Wednesday, February 21, 2001

By Rusty Bryan
Stars and Stripes

MANNHEIM, Germany — Despite the impression conveyed recently by the NBA, basketball remains a team game.

That being said, however, this weekend’s Division I, II and III European high school basketball tournaments probably will hinge on a handful of talented big men and women who will be suiting up here Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Here’s a division-by-division look at the propects:

Division I boys

On the basis of what happened during the regular season, there is no trophy more up for grabs than this one.

The two top seeds, No. 1 Lakenheath and No. 2 Heidelberg, both 7-3 in conference play, split their regular-season games played in Lakenheath, with the Lancers winning the points-differential tiebreaker by the margin of a single field goal — two points.

Take into account the No. 3 seed, Ramstein (6-4 in Division I) and the fit gets even tighter — Ramstein and Heidelberg exchanged one-point victories on their own floors, and although Lakenheath swept the Royals in Ramstein during the season, one of the victories was in overtime.

Now throw No. 4 Wiesbaden, which swept Lakenheath in the season-ending doubleheader, and No. 5 Kaiserslautern, which knocked off Ramstein last week, and you have the very definition of "up-for-grabs."

And that’s where the big men come in.

"We obviously have to rely on our big man, Larry Dunlap," Heidelberg coach Brad Shahan said about his defending champion’s chances for a repeat.

But if the Lions’ defensive prowess is below last year’s, they have picked up scoring in dangerous perimeter shooter Travis Wesley, a soph who buried four treys in the first eight minutes in his last outing.

Wesley will loom large if the Lions end up pitted against Lakenheath, which has the luxury of relying on a big man, Thomas Whinnett, to control the inside, and a big man in the other sense of the word, All-Europe shoo-in Dewayne Burns, the do-everything guard.

Ramstein wins its games with speed and leaping ability, and when Ryan Williams, Davon Brown and Co., are on their game, the Royals are no bargain for any opponent.

Division I girls

Unlike the situtation with their male counterparts, this race appears to a stroll in the park for regular-season champion Ramstein.

After a season-opening stumble at home to Heidelberg, 42-40, the Lady Royals have won nine straight Division I games, including a pair of routs of defending European champion Kaiserslautern.

Still, as K-town proved last year, when the Lady Raiders ended Ramstein’s 34-game winning streak in the title game of this event, nothing’s written in stone.

In fact, two of K-town’s stars in that game, the redoubtable Shevon Gibbons, whose lay-up in the final five seconds proved the game-winner, and steady Dawniecia Hardin return this year. It seems unlikely that they’ll surrender their crown without a fight.

Still, the prudent bet is Ramstein, with guards Monique Johnson and Tanya West, forward Jaimee McDowell and center Ashley Schalz backed by a talented and heady bench.

Division II boys

Patch, which suits up one of Europe’s best college prospects in 6-8 James Hughes, has size, muscle and skill all over the court, and is still smarting from a pair of defeats, one in OT, they suffered in Bitburg in December.

Bitburg, the defending European Division II champion which returned everybody from last year’s team, romped through the rest of its Division II season unchallenged and lost only to Ramstein and Heidelberg of Division I and defending European Division III champion Bad Kreuznach.

Patch and Bitburg are seeded to meet for the championship, but don’t ignore No. 3 Mannheim, a young and fast-improving team that gets impressive production from freshman Andre Nelson, James Meeks, Chris Evans and Rodney Wells, and senior leadership and a clutch hoop or two when necessary from Shane Meloon.

Division II girls

This, too, looked as though it would be a Patch-Bitburg battle, at least until the Lady Barons, led by Kim McLear, Crystal Bessler and Wesley Canada, opened their conference schedule at International School of Brussels and got decked by the Lady Raiders.

Top-seeded ISB relies heavily on Colleen Cotter and Kate Tuthill, and has a group of role-players to bedevil the most disciplined of foes.

Patch, with go-to star Joanna Miller, is in the same side of the bracket as Bitburg, which probably means that the winner of their semifinal will take on ISB for the crown.

Division III boys

Big men are the story here, too, particularly for Italy champion Vicenza, whose Dawayne Arrington seems to score 30 points as routinely as everyone else on the floor wipes his hands on the soles of his shoes, and defending European champion Bad Kreuznach, whose No. 1 weapon, all-Europe star Keith Walker injured his shooting wrist last weekend at the regional championship tourney at Alconbury.

Walker’s had a week to heal, and Bad Kreuznach has other weapons, too, in Marchello Fields and Jonathan Dukes. The Bearkats also have a will to win unequalled in this year’s field in any division.

They’ll need it, too, if they hope to deal with Arrington and his Cougars and with III-South champion Hohenfels, whose athletic starters have played together for three years. The Tigers can beat you from outside with deadly shooter James Panui and can slash inside with Micah McDuffie, Demetrius Whitaker, Marcus Tillberg and M.D. Smith.

Incirlik remains the unknown in this event, although the Hodjas effectively neutralized Izmir star Alan Schmitz, an Arrington-like player, in the Turkey regionals.

Division III girls

Good things come in threes in this division, and Marymount’s senior triplets, Cristina, Francesca and Stefania Battistelli, have once again earned the Lady Royals a trip to Germany. Last October, the Battistellis led the Marymount volleyball team to a title that had eluded them in the past; it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that it could be their turn in basketball, too.

To do so, however, they’ll have to get past Iceland’s formidable Nicole Lassetter, the regional MVP who came out of the North Atlantic mist to lead her Vikings to the III-North regional crown.

Defending champ Baumholder is expected to be without its offensive and defensive linchpin, Katie Feterl, and might be outclassed by the Royals and Vikings as well as Ankara, the champions of the Turkey regional.

Luckily for the paying fans in Mannheim, though, this division, too, looks like it’s up for grabs.

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