Five takeaways: Bear Creek versus Falcon

<p>The Bear Creek Invitational got underway for their 2^ndannual tourney on Thursday with the final game being between the host of the tourney, Bear Creek between Falcon high school. The crowd was into it, there were some entertaining plays made by the Bears and they won from start to finish. This is a team that is off to a great start so we made it a point to come down and check them out.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Very entertaining game</strong></p> <p>This is an interesting team that truly gets after it. They are a talented and scrappy team that wants to push the pace and get out and run and in Thursday’s game, they were able to get it going early on and did not look back from there. At home,  teams are going to have issues with this team as they play off of the crowd, they play two full units in which the coach makes sure that he gets guys in and out which can go either way but if they get a rebound any of their players have the ability to just get out and go. On defense, they play a man but swarm, they are always in help side and they also are a team that does not force too much with some solid guard play. I enjoyed watching this team and will make sure to take another look at them soon.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>New Names to watch</strong></p> <p>This was a game that I had not seen Bear Creek play and I only saw a few of the Falcons players in showcases, so it was great to see a few players step up within their system.</p> <p>Bear Creek has some players that we are going to take a deeper look at.</p> <p><strong>Xavier Herrera</strong> knocked down two 3-pointers and showed that while all of the attention is elsewhere, he is capable of scoring some baskets and getting going. He offers on-ball and off-ball help to create for the other scorers in the rotation and finished with 10 points in the game.</p> <p><strong>Jason Leavit</strong> also stood out for his work on the defensive end. He plays the passing lanes well and has good timing. He got four steals and then on the other end was able to beat his guy on isolation baskets. He is a player that you clear out for and watch him go to work and he was able to get going with a few easy baskets there.</p> <p>For Falcon, the player that I would like to see in a different setting it <strong>Ethan Royx</strong>. He got put into so many traps and got so many looks and he was able to adjust and get through it all. There were a few errant passes, but he stuck with it and made some plays where he started to generate some offense. He will have to get some on-ball help so he is not exerting so much energy trying to get his guys open but he was able to score a couple of times and run his offense.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>X-Factors</strong></p> <p>I know that we already talked about new names to take a look at but two players really stood out as players that we will take a longer look at as their play was the difference in the game.</p> <p>For Falcon, <strong>Mason Black</strong> is a player that you always have to keep an eye on. He is their best player and was the only one that could get anything going for them. He gets to the rim, he finds areas where he can use his size and he wants to get inside. He also knocked down a couple of mid-range jumpers and maybe Falcon will have to go through him in press situations as he was one of the only players that was not able to get trapped. I think that Falcon was caught a bit off-guard, I would like to see him again.</p> <p>Bear Creek has a couple of talented players that I enjoyed watching but one that I kept on seeing make play after play was <strong>Jacob Nuanes</strong>. A ton of the things he does goes overlooked and do not appear on the scoreboard but this was a game that he really had some impacting plays that made it difficult for Falcon. He forced plenty of turnovers and had a career-high eight steals, he ran the fast break for easy baskets and also showed that he has a bit of range as he knocked down a 3-pointer. What stood out for me was him accepting that a player on his team got hot and finding him with every opportunity. He had seven rebounds and four assists in the game and really stood out for me.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Luis Miera, player of the game</strong></p> <p>Miera transferred over from Alameda and while he really stood out there, this is the place that he belongs. He embraces the crowd and feeds off of it and he is around an unselfish bunch that enjoys when he is hot. He got hot early and did not slow down as he finished with 25 points in the game and fed off of the great atmosphere. He has range and knocks down 3-pointers consistently, he gets to the rim and can finish as he is great in pick and roll situations and although he was hot he made sure to get others involved. Not often do you get the leading scorer in the game to also be the leading assist-man but he found a way. Solid stat line of 25 points, five assists and four steals for him.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>What to watch moving forward</strong></p> <p>For Falcon, they have to bounce-back and get back to playing solid basketball. They were attacked early and the guard play of Bear Creek appeared to be too much for them. They also lost to Fruita Monument and a struggling Grand Canyon Central team so they are desperately looking to bounceback and get on the right track and put the Denver trip behind them.</p> <p>Bear Creek heads into a tough part of their schedule, they have a really good schedule this season and will have plenty of games to prove themselves. They lost a close game against Arapahoe in which they fought back into the game but too much guard play to overcome. I expect them to surprise a team or two this season.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>