For years, Mission Bay High boys basketball has been one of the best prep teams in San Diego County. This winter, the Buccaneers had another season in which they reached the CIF Div. 1 championship game. Expectations are undoubtedly going to be high again for 2023-24.
Fortunately, with their continued success, the Buccaneers were invited to play in the highly touted 2023 California Live boys basketball tournament this past weekend. Being one of just 18 teams selected to play in the Sunshine Bracket, Mission Bay would be pitted against and surrounded by plenty of top-tier prep basketball teams.
“This year’s experience at the Live tournament was a bit different,” said Mission Bay head coach Marshawn Cherry. “With our normal starting five playing football right now, it allowed some of our younger players to get out there and get some invaluable experience and get extended minutes versus high-level competition. It was a great learning experience for them.”
And while the young Bucs took some lumps along the way, there were still several stand-out performances from the tournament.
Cherry was quick to point out the play of both Pablo Balderas, who is returning from an ACL injury, and Atreju De La Cruz. “Atreju led us in scoring this weekend, averaging about 17 points per game, and did a great job of getting others involved while also seeing high-level guards playing and learning how to better read offenses and defenses on the floor,” said Cherry.
Balderas would turn in perhaps the most impressive individual performance of the weekend as he dropped a monster double-double in their early game with 24-points and 19-boards.
“Pablo has only been back for about a month now, but he had a fantastic weekend, and he’s only at about 60% right now, but he just battled and is only going to get better moving forward,” noted Cherry.
Some other notable efforts from the weekend would come from Treyvon Davis, who dropped 28 points, 5 assists, and 8 rebounds in the team’s final game. Also, 6 feet 3 inches tall sophomore Kevon Fitzpatrick turned in a three-point barrage on Saturday, draining five 3-pointers in one game, while averaging about 12 points per game on the weekend.
While Mission Bay is unable to hoist the tournament trophy, the tournament should be looked at as an objective success, as being able to get their young pieces valuable minutes against some of the best teams in the state is only going to make them better.
“These young guys are getting 25-30 minutes a game this weekend, learning to play with each other. Seeing what’s a good shot, what’s a bad shot, and just gelling will only make our team that much deeper. They got a taste of how hard they have to play physically and how mentally tough they must be to succeed,” Cherry said.
“These young guys are very talented; their thing is just learning the nuances of the offenses and defenses. This weekend allowed them to work on those things.”
For the team’s next tournament at UC San Diego, Cherry expects to have their normal starting five all back on the floor, as many will return to practice at the end of this week to begin preparing.
