It's been a long 354 days.The wait is finally over as we're back to WCSSAA regular season boys' basketball after nearly a year-long hiatus at most schools.
Sure, four or five teams briefly resumed play in February of last year to determine CWOSSA qualifiers, but a league champion was not officially crowned in either the junior or senior divisions.
As such, the "defending champions" are the Grand River Renegades (junior) and Forest Heights Trojans (senior). We seem so far removed from those victories, as many key members of that GRCI junior team are now in their final year of high school.
We'll be doing a full junior & senior preview as time permits over the next few days, but I'll start with a few thoughts on the senior season and my initial WCSSAA picks:
Senior WCSSAA
Could this be the year that the Grand River Renegades end the slide?
After Bluevale broke the ice back in 2010, the Rens now remain as the team with the most "significant" WCSSAA championship drought, having not won a title in the school's 47-year history.
I say "most significant" because, yes, there are other schools with droughts; however, Grand River has consistently fielded very good junior teams over the past two decades, with several WCSSAA junior titles and even a CWOSSA junior banner to their credit.
The Rens have looked good in the preseason, getting past the Kitchener St. Mary's Eagles the other day in exhibition action. The Rens are loaded at guard --- with PG Murtada Khamis, SG/SF Chuder Teny, and rookie guard Miro Iliev leading the way.
The most formidable hurdle standing in Grand River's way appears to be the Cameron Heights Golden Gaels. The Gaels were semifinalists at last weekend's 32-team Pinky Lewis tournament in Hamilton, and have a nice blend of inside & outside game feautring 6'10" Stefan Cucak, Sasha Simic and PG Nikola Farkic.
We can all mark January 9th on our calendar, as that's the date that Grand River and Cameron Heights are set to play in league action, though it's entirely possible that they could meet before that in tournament play (such as this weekend's Heinbuch Classic).
The SJAM Highlanders, featuring a tremendous amount of size, appear to also be among the top few clubs in the league. The 'Landers have moved up grade 10 PG Simon Petrov to the senior roster that includes forwards Quinn Turner, Brett Parrott, and grade eleven rookie Nedim Hodzic. SJAM will have some early-season growing pains as they fine-tune the new additions to the roster, but I certainly look for them to be playing on semifinal Saturday.
Other teams that I would project in the top half of the WCSSAA league would include Eastwood Collegiate, KCI, WCI, Huron Heights, and Galt.
Two years ago, the Rebels were a WCSSAA finalist in the junior ranks and now those players, such as G Ousmane Kromah and F Tre Nicholson, are in grade 12. They're an athletic, scrappy bunch and it will be interesting to see if they can go on a playoff run like they did in grade ten.
The KCI Raiders should make a turn up the WCSSAA standings ladder keyed by Stefan Simic, who should be among the league's scoring leaders. WCI has unfortunately seen a large number of exits from their program, but their team concept and strong coaching should see them host at least one playoff game.
Huron Heights is no longer home to Juwan Miller, but they do have a solid core of (now) grade twelves that are ready to take the next step.
As for Galt, Jack Simmons has graduated (Laurier), but TJ Lall is a dynamic scorer that will fill his shoes and should be able to keep the Ghosts in games this year.
There are 14 teams in total playing in WCSSAA senior; Elmira and WODSS will not be fielding teams for the 2013-14 season.
Thursday, November 28th Picks
One scheduling note as the JHSS-GRCI game has been rescheduled due to Jacob Hespeler's extended football and volleyball seasons.
So, only 5 games today:
Eastwood over Preston
Huron Hts. over Glenview Park
Cameron Hts. over KCI
Bluevale over Southwood
SJAM over Galt CI
