Recent Stories with tag ingraham high basketball

Doing my extensive preparation for Metro League Tuesday, I noted that Franklin sophomore Anrio "Rio" Adams gets little love from the national scouting services. Scout.com calls Adams a one-star recruit, and Rivals doesn't rate him at all. I've seen Adams play a couple of times, and I remember a fast, intense, long-armed, tall guard with good skills. A superstar in the making. Was I missing something?

No. I was not. Adams was stellar in Franklin's 87-59 victory at Ingraham High. He was unstoppable in the open court on offense. He showed a deft passing touch, sometimes giving up a shot to find open teammates. And he displayed his athleticism, rising from practically a dead stop to thrown down a dunk.

And then there was his defense. Long-armed and explosive, he's a nightmare for opposing guards. And he takes instruction well. Before one Ingraham inbounds pass, Franklin coach Jason Kerr yelled to Adams, who was defending the inbounder. "C'mon, Rio, deflect a pass." Rio did just that, leading to a Franklin steal and basket. Anrio Adams is legit, and the scouting services need to get their acts together.

I'd expected a matchup between Adams and Ingraham's leading scorer, Devonte Spellman. But Spellman played sparingly. Perhaps he was in foul trouble. Or perhaps he had upset his head coach, Jeff Menday, who was upset for most of the game. Menday, a D1 head coach in the mid-90s, and more recently coach at Shoreline Community College, barked out instructions in a husky voice that resonated gym-wide.

"Malik! Stay down!" he yelled at 6'4" sophomore Malik Barnes.

"You gotta go in there harder than that," he yelled at one player after a passive drive. "That's soft!"

When the referees missed an obvious Franklin travel, Menday fired his pen on the court in frustration, then had to go retrieve it mid-play.

This is not to single out Menday for yelling. I've never seen a successful high school coach that didn't yell at his players. I'll never forget Franklin's Jason Kerr screaming "GET OFF MY COURT!" at his players after a poor defensive effort at Ballard.

Kerr was a little more relaxed in this game. After one time out, he asked the refs to check to see if his team had one second left on the shot clock. "Could you verify that? I don't really care either way." Franklin had jumped out to a healthy lead at this point....

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