Just back

Just got back from my three-day vacation to Happy Valley for the PIAA basketball finals.

It was our first trip to the finals at Penn State ad probably won't be our last. The Bryce Jordan Center is a great place to watch a basketball game and a first class facility. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing bad about Hershey, except it's not a basketball arena.

One of the things I really liked about the BJC is how close you are to the action. For the three sessions we went too, we were about 15 rows or so off the court, behind the player benches. Outstanding views of the game.

With the fans being so close to the court, as opposed to the Giant Center, they seemed to be more into.

We had good accomodations for the weekend. Shot some pool, listened to a rock band Friday night play Classic 80s music, went into downtown State College and had a good breakfast at a Waffle Shop. Even ran into the Chester Clipper team and coach Fred Pickett. He looks smaller in person than he does on TV.

Two of the worst drawing teams were the two from the Philly Public League and probably two of the worst coaches teams as well were Freire Charter and Strawsberry Mansion. They may have 200 fans combined.

Did not know this, but the FC coach, according to the Philly Daily News, was a student and may have played at Hempfield. Players were hard on him after the game, quoted in one of the weekend newspapers that the coach basically lost the game. Probably something that should have been left in the locker room.

Strawberry Mansion, team-wise, did not play as well as they did against Columbia. Dwayne Davis (24) had a big game against Jeanette.

Terrelle Pryor was the best player of the weekend. Acording to reports from the Jeanette faithful, he's headed to Ohio State. He also had one of the weekend's best dunks.

Surprise team of the weekend was Serra Catholic. They looked more like a football team than a basketball team.

It's probably already over town, but I z'eed out during much of the first half of the Jeanette-Mansion game.

Food prices at the BJC were a lot more reasonable than Hershey. Can't beat the ice cream from the Creamery.

The Penn State women's coaches were in attendance on Friday.

Chester was probably the best team of the weekend -- they got a little out of control up double digits against Norristown. We watched that one on TV. Did the Norristown coach ever move off the bench?

As for the girls' side, I can remember for many years going to Hershey, Harrisburg and even Pittsburgh for the state finals, and there was always a few girls thatwere D-I recruits. Can't say that I saw any this weekend, with the exception of the young Thomas girl from Central Dauphin, and possibly the freshman from York Catholic.

York County officials (can you believe it) worked the Steel High-Susquehanna Township and actually did a pretty good job. Yes, Steel-High could have beaten Jeanette, but not Chester.

The Jeanette-Mansion game was probably the worst officiated.

And here are two things that left be shaking my head.

• Found out Sunday morning reading the Centre Daily Times (actually had great stuff in about the weekend games Friday, Saturday and Sunday) that John Miller, whose team won the Girls 3-A title with Mount Saint Joseph out of District 1, was late for a media session after his game, because like Red Auerbach, the Boston legend, he lit up a victory cigar in the locker room. Okay, that's not too bad I guess, but he then passed it around to each member of the team, who took a drag from it. WHAT!

* Also, some of the dances, or shows as some might call it, as some of the boys' teams were introduced were incredible. Strawberry Mansion had one player jump over another one while being introduced. Girls' teams on the other hand didn't have that show.