Back | Print Story
By Dave Haley, Posted 03-04-2013
Tweet

Chris Rizos and Derryfield face #1 Littleton

 We spoke to coaches in Division IV who have faced the teams in tonight's final four and got their scouting reports on what the teams do well, do poorly and how to best attack them.

(4) Derryfield School vs. (1) Littleton

The coverage of The Derryfield School is sponsored by 900 Degrees Pizzaria

Littleton comes into the game at 19-1 and is looking for their third trip to the championship game in four years. "The most impressive thing about Littleton is how smart they play; they don't beat themselves and make the same kind of mistakes other teams do. Trevor (Howard) is obviously a very good coach and what these guys have is a really good sense of their roles. They know (Nick) Whipple & (Josh) Bogardus are their go to guys and the other guys' just do a really good job filling their role. The Stone brothers (Cody & Owen) play hard, (Freddie) Vasquez just works really hard defensively and they hit their foul shots. When we played them and we were down six points late I knew we were in trouble because they hit their foul shots."

 Another coach talked about how to defend Littleton, "I think when you play zone you make Cody Stone and Jeff Howard more dangerous because they can shoot it when they are open. With Whipple he is going to get his points, you need to take care of the ball and force Bogardus to stay out on the perimeter, you can't let him drive to the hoop because he can really finish."

 Derryfield is the tallest team in the Division as they'll play five guys over 6'1. It is a team that has gone to four straight final fours under Rob Bradley and may be as deep as any team in the final four. "They are definitely deeper than Littleton but I don't think they are as well conditioned, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out." Another tournament coach talked about how to attack Derryfield, "They are not great defensively and if their big men come out on Bogardus I think he is going to have a field day on them. He's too quick and a lot of times the Derryfield guards overplay on the perimeter as far as denying the ball. You can go backdoor on them. Zorn is their best shooter but you can attack him on defense, I think if you play zone against them you allow Zorn to maybe have a big night because he is rhythm shooter and he can really get hot for them."

 Coaches talked about how you stop the Derryfield offense," Their big men don't finish well at the rim but they are so tall, they end up getting a ton of chances at it. Their point guard (Chris) Rizos will try to dribble through pressure instead of passing over it and if you speed the game up he'll turn it over a lot, many times just by throwing the ball away. I think Littleton has to run all night and get the bigs tired, force Rizos into coughing it up and making a bigger team play in the open floor. The key guy is Josh Bogardus; he really impressed me, he is a legitimate all-state player."

(6) Lisbon vs. (2) Newmarket

 Sam Natti's Lisbon team is the highest seed remaining after a 36-30 win over 3^rd seed Profile in the quarterfinals. They feature the best pure scorer in the division in guard Chad Knighton as well as all-state power forward Mike Heath. Tuesday night they square off with the best defensive team in the division. "They have always been known as having their big two but Derek Roberts has stepped up late in the season to become that third guy. Knighton can score, he's going to get his points on you but you limit Heath, who has had trouble putting the ball in the basket, to 12 or 14 and Roberts to under 10 and you should be good because they don't have anyone else who is going to score. It's literally those three guys."

 Coaches talked about Lisbon's defense, " They will go zone, I think Sam tried to go man for a little bit but he is back to a 2-3 zone and they will play Knighton down low and try to hide him. I think what you have to do is make him work to get the ball on one end and attack him in the post on the other end because even if he gets in foul trouble they cannot afford to take him out of the game." Other coaches agreed, "Newmarket has the kind of defense that can really make him work for the ball and I'm not sure Lisbon has seen that kind of man to man defense up north all year. In fact I'm almost positive they haven't."

 Other coaches talked about the #2 seed and their strengths, "They are just a very good basketball team and now that they have (Peter) Carlson & (Sean) Fleming back they are even better. I think they actually missed Fleming more than Carlson, he opens up a lot for them with his shooting and he can get his shot off fast." Another coach talked about point guard Christian Hawkins, "He's the best player in the division in my mind, he can score and there isn't much you can do to stop him. The games he has struggled in is because he was off, not because he was being stopped by anyone. The advantage they have is they are so well conditioned, when we played them Hawkins just got stronger as the night went on. He was better in the last five minutes than he was in the first five."

 The focus on the Mules is their defense, and it is the best some coaches have seen. "If they play defense the way they did against Epping they are going to win Tuesday night with ease, it's just too good. They rotate and Jamie (Hayes) seems to know where to match-up each guy. The (Sam) Morin kid off the bench really plays hard and they are just deeper than a team like Lisbon who isn't going to get much from their bench."

 In terms of who coaches saw advancing to the Saturday afternoon final, the verdict was unanimous. "I think Newmarket pulls away in the second half, they play such good defense and I think they really have the ability to frustrate Knighton on the perimeter." A fellow coach echoed that sentiment, " Newmarket is the team to beat, they are more disciplined defensively and their combination of depth and conditioning plays very well to a big floor at Plymouth State."