Statistics from East Bay Novice can be found here.
This write-up only focuses on teams that placed within the top two brackets.
1st place – College Preparatory School
College Prep lost their only game of the day by just 25 points to Davis A to finish 9-1 in first place at East Bay Novice, led by seniorAndrew Vaughn (tournament top scorer at 84.5 PPG). For most rounds, they kept their opponents below 230 points, the only exception being Davis C’s 295 to their 335. College Prep attended just NAPOLEON last year and returns only one player, so this team is essentially new to the game, and therefore managed a pretty great PPB of 21.67. With further development of the team and Andrew’s strongest support junior Nikhil Pandit (28.5 PPG), the team could give a pretty strong performance even at varsity levels.
2nd place – Albany A
Led by 60.5 PPG sophomore Andrew Liu, Albany had one of the highest number of powers in the tournament (second highest at 43), but they also had the highest number of negs (28 to Davis E’s 24), which they’ll need to work on. Their bonus conversion is good for a JV team, with five rounds above 22 PPB. Albany appears to have somewhat recovered from the loss of their top players of last year, although they likely won’t be competitive on a varsity level for at least a season, unless the rest of the team (particularly senior Sean Lin [26.5 PPG]) improves very quickly.
3rd place – Moreau Catholic A
Moreau Catholic returns its entire A team, seeing improvement all around but largely from tournament fourth-scorer sophomore Varun Mahadevan (29 PPG at Norcal State to 68.89). His primary support is from junior Omkar Salpekar (39.44 PPG) and they can put up an average of 370.6 PPG (second to College Prep’s 376), so they stand a good chance of being a formidable team through the next few seasons.
BRACKET 1 4th – Davis A
Tournament 8th scorer junior Henry Zhang (50 PPG) leads usually-Davis B to a 5-4 finish with 16.46 PPB, down two points from their performance at Sacramento Fall. The team is well balanced (with Bijan Varjavand and Valentin Poliakov at 25.56 and 21.67 PPG, respectively), but they’ll have to work on their bonus conversion in order to be really competitive.
BRACKET 1 5th – “Haarlem” A
Led by junior Victor Chan (tournament 6th scorer at 52.35 PPG) and lacking all of their regular A team players, “Haarlem” A finishes with a 5-4 record and a PPB of 15.51. With some PPB improvement, they could have decent finishes at future JV events.
BRACKET 1 6th – Davis C
Davis C finishes with a PPB of 17.44, which was the highest of any team in Davis’s remarkably deep bench (six teams without their usual A). While they didn’t return their lead scorer from Sacramento Fall (Eliot Williams) – or actually any of their team from that tournament – they were well balanced and show potential.
BRACKET 2 1st – Chinese Christian B
Led by tournament second scorer senior Calvin Chiu (81.11 PPG), Chinese Christian B finishes with just three losses (to Albany B, College Prep, and Davis A) and a PPB of 17.87 – nearly double that of their A team. It would be interesting to see Calvin and Benson play together and it’s likely they would do solidly at a varsity level. However, the team as it stands currently but without Calvin would have a long way to go to be competitive.
BRACKET 2 2nd – Challenger-Ardenwood
A team of 7th graders led by power duo Anuj Kothari (tournament 11th, 45 PPG) and Aayush Singh (41.67 PPG), Challenger-Ardenwood finished with a PPB of 15.19 and the tournament’s third highest gets-per-neg ratio. Expect great things from both Anuj (legacy of Bellarmine/Berkeley’s Tanay Kothari) and Aayush as they gain additional experience.
BRACKET 2 3rd – “Haarlem” B
“Haarlem”’s second team in the top twelve finished 5-4 with a commendable PPB of 17.22. Freshman Simon Han (tournament 10th, 46.67 PPG) leads a fairly well-balanced team that could do well at the JV level with development over the rest of the season.
BRACKET 2 4th – Moreau Catholic B
Moreau Catholic also managed to get a second team into the top twelve, this one under tournament 9th scorer sophomore Abhi Mandalam (48.89 PPG). They definitely have some work to do when it comes to bonus conversion (lowest in their bracket at 10.83), which we will hopefully see in time.
BRACKET 2 5th – Davis B
Composed of players from Sacramento Fall’s C team, each of the players saw their PPGs rise, likely as a result of being a three-man team and not having to deal with Eliot’s rain shadow. Their PPB hit 15 at their best but averaged around 12.42, indicating a need for further development before this team could really be competitive.
BRACKET 2 6th – Davis E
Davis’s fourth team in the top twelve maintained a PPB of 12.39 but managed to hit a strong 18.57 during their round against Albany A. They had nearly double the negs of the next team in their bracket (24 to Davis B’s 14), largely from lead scorer freshman Ethan Skinner (tournament 7th at 51.11 PPG), but they also managed more powers and gets than Davis B and would’ve had more points from tossups if they didn’t have ten more negs.
And of course, another thank you from the NCQBA for those staffing or playing at this half of the largest single-day field in the Bay Area.
