Columbia Heights 68 DeLaSalle 63 – The Rundown

<p>Columbia Heights earned an important win late last week in beating DeLaSalle 68-63. The victory vaulted the Hylanders into a ranking of number two in Class AAA basketball. How did they get the win? We have a look at that today while catching up on what players stood out.</p> <p>Early on the Hylanders defense made a statement. <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="958648" first="Hassan" last="Kamara"]</strong>, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a 6’4 junior wing of Columbia Heights</span>, and <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="957232" first="Elijah" last="Williams"]</strong>, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a 6’0 senior guard of Columbia Heights</span>, each forced turnovers and found <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="958742" first="Terrence" last="Brown"],</strong> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a 5’11 junior point guard of Columbia Heights</span>, transitioning the other way for points. The Hylanders appeared to be the team with more energy.</p> <p>For Kamara it was the type of defensive impact play we’ve often seen from him (also forced a jumpball early too). Hassan also had a quick early drive using his first step to get baseline and then he pivoted into a clearing to hit a short jumper off the window. Kamara followed that with a nice looking three in the corner. Assist? The pass was on the money from Brown. With Brown there is a comfort you feel when he has the ball about to make a decision and it makes things so much easier for those around him.</p> <p>Speaking of defensive impact, what about… <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="958666" first="Donnavin" last="Hinsz"]</strong>, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a 6’6 junior power forward of Columbia Heights</span>! Hinsz had two help over blocks that were collected and pushed the other way for Hylander scores. Donnavin moves very well shown by how he covers ground and quickly leaves his feet to contest/block/grab.  His agility was also on display when he stepped out to defend above the arc applying pressure (there was also a time when Hinsz beat a DeLaSalle corner attack to the baseline with three quick lateral steps into a charge take). Hinsz did a really nice job limiting [player_tooltip player_id="774736" first="Cade" last="Haskins"] to three scores.</p> <p>DeLaSalle was able to settle down finding the sweet shooting stroke of <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="774807" first="Evan" last="Boyd"],</strong> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a 6’2 senior shooting guard of DeLaSalle</span>, for a corner three and a make at the top of the key. Evan has scored in double figures every game so far this season.</p> <p>To open the second half Hinsz set the tone by out-fighting Haskins for an offensive board. Hinsz initially looked to others but then decided to attack himself spinning back to the baseline over his left shoulder. He then completed the play with a physical bump to separate followed by the left hand finish. It was another momentum building set of plays for Heights that set a tone of toughness. Hinsz beat Haskins for another physical putback after a DeLaSalle timeout. Hinsz had three second chance buckets in all in half two overall.</p> <p>To nobody’s surprise <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="850729" first="Muja" last="Burton"]</strong>, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a 6’4 junior small forward of Columbia Heights</span>, is leading the Hylanders in scoring again. Burton made his biggest impact with a late first half step through of a double into a score followed by two early second half triples.   Muja has done a job nice adding the Euro-Step finish comfortably to his game (based on this contest). He used the move twice comfortably for scores moving through a pair of defenders.</p> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="962218" first="Nasir" last="Whitlock"]</strong>, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a 6’1 sophomore guard of DeLaSalle</span>, stepped up several times to stop Hylander scoring runs. His right side attack beating the Hinsz help was a big play as was the three Nasir hit when his team was down six in the second half.</p> <p>Nasir was clearly comfortable with being the player DeLaSalle looked to for big buckets. It didn’t have to be a one on one creation either, Whitlock scored on a back-cut off a nice pass from Haskins and he stole the ball from Kamara and went coast to coast finishing while hit (no foul called). He also had a pair of scores going physically at opponents, making left shoulder contact, and touching in the right hand lay-ups with comfort.  Nasir scored a game high 23 points.</p> <p><strong>Casmir Chavis</strong>, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a 6’2 freshman guard of DeLaSalle</span>, provided Whitlock scoring support and usually it was with the transition run out. The talented young freshman has an eye for the transition run and his quickness up the floor led to four scores while Hylanders looked on helplessly.</p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>Big plays down the stretch?</em></span> I’ll start with the barrage of threes from Kamara. He hit six in all including several key makes late with the game on the line.  In all Hassan had a personal 11-0 run that gave the Hylanders a two score lead with four minutes to go. I also love how the Hylanders share the basketball. I think it’s a tone that Brown sets (had a nice late feed to Kamara off an o-board) and others follow (Kamara’s feeds to Hinsz with three minutes and 90 seconds to go were big).</p> <p>Kamara led the Hylanders with 22 points, Burton had 17, and Hinsz recorded a 12 point, ten board double-double.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/P4ab_UrfVjY" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>