Crenshaw Hints That Cleveland Wasn’t in Shape

Cleveland High Coach Bob Braswell insisted there would be no intimidation on the part of Crenshaw in the City 4-A basketball championship game Friday night at the Sports Arena.

“To be honest,” Braswell said earlier this week, “I don’t fear anything about Crenshaw High. At Crenshaw, they breathe the same air my kids breathe. They go to high school just like my kids go to high school.

“They put their pants on the same way. I know that sounds like a cliche, but it’s true.”

It is also true that Crenshaw plays basketball like no one else in the City.

The Cougars won their third straight City championship--and ninth in 16 years--with a 95-79 victory over the Cavaliers before 10,434 fans. Afterward, Crenshaw was hinting that maybe its team was in better shape than Cleveland’s.

Said Crenshaw’s Ronald Caldwell: “It all boils down to conditioning. Coach West puts us through long hours so we can maintain an up-tempo,” the forward said of his coach, Willie West.

Braswell wasn’t buying Caldwell’s theory that Crenshaw was in better shape than the Cavaliers.

“I have to think after all the conditioning we went through that our kids would be in shock if you told them that Crenshaw won because they were in better shape.”

Said Cleveland point guard Damon Greer: “They had a six-point lead in the third quarter, and we made a few crucial turnovers there and it turned it around. It wasn’t because they were in better shape.”

Crenshaw, which improved to 23-2, had too many weapons for the Cavaliers.

When Stephen Thompson wasn’t scoring against the Cavaliers from the inside, Tracey Freeman was hitting jumpers from the outside.

Thompson, last season’s City 4-A player of the year, finished with 29 points. Freeman had 12.

When Caldwell wasn’t bullying his way in the lane for 23 points, Brown was bombing away for 14.

In his last game as a Cavalier, Trevor Wilson had 27 points and 20 rebounds. He made 11 of his 17 shots.

“Trevor played with amazing intensity,” Braswell said. “He wanted to go out as City champion and never quit.”

The game marked the end of Braswell’s first season as Cavalier coach. He had been an assistant on two City 3-A championship teams for Cleveland.

“It’s great to be back to the Sports Arena this time as well,” Braswell said. “My team fought hard.”

For nearly three quarters, the Cavaliers stayed close with the Cougars.

With a little more than a minute left in the third quarter, Cleveland trailed by just five, 63-58.

But as they have done to so many teams in the past, the Cougars went on a patented run to blow open a close game.

Cleveland shot 62%, but missed 14 of its 25 free-throw attempts.

“We would have had to make a high percentage of our free throws in the second half to pull close,” Braswell said. “But we didn’t do that.”

For Cleveland, Antoine Shofner had 19 points, many coming on crowd-pleasing slam dunks. Adrian King and Damon Greer each had 10.

And so Braswell’s initial year finally came to an end, much later than many people thought.

The Cavaliers were supposed to have made it to the Sports Arena to play for the City 4-A title the last two years.

But both years, they made an early exit from the playoffs.

This season, with a team not quite as loaded with talented players as those previous teams, the Cavaliers made it.

And despite the loss, Cleveland fans had to be smiling about that.