4A Hoops Final Four (And Other Weekend Basketball Wonderment)
The state 4A boys basketball tournament is down to the semifinals, and if you had Todd Beamer High going all the way, I'm sorry but you aren't going to win your pool.
You will be in good shape if you have all four semifinalists: Garfield (Seattle), Foss (Tacoma), Kentridge (Kent), and Federal Way (Omak Federal Way).
Semifinal games are tonight at the Tacoma Dome, with Kentridge vs. Federal Way at 7pm, and Garfield vs. Foss immediately after. You can listen to both games on KJR-AM 950.
Saturday's championship game, scheduled to start at 9pm, will be televised on FSN, and also broadcast on KJR.
Garfield has the most talented player in the tournament, 6-5 sophomore wing Tony Wroten (pictured), who is rated as the best player of his age in the entire fricking country. The Seattle Times has some nice video of Wroten's stellar game in last night's OT win over Gonzaga Prep.
Kentridge has their own super soph, Gary Bell, who scored 28 points last night.
Federal Way is led by Michael Hale III, a short fast dude with cornrows who'll remind you of Allen Iverson.
Foss does not have a star player, but that is not necessarily important in a state with as much basketball talent as ours. (Two of the nation's best players, UW recruit Abdul Gaddy of Bellarmine Prep and 6-11 man-child Josh Smith of Kentwood, aren't even in the state tourney because their surrounding casts weren't good enough to get them out of districts.)
The state 4A tourney is not the only outstanding basketball action taking place in our lovely area this weekend.
To wit: On Saturday at 2:30 p.m., the Washington Huskies host the Washington State Cougars. The Huskies can clinch their first outright league championship since 1953 with a win; the Cougs need a victory to keep their flickering NCAA tourney hopes alive. It's the most important game between the two teams since 1950. That game will be on FSN and KJR as well.
Also on Saturday, over at Bellevue Community College, the 3A Sea-King District Tourney wraps up with a lineup of three terrific games.
At 11:30 a.m., O'Dea meets Chief Sealth with a berth in the state tourney on the line. If O'Dea loses, they'll have missed state two years in a row for the first time since the 1980s. Sealth, meanwhile, has only had one state berth in the last 20 years.
The next two games are for seeding only, but seeding often determines how long your state tourney run lasts.
At 3 p.m., Seattle Prep and Rainier Beach play for 3rd/4th place.
At 6:30 p.m., Franklin and Bellevue play for the Sea-King Championship.
This Seattlest will be at our state's largest basketball arena on Saturday night; KeyArena plays host to...Rollerderby! Ironic, eh?
Massive basketball fans though we are, we can't miss our nieces skating with the "Derby Brats" between matches. Not only that, but we'll miss Friday night's 4A semis since it's our cousin's birthday!
Thankfully, we can follow the action on the Seattle Times' live-saving State Hoops Twitter feed.
We're hoping for your sake that you don't have as many selfish siblings, aunts and uncles as we do, always procreating away and forcing us to miss high school basketball. Because it should be a fantastic weekend.
"Wroten" by Timwillis from the Seattlest Flickr pool.
