 13U players in 2002)