SM Northwest boys basketball team begins summer play at weekend tourney

By Angelique McNaughton

June 11, 2013

The Shawnee Mission Northwest boys basketball team played just enough basketball this weekend to produce some double-digit victories and losses, while giving the coaching staff a glimpse of what the Cougars will have to offer for the upcoming season.

We were pretty short-handed this weekend,” SM Northwest coach Mike Rose said about his roster. “But that’s no excuse for how we played, and overall I thought we competed very well.”

The Cougars went 3-2 at the 16-team Mo-Kan/Mid America Nazarene tournament held at Mid America Nazarene University over the weekend. The team had just had their first summer session during camp the day after Memorial Day.

“We had had just enough time to get the overall picture but not enough time to work on the little stuff,” Rose said.

And it turned out to be the little stuff that needs the most work.

The weekend started off right, after an early-game injury to a Nebraska City High player allowed SM Northwest to capitalize on some quick, easy baskets to eventually rout the Pioneers in a 50-point victory Friday afternoon.

“We had blown the score up a little ways because we were able to get into transition and score some easy buckets,” Rose said. “It was a good one for us to start out with.”

Such an easy victory for the Cougars’ first game of the tournament perhaps provided a false sense of hope and security, as they fell to Olathe East by 17 points later in the afternoon.

A barrage of 3-pointers led the Hawks to outshoot the Cougars, who failed to make a defensive stop as the game slipped away.

“Their shooting percentage was pretty incredible and we just didn’t do a good job of stopping them,” Rose said. “It was a tough game for us and (Olathe East) is going to be a challenge to a lot of people this year.”

After struggling against Olathe East, SM Northwest was able to regroup and bounce back for its final game on Friday against St. James Academy, ending the day 2-1.

“We beat them by about 10 to 12 points and it was pretty sloppy at times,” Rose said.

The competition didn’t get any easier on Saturday when SM Northwest faced Lawrence Free State in their toughest game of the tournament, winning by less than 10 points in a less than perfect victory.

When running the floor, the Cougars’ offensive timing and execution was noticeably off.

While at the same time, blocking and rebounding efforts at the other end of the court weren’t up to Rose’s standards.

“There were a lot of little things where our timing was off and we just haven’t had the time to work on it,” he said.

Whatever momentary confidence the Free State victory instilled on the Cougars, the final game against SM South took it right back away when they fell by 17 points.

“Scoring is a hit and miss (with us) because we are missing some outside looks,” Rose said. “It’s just getting back into the flow and working on shooting everyday.”

The weekend series gave the coaching staff an idea of what kinks need to be worked out during the upcoming summer camp sessions and who will have the most to contribute.

With quite a few juniors contributing significant playing time last year, Rose said it should be a pretty senior-heavy roster led by returning players Brady Skeens, Keaton Cross, Jake Horner, Andrew Medis and Warren Specht.

The Cougars went 12-8 in 2012-13 as Rose earned Sunflower League Coach of the Year honors.

The tournament also showed the Cougars’ depth this season despite having a senior-laden roster. Rose said a couple of sophomores stepped up this weekend and will be putting in some crucial minutes during the winter.

SM Northwest will participate in the 11th Annual KAMO Shootout at Rockhurst High School on Friday, playing at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Summer weights begin this week for high school athletes, as the team prepares for their next round of competition and the impending preseason.

“We re excited about the summer, as we’ve got a good group of kids all throughout the program,” Rose said. “We’ve got a lot of interest and are really excited for our future.”

Sibling rivalry: Twin Italian exchange students play for SMN, SMNW boys basketball teams

December 24, 2012, 10:36 a.m.

Updated: December 27, 2012, 12:00 a.m.

For the first time since Riccardo and Vittorio Masina started playing basketball three years ago, their opponents won’t be seeing double on the court.

As expected, the 6-foot-5 dark-haired identical twins are hard to tell apart.

“We’ve always been on the same team, and if one of us is like double-teamed, the defenders get confused,” Riccardo said. “It was pretty cool.”

But that won’t be happening this year.

The Italian exchange students are playing for different teams and attending different schools for the first time: Riccardo is at Shawnee Mission Northwest, and Vittorio is at Shawnee Mission North.

In the hopes of separating them from each other and their language, the Masina family decided to send the brothers to different schools.

“We wanted to learn the language and not speak Italian,” Vittorio said with his thick accent. “Being together, we would be speaking it all the time.”

“We also didn’t want to have the same friends and experiences.”

The Masina brothers joined the district in August and are halfway through their American high school senior year.

Both say they’re enjoying the food, the people and the school system, with Chipotle Mexican Grill among their favorites.

The pair decided to play basketball at their respective schools but are only eligible to play junior varsity until after the new year per Kansas State High School Activities Association requirements. They are both expected to join the varsity squads in January.

Riccardo, the older and larger twin by about two minutes and 10 pounds, will play the guard position for the Cougars, while Vittorio is expected to play as a forward for the Indians.

“I wish I could play varsity because I think it would be fun, but I’m enjoying playing JV,” Vittorio said. “Our team is really good, and I can help my team by playing for them.”

It took some time for Vittorio to get his game legs under him, SM North coach B.J. Hair said.

Vittorio let his nerves get the best of him during his first game as an Indian, he said.

“He put a lot of pressure on himself and was really tight and tense,” Hair said. “It was the expectation that he had put on himself that he should be really good.”

Either way, the 17-year-olds averaged around 10 points a game in their junior varsity appearances.

Riccardo and Vittorio only started playing basketball three years ago as freshmen in their hometown near Bologna, Italy.

Former rugby players in middle school, their accounts vary on why they picked up the sport, but each goes back to their father, a former basketball player himself.

Riccardo says their dad pushed them into the sport, but Vittorio attributes it to a trip the three made to Florida to watch an NBA game.

“We really liked it and started playing,” Vittorio said. “We liked it because it’s the kind of sport that you get good at if you work and we really started to work hard and practice everyday.”

They practiced together for two hours everyday during the offseason and always played on the same teams.

Used to feeding off of one another, being at separate schools and not having each other on the court was another adjustment the athletes had to make.

“I knew where he was going to be outside for a shot, and I would take the drive and he would be there,” Riccardo said of when the two played together. “It’s pretty weird in school because I take the same drive and it’s like: Where is he at? Oh he’s at North.”

Both athletes said they had to adjust to the other’s absence and the way basketball is played here because it only slightly resembled what they were used to back home.

“It was kind of weird, and it was like a different sport,” Riccardo said of the physicality and the athletic talent he witnessed on the court. “It took a bit of time to get used to, but now I’m adjusting and I like it.”

SM Northwest senior Marcus McNeace said Riccardo’s more “fundamentally sound” than his teammates and has a different shot selection, like his brother.

He tends to fade away from the basket a bit more than other players but he can shoot the ball well enough to get away with it, SM Northwest coach Mike Rose said.

“I think a lot of times you hear overseas it’s not as physical as it is over here and kids tend to fade away a little bit more, and I do notice he does,” Rose said. “But it’s nice having a 6-foot-5 guy in the guard position, and if you’re able to hit that shot go ahead.”

SM North senior Scott Johnson said Vittorio is very offensively aggressive in looking for an open shot.

“He attacks the basket, and he likes to step up for jump shots a lot,” he said.

“He’s not just a pop-up shooter,” Hair said, referring to Vittorio. “He is someone who can shoot it off the dribble and, as long as he is, he can get to the rim and he finishes really well.”

The twins have made an impression both on and off the court as friendly and outgoing, always smiling.

“He’s fun to yell at because he just always smiles,” Hair said. “He’s hilarious to coach, too.”

They’re also very talkative, but sometimes it’s difficult for their teammates and coaches to understand what they are saying.

“When he gets deep into practice or the games you can’t understand a word he’s saying,” SM Northwest senior Luke Fields said of Riccaro’s accent. “ Sometimes he speaks up in practice and everyone is like, ‘What did you say?’”

Aside from missing the other on the court, when individually asked if they miss each other, each responded, “No, not really”.

“We are still pretty close,” Vittorio said. “I miss him a little bit, but I get to see him pretty often and I get to text, so I guess no, not really.”

With about five months left in their stay, Riccardo and Vittorio have a few things they’d like to accomplish before they leave in May.

Riccardo’s goal is simple: He wants to go to Worlds of Fun.

Vittorio has two things in mind: Go to prom and beat his brother in the final game of the season.

“Beating my brother is one of the things I want to do, and the prom is the other because we don’t have anything like that in Italy,” Vittorio said. “I always saw that in movies, and I’m pretty curious and excited. I think it’s going to be fun.”

The athletes will get their chance on the court when the Indians play the Cougars on Feb. 22 at SM Northwest in the final game of the regular season. Both Hair and Rose joked that they would make the boys guard each other.

“I really want to beat my brother,” Vittorio said. “That would be really cool to do before I leave.”

No rest in Cougars’ forecast: SMNW girls 5-1 entering winter break

December 17, 2012, 10:46 a.m.

Updated: December 19, 2012, 12:00 a.m.

Topeka — Though their goal of a perfect 6-0 start was dashed in a nailbiter in Topeka over the weekend, the Shawnee Mission Northwest girls basketball team’s final two games before winter break reaffirmed the team of its mettle.

After dropping a 50-43 game Saturday at Washburn Rural, the No. 5-ranked team in Class 6A, the Cougars (5-1) rebounded with a 38-34 victory against SM South on Monday.

SM Northwest won’t return to play until a Jan. 3 rematch of their season-opening win at SM West. Until then, join us in recapping the Cougars’ final two games of December.

Rural hands Cougars first loss

SM Northwest went bucket-for-bucket most of Saturday’s game at Washburn Rural and played to win.

The Cougars were defensively aggressive and held the Junior Blues to just 10 field goals but eventually still fell, 50-43, to the fifth-ranked team in Class 6A.

“We shut down their offense but put them on the free throw line way too many times,“ SM Northwest coach Jeff Dickson said following the loss.

The game was tied with 4:27 left, but a series of subsequent fouls put the Junior Blues at the line and the lead out of reach as five Cougars found themselves in foul trouble in the last two minutes of the game. McKayla Ross, Arielle Jackson, Brenni Rose and Tatum Graves eventually fouled out during the last minute.

“We need to do a better job of playing defense with our feet and not with our hands,” Dickson said. “We would get a stop and bail them out with a foul.”

Senior Anna King led the Cougars with a double-double, scoring 14 points and 10 rebounds.

“Anna King had a great game, and they had no answer for her,” Dickson said of King’s performance.

Ross contributed eight points and Jackson six. Ross never hesitated to drive into the lane and draw a foul, scoring six of her eight points at the free throw line. The game was tied 9-9 in the first quarter, but the Cougars took the lead following a three-pointer from senior Kristina Purinton, who then turned around and stripped the ball at the other end to prevent a lay-up.

SM Northwest got good looks at the basket during the first half, including three shots behind the arc. Purinton, who scored all six of her points from behind the arc, ended the half with a three-pointer to make the score 25-22 in favor of the Junior Blues. The Cougars put a stop on the Junior Blues offense to start the second half, holding it to only six points for the third quarter.

Forced steals and a couple of big plays from Jackson kept the game close late into the fourth quarter, with the Cougars down only two points with less than three minutes left.

The Cougars suffered at the free throw line during the second half, due in part to some vocal fans, and weren’t able to make up the lack of points with field goals. Then three players fouled out, including Tatum on a technical, and the Junior Blues were consistent enough at the line to extend the lead to seven with six seconds left on the clock.

“Our kids fought very hard and handled a very hostile environment with a lot of class,” Dickson said.

“We went toe-to-toe … and really found out a lot of good things about ourselves. And we know we are as good as any team in the state.”

Cougars down Raiders

King scored 12 points and Ross added nine to lead the Cougars to a 38-34 victory against SM South on Monday.

The Cougars recovered from a 17-12 halftime deficit to stay perfect in league play. SM Northwest outscored the Raiders, 13-2, in the third quarter and held on in a tighter final frame.

Stephen Montemayor contributed to this story.