(Non-Monarchs) High school girl scores 113 points!

[StevenHW]

Somebody better give this girl a pro contract!

http://www.news-daily.com/sports/feeds/apcontent/apstories/apstorysection/D8FGUK3O0.xml.txt/resources_apstoryview

 

[mcsluggo]

from the article:

"Two-time WNBA MVP Lisa Leslie scored 101 points in a half for Morningside High School in Inglewood, Calif., against South Torrance in 1990. South Torrance refused to play the second half."

 

[Carole]

I can see that would put a damper on my level of commitment...

 

[NothinButHoops]

Lisa could have had the highest points had Torrance continued..we'll never know! Wow 101 points in a half...awesome.

 

[slugking50]

Evidently both coaches are throwing insults at eachother now.

 

[Purple Reign]

Allowing a player to score 113 points is absurd
By Adrian Wojnarowski
Special to ESPN.com

Epiphanny Prince had suggested that she was suffering boredom with the basketball season, that the mild tests of her prodigious talent within the New York City public school league had been too rare. Apparently, that's all it takes for a coach to indulge a prodigy now. The kid's bored, so let her have her way. The kid's bored, so let's beat up a bunch of weaker kids by 105 points.

"We play the schedule we're dealt and some of those teams are weak," Bergtraum High School coach Ed Grezinsky told the New York Post. "But I didn't think I should punish Epiphanny for that."


Punish her?


It isn't punishment to teach a great young basketball talent that the games aren't played to keep her interested, that the rules of sportsmanship and manners aren't eliminated for the sheer reason that she could score every time she touched the ball. So, the coach let her go on a night when she was determined to chase Kobe Bryant's 81 points and ended up passing Wilt Chamberlain's 100 with room to spare.



Yes, Prince started beating up one of the PSAL's weaklings on Wednesday and didn't stop until she'd scored 113 points, until the final beat-down was 137-32. Let's face it: Steve Spurrier would've been embarrassed to leave Epiphanny Prince in the game.



Prince, a top recruit signed to go to Rutgers, made 54 out of 60 shots. This tells you the kids on Brandeis were defenseless to stop her. Brandeis was missing its best player, but that probably wouldn't have made much difference. Those poor kids sent Prince to the free throw line just once, suggesting that they were too intimidated to physically confront her.

"It probably would've been more newsworthy if the 10th player on her team had scored double figures in that game," legendary Jersey City St. Anthony coach Bob Hurley said Thursday. (Editor's note: Wojnarowski wrote a book on Hurley's St. Anthony team.) "I have no idea what the intent was, or what was accomplished here. It's lost on me."

It should be lost on everybody. Prince bettered Cheryl Miller's 105 points and Lisa Leslie's 101 (Leslie's opponents literally headed for the bus at halftime). But she doesn't have the girls national high school scoring record now because she was more capable than those gunners who came before her. She has the record for the simple reason that Grezinsky lost his way as an educator and turned into an enabler. A lot of boys and girls players could've done this against overmatched teams in the past, but almost all showed restraint.


Brandeis' coach, Vera Springer, suggested to the Post that Grezinsky's motivation had been to deliver notice of Prince's superiority over rival Christ the King High School star Tina Charles. If that's the case, maybe Prince should've hit the buzzer shot to beat Charles and Christ the King in mid-January at Madison Square Garden.

Only, the winning shot was hit by Charles, the nation's No. 1 player.

Only, Christ the King won the game.

Those are the games, the moments, where great players distinguish themselves, where true legacies are made in high school basketball. If Grezinsky thinks this is the way to prepare a top prospect for life in the Big East at Rutgers, he's let Prince down.



Just last week, too, the Nets' Vince Carter was ripped for warning everyone of the possible trickle-down repercussions of Kobe's 81 points, but he was right. Kids are led to believe more and more that the measure of success is how much you can take on the floor, not how much you can give.


At least Bryant and the Lakers were losing at halftime of that game, at least -- on some level -- Kobe went wild within the context of trying to win the game. And at least the Raptors should've been expected to put up some kind of a fight, the way the Brandeis girls had no chance to do.

"When we get up 20 points, we're already asking the scorekeeper who has double figures, and those are the kids we'll start taking out of the game," Hurley said. "If anyone at St. Anthony is going to break a scoring record, it's going to be in a big game. "Sometimes, you've got to put yourself in the uniforms of the kids on the other side of the court."



Brandeis High School was helpless to stop Prince, the way a lot of inferior high school teams are and always have been against an All-American talent. Sorry if Epiphanny Prince has grown bored with the season, but that's life for a big basketball star. And that's where it's the coach's job to teach a life lesson, not indulge an immature whim.


Adrian Wojnarowski is a sports columnist for The Record (N.J.) and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPNWoj10@aol.com. His new book, The Miracle Of St. Anthony: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley And Basketball's Most Improbable Dynasty, is available nationwide.

 

[Purple Reign]

I tend to agree with that article. I find it ironic that when Vince Carter said what he said last week, many in the media attributed his remarks to sour grapes.

Two weeks later what he said was very prophetic, only instead of a guy it was a girl.

 

[6th]

I also thought the article was right on. To embarass the other team like that, just because your star is bored, is just unthinking, uncaring, and childish. That coach should be admonished.....by someone.

 

[slugking50]

That coach deserves to be FIRED!!

 

[Carole]

Epiphany Prince did not set up the team schedule or cause the other team to have a bad day. All she did is make baskets. A lot of them. She will learn the
subtleties of adult basketball as she grows, and maybe this event will bring her talent to the notice of scouts so she can make the WNBA and get to play real basketball.

 

[Purple Reign]

Epiphany Prince did not set up the team schedule or cause the other team to have a bad day. All she did is make baskets. A lot of them. She will learn the
subtleties of adult basketball as she grows, and maybe this event will bring her talent to the notice of scouts so she can make the WNBA and get to play real basketball.

But, if your team is up 95-22 and you have 80 points going into the fourth quarter, as a coach in the name of sportsmanship, Ephiphany must be sat down. She will have other games to show what she can do against quality talent.

 

[Luv13fan]

Totally agree with article


There is a point when you call off the dogs...

I can say that I was never on the losing end of a major butt kickings in my playing career. I think the most I have ever lost at any point was by 20. And I thought that was bad.

Back when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I played on very good teams. We routinely had 12 to 15 point leads. Every once in a blue moon we had a total blow out. Typically when we hit the 30 point mark the Starters were out. Then If we were short players and couldn't sit starters we did things like work on weaknesses. Shooting with our Left hand, dribbling only with the off-hand, Three man weave drills and we milked the clock til there were 5 secounds left to shoot. Anything but totally demoralize the other team.

We got to the point in on game where the tother team was so over matched and we were up by some crazy amount that we just ran the weave til the clock ran out.

My point is that you can learn as much from a win as you can from a loss. The lesson she should have learned is that scoring 100 points against an inferior opponent doesn't make you great. Demoralizing a lesser team to pad your stats doesn't reflect well. The game was never in doubt, And The coach should have shown some decorum.
Yes indeed it would have said alot more about her and the team for that matter, if everyone on the team had over 10 points, or She had a triple double going for 20 points and 20 assist and 20 rebounds.

I agreed with Vince alot about the precidence of Kobe scoring 81 points. I was impressed with the output, but thought it set a dangerous precidence. Making the game "All About Me" yet again.

But yes in Kobe's defense, His team was losing. And that does put things more in perspective. And Kobe being allowed to score that many points is a reflection of the League putting in rules to encourage more scoring and his opponents unwillingness to step-up their defensive efforts.

This situation was a lot different. The Coach should have stepped up and showed some sportmanship. Or at the very least an interest in seeing the other players on the team build their confidence.

The one thing I love about the W and the women's game in general is that it has been devoid of the "Me-ism". For the Most part anyway. The team still seems to come first. Yes there are stars, and we have seen great scoring efforts.
Think about the League MVP Sheryl Swoopes.

She scored and played great defense all year long. But in a close race with Lauren Jackson for MVP, with her team needing a win on the road in the play-offs what does she do... She gets a Triple double. The defining moment for me as to who should have been the MVP. She got her team involved and did what her team needed her to do to win the series.

That is What I think Makes The W great, and the NBA could take that lesson from the ladies.

So Carole with all due respect I totally disagree with you on Miss Prince. While I agree that she made the baskets and that is to her credit. She is a senior. That is a subtlity she should know and if she forgot she should have been reminded.

Like the reporter said, She has a lousy game against top talent. If she wants to get the attention of WNBA scouts, she needs to show up for Big Games. Not run over a lesser opponent.

That just makes her look like a bully.

 

[Carole]

OK, I agree with all that, and maybe if Whiz hadn't been such a good coach, and that's what got us the championship, Yo could have won WNBA Player of the year. I think you have to make choices. He could have let her star, and she would have won, but he chose to build the team and they all won. OK, maybe their coach was saying he couldn't help his whole team and maybe he could help Prince attain this goal. I don't think basketball is really about the coach helping the other team not look bad. Coach didn't have us hold back to let the Sun win. This coach chose to let Prince reach one of her goals and maybe it will help her in her career. Does anyone say that he always lets her run the team? No, just in this one instance.

 

[Purple Reign]

That just makes her look like a bully.

Speaking of bully..... this young lady seems to have gone through more than what the ordinary 16 or 17 year old high school girl goes through. Her life seems to mirror more Allen Iverson than Kobe Bryant read article below from 2005:


New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.comThe verdict
By JULIAN GARCIA
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Sunday, May 22nd, 2005

A line of drug dealers, wife beaters and sex offenders snakes its way through the lobby of 120 Schermerhorn St. in downtown Brooklyn, where rows of metal detectors and court officers waving security wands greet a steady stream of the borough's most hardened criminals.



Among the offenders are those facing lesser charges for traffic violations and various non-violent crimes. All await their fate. For some, the wait is excruciating, a sentence in itself. For others, those who've been here before and likely will be back, it's just another day inside Brooklyn Criminal Court.


On the fifth floor last Wednesday, in the hallway outside courtroom BTP-1, on one of several cramped benches, sits one of the country's best girls basketball players, dressed in familiar red and black, slouched forward with her elbows on her knees, like she's waiting to be introduced to a gym packed with fans. But for 17-year-old Epiphanny Prince, this is no game day. Minutes later, as a different kind of intensity builds, the fifth day of her assault trial begins.


As she prepares to enter the courtroom at 9:30 a.m., Prince is clearly startled by the flash from a photographer's camera ricocheting off a pain of glass in front of her. As she turns her head, one of her supporters shields Prince's face with her hand before the courtroom door slams behind them. Tomorrow, inside that same room, Prince will find out her fate, too. A judge is scheduled to deliver a verdict in her non-jury case, which has attracted more attention than any of Prince's exploits on the basketball court. Prince is facing the possibility of spending up to 195 days in jail if she is found guilty of third-degree assault, third-degree menacing and second-degree harassment.


A guilty finding would be the most damaging result of an incident that took place almost one year ago, but no matter the outcome Prince faces the possibility that her promising basketball career will never be the same.

The 5-11 guard who drops jaws every time she plays for seven-time defending city champion Murry Bergtraum or the Manhattan-based AAU team Exodus is one of the most highly recruited players in the country. Powerhouse schools like UConn and Tennessee have shown interest in her. Now, Rutgers seems like a frontrunner in the race to sign the one-time Daily News player of the year, who averaged 23 points and 12 assists last season.


But everything could change if Judge Suzanne Mondo hands down a guilty verdict tomorrow. Even if she is found not guilty of the charges, Prince may not fare as well in the court of public opinion, where at the least she will be accused of poor judgment, a warped sense of humor and questionable character.

* * *​

Prince's troubles began last May 28, when an apparent rivalry between Prince and a group of friends and a seventh grade girl came to a head on a sidewalk in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. What is clear is that the victim, then 13-year-old Tyanna Miller, suffered a broken right leg and various bumps, bruises and scratches when she was violently beaten and dragged in front of the Associated Supermarket on Myrtle Ave.


The question that remains is whether Prince actually took part in the attack. Two of her friends, Keosha Moss and Tylisa Smith, have already pled guilty in a juvenile court. Because she was 16 at the time of the incident, Prince is being tried as an adult. Throughout testimony, Prince's lawyer, Jennifer Sandman of the Legal Aid Society, has never denied her client was on the scene. Even one of the defense's key witnesses testified that Prince was just a few feet away from the incident but did nothing more than laugh as the beating took place. Assistant district attorney Charles Tucker, however, says that Prince was "an active participant."


While presenting his opening argument on May 2, Tucker said Prince used a Timberland boot to "kick Ms. Miller repeatedly."

At some point during the incident, Miller's right leg was broken below the kneecap. She still walks with a slight limp and is afraid to go out alone near the Fort Greene project where she lives with her mother and 18-year-old brother. How tomorrow's verdict will affect Prince's future is of little interest to Tyanna Miller's mother.


"She should have thought of that before she stomped on my baby," says Kelley Miller. "My baby is not a ball. They could have killed my baby."

Miller says her daughter began being harassed by Prince and her friends as soon as the Millers moved into the Ingersoll Houses from the Bronx in 1999. Miller claims the girls were motivated by the fact that her daughter is "a little pretty girl living in the projects." "They just picked on her and picked on her," says Miller. "One day they were saying she had extensions in her hair so I had to take her hair down to prove that she didn't."


Miller says that as her daughter got older, she grew less intimidated by the other girls in her neighborhood. She says she warned her daughter that if the harassment continued, she would eventually have to "fight back." Miller claims that about a week prior to having her leg broken, her daughter scuffled with Prince and Smith. Several days later, says Miller, her daughter fought with Moss. Then on the afternoon of May 28, after coming home from school, the 13-year-old was sent to the store to buy three boxes of macaroni her mother needed to make dinner.


At about 4:30, Miller got a frantic call from her daughter. "My baby was screaming and hollering, 'My leg! My leg!'" says Miller. "She told me, 'Epiphanny, Tylisa and Keosha, they jumped me. They jumped me.'"

In the initial complaint filed with the NYPD, Tyanna Miller claimed that Moss approached her as she was coming out of the supermarket and knocked her to the ground before Prince and Smith helped stomp on her.

In court, the only witness called by either side to definitively say that Prince was involved in the attack was the victim herself. But she also contradicted testimony that she gave in juvenile court, when she claimed she "felt Tylisa and Epiphanny kicking me....I could see their legs up to their stomach."


When cross-examined by Sandman, Miller said she "was able to see their whole body." One of Sandman's witnesses, Ronan Jacobs, a 25-year-old off-duty security guard who says he played basketball with Prince several times, claims to have happened upon the incident after getting off the F train coming home from work. Jacobs claims he saw Prince laughing among a crowd of people who were watching the fight and told her to "get the f--- out of here" because he was familiar with her potential as a basketball prospect and was looking out for her best interests.


Prince, according to Jacobs, responded: "Let's leave before (Miller) says we jumped her." Kelley Miller says her daughter's life has not been the same since the attack. For months after, Tyanna Miller couldn't dance, one of her favorite hobbies, and her friends have abandoned her.

"When I had those girls arrested, the girls that used to speak to my daughter stopped speaking to her," says Miller. "She comes home from school, does her homework and goes to sleep."


Those who know Prince say she has paid a price, as well, and while she rarely shows emotion in the courtroom, they say she has been greatly affected by the situation. "I think she's handling it well under the circumstances, but I know she's hurting," says Prince's AAU coach, Apache Paschall.


"I'm sure this has affected her," adds Bergtraum coach Ed Grezinsky, who was called to the stand as a character witness last week.

Prince's situation is reminiscent of the one faced by Philadelphia 76ers star Allen Iverson when he was a star high school athlete in Virginia. Arrested for taking part in a bowling alley brawl during his senior year, Iverson was sent to Newport News City Farm - a prison - for four and a half months before the conviction was overturned on appeal. Iverson still earned a scholarship to Georgetown University but his reputation took a hit.

Paschall knows Prince could face a similar fate if convicted tomorrow, but insists his player is guilty of only being in the wrong place at the wrong time and with the wrong people.

"I don't think she realized how easy it is for someone to drag you into a mess," Paschall says.

Tom Konchalski, the local talent evaluator who has come across numerous talented yet troubled male players over the years, says the coaches who are recruiting Prince are likely anxiously awaiting the verdict.

"If she were innocent," says Konchalski, "I don't think it would affect her that badly because she's a good enough player. She's got leverage. But the elite programs would drop her if she's convicted, or even if she gets probation."

Paschall knows that some programs are likely to keep their distance no matter the outcome of the trial. Having coached her for the past several years, he thinks that would be a mistake. "The most they could say is that they'll get somebody next year," says Paschall. "Because in this class, there is not a guard better than her."

 

[Purple Reign]

Here's More.....

.....I am on a roll. This such an interesting topic, wouldn't you say?

Epiphanny defends embattled coach

BY ADAM RONIS
STAFF WRITER

February 4, 2006

Instead of enjoying the accomplishment of setting a national record, Murry Bergtraum's Epiphanny Prince is upset about the criticism her coach has endured. The negative comments directed toward Ed Grezinsky in the wake of her 113-point outing against a weak team have hit her like a punch to the gut.

Prince, who broke Cheryl Miller's 24-year-old high school girls basketball record in Wednesday's 137-32 win over Brandeis, wishes the record still belonged to Miller, who scored 105 points in a 179-15 victory in 1982.

Asked after her 39-point performance Friday in an 87-32 victory over visiting Lab Museum if she would do it all over again, Prince said: "I wouldn't have done it. I don't like all the negative publicity my coach is getting."

Prince, a 5-9 senior guard headed to Rutgers next season, made national headlines by hitting 54 of 60 shots from the field while playing the entire game. Prince had 58 points by halftime, at which point Bergtraum led 74-11, and Grezinsky's decision to keep her in the game drew the ire of many coaches in New York City and on Long Island.

"Everyone forgets what he's done for us," Prince said of Grezinsky. "As soon as this happened, it was all negative. Many of the people saying things don't know him as a person. He's such a nice guy."

Although Prince had regrets about breaking the record, Grezinsky didn't.

"I would have done the same thing," he said. "I didn't plan it. She just happened to be hot. I have no regrets. You can never make everyone happy."

Grezinsky -- who has guided Bergtraum, ranked No. 2 in the nation by USA Today, to seven consecutive PSAL A championships -- said he did receive some calls from coaches that were positive and isn't flustered by the negative publicity. "When people are in my shoes, they can make the decision," he said. "I think it's phenomenal that a girl can score 113 points in a game."

Friday's game was an average outing for Prince, whose jersey from Wednesday's game was requested by the Women's Hall of Fame. She didn't force shots, looked for her teammates and played every minute before leaving the game with 4:36 left in the fourth quarter. Bergtraum (13-0 Manhattan A), which has won league games by an average of 59 points, led 29-6 after one quarter, 50-9 at the half and 72-19 at the end of three.

Prince, who is averaging about 44 points a game, also had 39 against Lab Museum in an 84-27 win Dec. 14. Lab Museum coach Walter Shron said his team was motivated after her feat against Brandeis. "We kept them under 90," he said, "and a lot of teams in our league don't. We wanted to hold them under 90 and score more than we did the first time, so I'm proud."

Shron said he congratulated Prince for her record. "I don't fault the player," he said. "When I played, if we were up 30 or 40 points, we had to make 10 passes before we shot. I've adopted that philosophy."

Prince's philosophy could change in the future. "In 10 years, I don't know if I'll be in the WNBA or famous," she said. "I made history, so it will feel good in the long run. Right now, it doesn't."

There was additional controversy Friday. With 4:05 left in the first quarter, four Bergtraum security guards -- on the order of school principal Barbara Esmilla -- forced six reporters, two photographers and one TV cameraman covering the game to leave the gym. They were told the principal did not give permission for the media to be present, and the game was stopped while they were taken into a hallway. After about 10 minutes, the members of the media were allowed back in with 59 seconds left in the first quarter.

 

[Carole]

Cliffhanger - so what was the verdict?

 

[Purple Reign]

Epiphanny gets
split verdict
BY JULIAN GARCIA
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Monday, May 23rd, 2005

Bergtraum basketball star Epiphanny Prince will have to serve 15 days of community service after she was found guilty yesterday of harassing a 13-year-old girl who had her leg broken in an attack on a Brooklyn sidewalk last May.

Prince avoided a potential jail sentence when Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Suzanne Mondo, hearing the case without a jury, found her not guilty of third-degree attempted assault and third-degree menacing.

Prince, a junior guard who is one of the most highly recruited players in the country, was found guilty only of second-degree harassment. She showed no emotion as Mondo read her verdict, but a group of the player's supporters - including Bergtraum coach Ed Grezinsky - applauded after walking out of the courtroom on the fifth floor. "I would see this as a victory," said Prince's lawyer, Jennifer Sandman, of the Legal Aid Society.

 

[KevinMartin'sShotDoctor]

113 points in a game is pretty amazing. Was it necessary? Probably not. On the other hand, although her teammates should have been involved more, they are probably very excited to be teammates with someone who scored 113 points.

How does one score 101 points in a half? Did the opposing team lose every inbounds pass? Give me 16 minutes, and I don't think I could score 101 points on a court by myself. The opposing coach did the right thing to leave after the first half; the game should not have been scheduled. The talent gap especially in women's basketball (H.S. and College) leads to these sorts of exploits, and it does seem little more than bullying, something like High School kids harrasing Junior High Kids (to use the metaphor given to us).

To put this into perspective, we need to know how bad the team Cheryl Miller played against when she scored 105. Also, how upset are people when prep boys score outrageous amounts of points?

Other nice touches: In the Kobe article, the pronoun for Kobe is "Him". So he is God! Also, though Vince Carter was prophetic, he should add that quitting on one's team also is a bad example.