Joe Cremo is listed as a forward on Scotia-Glenville’s roster, but he’s quickly picking up a guard’s mentality. While the 6-foot, 3-inch tall sophomore led the Section II Class A champions with an average of 20.3 points and 12.8 rebounds per game, he also stepped behind the three-point arc and drained 13 treys, good for the fourth-highest total on a team that made 135 three-pointers. “His biggest improvement physically is his long-range shot,” said Scotia-Glenville coach James Giammattei. “That just comes from repetition and hard work in the off-season.” “He’s got three-point range, and we’re trying to extend that to NBA three-point range,” added Steve Dagostino, who works with Cremo during the off-season through his Dags Basketball program.
The goal, said Cremo, is to make himself into a guard for college basketball, even as he continues to play in the low post for Scotia-Glenville. “If I make my goal as a (NCAA) Division I player, it will have to be as a guard because I know I won’t be the tallest player on the floor,” said Cremo. “If he can become a catch-and-shoot player from beyond the three-point line, then he becomes unstoppable with all of the other tools he has,” said Giammattei. Cremo said he first picked up a basketball at the age of five. “I was shooting outside, and my older brother came up to me and said I could really make it as a basketball player,” said Cremo. “That was really important to me because I looked up to my older brother.”
Cremo kept working on his game, and it paid off when Giammattei brought him onto the varsity team as a freshman and made him a starter. With Cremo in the lineup, Scotia-Glenville survived a Sectional semifinal scare against Mohonasen (a one-point overtime win) on its way to the Class A title and a regional final appearance against Jamesville-Dewitt. Cremo and the rest of the Tartans had no scares within Section II this year. Scotia-Glenville won all of its regular season games by a minimum of 12 points, and it knocked out Foothills Council rival Glens Falls 53-45 in the Sectional finals for its third Class A title in the last four seasons.
Though Cremo played a major role on Scotia-Glenville, he had help from Andrew Tabbert, Alex Sausville and Dom LeMorta. That allowed Cremo to exercise another skill normally reserved for the guards — distributing the ball. “(Giammattei) was always telling me to shoot because I can do that,” said Cremo. “But we’ve got so many other guys on the floor that can hit the outside shot that I could always pass the ball to them.” “He‘s so unselfish,” said Giammattei. “Joe obviously led us in scoring, but we had so many weapons that he didn‘t need to score all the time.”
If Cremo had taken more shots, Giammattei said his sophomore season numbers would have been through the roof. “Imagine if Joe got to play 32 minutes and wasn’t so unselfish. He could have averaged 35 points and 16 rebounds easy,” said Giammattei. That isn’t Cremo’s goal, however. “I take a lot of pride in my game and myself,” said Cremo. “I’m probably the biggest critic of my own game. It’s great to see my numbers improving, but it’s not the most important thing to me. Winning is.” Cremo is working daily with his Scotia-Glenville teammates this summer in a rigorous off-season practice schedule that includes basketball drills and weight lifting. “We try to get in a good four to six hours a day,” said Cremo. “It’s fun. We like it.” “He just wants to win, and everyone on Scotia is like that. They all want to win,” said Dagostino. But in order to get noticed by college coaches, Cremo knows what he has to do for himself. “I know I’ve got to make improvements at the offensive and defensive level because I want to play basketball at the Division I level,” said Cremo.
Improve on averaging a double-double every game? That may make Section II basketball teams cringe when they face Joe Cremo and the Scotia-Glenville Tartans this winter.
Rob Jonas-Staff writer
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