Lessons learned for Knights: Despite 1-2 showing, Greenfield picks up valuable experience at John Wall Invitational
By Jack Frederick jfrederick@wilsontimes.com | 265-7824 | Twitter: @_jackfrederick
RALEIGH — Over the course of its week at the John Wall Holiday Invitational, the Greenfield School varsity boys basketball team talked a lot about what program could learn from the experience.
At the end of a 1-2 showing in the tournament, the Knights were left with a lot to examine after playing in a stacked David West Bracket.
“It gave us things to see what we needed to work on and go into practice and work on it,” senior guard Jordan Lynch said as his team heads back into the regular season.
The defending North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association 1-A champions fell to Raleigh Millbrook by two, collapsed against Durham Academy, then handled tournament host Raleigh Broughton in the seventh-place game to finish on a high note.
In a pair of losses, holes were exposed in the team’s defense. At times, free throws were an issue, particularly in key moments, and the team didn’t shoot up to its usual stands. That’s one of the things the Knights hoped to get out of the John Wall Holiday Invitational.
The experience, though much different than its 2017 run to the West Bracket championship game with current Chicago Bulls rookie guard Coby White leading the way, left plenty of lessons for the program to carry into the later part of the season.
THE RESUMES
Though each school earned its spot in the 2019 John Wall, the resumes of the David West Bracket in which Greenfield found itself spoke volumes.
The experience of playing in a tournament with so many other accomplished players was something that Wake Forest University signee Dji Bailey didn’t take for granted.
“It’s a great experience,” Bailey said. “It’s like no other experience in high school with big crowds and everything else. It’s a fun experience.”
Nearly every team featured in the tournament had at least one star player destined for the big-time college or future NBA ranks, but the eventual champion of the bracket, Montverde (Florida) Academy, stood apart from the rest.
The No. 1 team in the country, according to the Maxpreps.com Xcellent 25 Writers’ poll, ravaged through the competition with an all-star lineup led by North Carolina signee Day’Ron Sharpe, a Winterville native, and Cade Cunningham, who will play for Oklahoma State next season.
Joining them in the bracket championship was The Patrick School (New Jersey), an equally accomplished program ranked No. 4 in the Xcellent 25 national poll. The program received a big boost just ahead of the tournament’s start with the addition of small forward Jonathan Kuminga, the No. 1 player in the Class of 2021 according to 247Sports, who is sought after by Duke, Kentucky and other top programs.
Raleigh Millbrook is the top-ranked team in North Carolina and the No. 17 program in the country, according to MaxPreps.com, while Farmville Central of the 2-A Eastern Plains Conference entered the tournament on a 40-plus game winning streak that was ultimately upended by The Patrick School.
Rounding out the bracket, Durham Academy looks to be a threat in the NCISAA 4-A ranks, while Apex Friendship is out to a 10-3 start and host Broughton is learning how to play with youth as the Capitals gave Farmville Central all it could handle in a 72-67 opening-round loss.
It turned out that all these talented programs gave Greenfield all it could handle. But playing against some of the teams, and watching others, challenged head coach Rob Salter’s program to get better.
“It’s always just an honor to be here,” said Salter, who took his fifth Greenfield team to the Holiday Invitational. “When you’re here, every team tests your weaknesses and we saw our weaknesses and we saw what we needed to work on. We know we’ve got to be consistently tough. We know we’ve got to look to push the tempo and even do the stuff we’ve got to do when the shots aren’t falling. We learned a lot, I really feel like we did.”
It wasn’t all lessons learned from flaws in the team’s game right now, though. The tournament gave several players an opportunity to shine.
Over three games, Bailey led the team with 37 points, while Trey Pittman added 32 and both Collin Guilford and Jordan Lynch chipped in 31 points each.
LOOKING AHEAD
Coming out of the tournament, each game in Greenfield’s season becomes all the more important. The team lost back-to-back games for the first time this season, but hopes to learn from its mistakes to be much-improved later.
“You always say you learn a little more from losses than you do wins, and we had to do some self-checking the last couple days,” Salter said Monday. “Lost a tough one Thursday to Millbrook, to a great team, but we felt like we gave it away. In basketball, you’ve got to bounce back and we didn’t show up for 32 minutes against Durham Academy. But, we learned from it and we stepped up today the way I wanted us to.”
The Knights, currently ranked second among NCISAA 1-A teams by Maxpreps.com, have 14 games until the regular season is over, including a pair of 1-A/2-A Coastal Plain Independents Conference rivalry matchups with Wayne Country Day, ranked fifth in the NCISAA 2-A poll; a road trip to No. 1 Fayetteville Trinity Christian (13-1) at the end of January and a game against No. 3 The Burlington School on Jan. 18 in Kinston. Greenfield also hosts No. 4 Charlotte Victory Christian on Saturday.
Though it didn’t have the showing it wanted, Greenfield hopes that the lessons learned from the John Wall can springboard the program into a run later in the year. And there’s some precedent setting out a blueprint for that kind of streak.
After losing back-to-back games around the same time last season, Greenfield won 23-straight games to capture a state championship.
By Jack Frederick jfrederick@wilsontimes.com | 265-7824 | Twitter: @_jackfrederick
RALEIGH — Over the course of its week at the John Wall Holiday Invitational, the Greenfield School varsity boys basketball team talked a lot about what program could learn from the experience.
At the end of a 1-2 showing in the tournament, the Knights were left with a lot to examine after playing in a stacked David West Bracket.
“It gave us things to see what we needed to work on and go into practice and work on it,” senior guard Jordan Lynch said as his team heads back into the regular season.
The defending North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association 1-A champions fell to Raleigh Millbrook by two, collapsed against Durham Academy, then handled tournament host Raleigh Broughton in the seventh-place game to finish on a high note.
In a pair of losses, holes were exposed in the team’s defense. At times, free throws were an issue, particularly in key moments, and the team didn’t shoot up to its usual stands. That’s one of the things the Knights hoped to get out of the John Wall Holiday Invitational.
The experience, though much different than its 2017 run to the West Bracket championship game with current Chicago Bulls rookie guard Coby White leading the way, left plenty of lessons for the program to carry into the later part of the season.
THE RESUMES
Though each school earned its spot in the 2019 John Wall, the resumes of the David West Bracket in which Greenfield found itself spoke volumes.
The experience of playing in a tournament with so many other accomplished players was something that Wake Forest University signee Dji Bailey didn’t take for granted.
“It’s a great experience,” Bailey said. “It’s like no other experience in high school with big crowds and everything else. It’s a fun experience.”
Nearly every team featured in the tournament had at least one star player destined for the big-time college or future NBA ranks, but the eventual champion of the bracket, Montverde (Florida) Academy, stood apart from the rest.
The No. 1 team in the country, according to the Maxpreps.com Xcellent 25 Writers’ poll, ravaged through the competition with an all-star lineup led by North Carolina signee Day’Ron Sharpe, a Winterville native, and Cade Cunningham, who will play for Oklahoma State next season.
Joining them in the bracket championship was The Patrick School (New Jersey), an equally accomplished program ranked No. 4 in the Xcellent 25 national poll. The program received a big boost just ahead of the tournament’s start with the addition of small forward Jonathan Kuminga, the No. 1 player in the Class of 2021 according to 247Sports, who is sought after by Duke, Kentucky and other top programs.
Raleigh Millbrook is the top-ranked team in North Carolina and the No. 17 program in the country, according to MaxPreps.com, while Farmville Central of the 2-A Eastern Plains Conference entered the tournament on a 40-plus game winning streak that was ultimately upended by The Patrick School.
Rounding out the bracket, Durham Academy looks to be a threat in the NCISAA 4-A ranks, while Apex Friendship is out to a 10-3 start and host Broughton is learning how to play with youth as the Capitals gave Farmville Central all it could handle in a 72-67 opening-round loss.
It turned out that all these talented programs gave Greenfield all it could handle. But playing against some of the teams, and watching others, challenged head coach Rob Salter’s program to get better.
“It’s always just an honor to be here,” said Salter, who took his fifth Greenfield team to the Holiday Invitational. “When you’re here, every team tests your weaknesses and we saw our weaknesses and we saw what we needed to work on. We know we’ve got to be consistently tough. We know we’ve got to look to push the tempo and even do the stuff we’ve got to do when the shots aren’t falling. We learned a lot, I really feel like we did.”
It wasn’t all lessons learned from flaws in the team’s game right now, though. The tournament gave several players an opportunity to shine.
Over three games, Bailey led the team with 37 points, while Trey Pittman added 32 and both Collin Guilford and Jordan Lynch chipped in 31 points each.
LOOKING AHEAD
Coming out of the tournament, each game in Greenfield’s season becomes all the more important. The team lost back-to-back games for the first time this season, but hopes to learn from its mistakes to be much-improved later.
“You always say you learn a little more from losses than you do wins, and we had to do some self-checking the last couple days,” Salter said Monday. “Lost a tough one Thursday to Millbrook, to a great team, but we felt like we gave it away. In basketball, you’ve got to bounce back and we didn’t show up for 32 minutes against Durham Academy. But, we learned from it and we stepped up today the way I wanted us to.”
The Knights, currently ranked second among NCISAA 1-A teams by Maxpreps.com, have 14 games until the regular season is over, including a pair of 1-A/2-A Coastal Plain Independents Conference rivalry matchups with Wayne Country Day, ranked fifth in the NCISAA 2-A poll; a road trip to No. 1 Fayetteville Trinity Christian (13-1) at the end of January and a game against No. 3 The Burlington School on Jan. 18 in Kinston. Greenfield also hosts No. 4 Charlotte Victory Christian on Saturday.
Though it didn’t have the showing it wanted, Greenfield hopes that the lessons learned from the John Wall can springboard the program into a run later in the year. And there’s some precedent setting out a blueprint for that kind of streak.
After losing back-to-back games around the same time last season, Greenfield won 23-straight games to capture a state championship.
