Section II – A Sleeping Giant??

                           (Bishop Maginn grad Talor Battle pushes the ball up the court for Penn State.)

We all have heard of Sam Perkins. We all have heard about Pat Riley. What few others from around the nation know is that they are just two of the many quality basketball talents to come out of New York State’s capital region. If we were to do an article on every quality basketball player ever to emerge from Section II, it would be about as long as Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Miserables. Les Miserables has been re-made in movie form a multitude of times and was even a smash Broadway musical in the late 1980’s. No movie will ever be made about the players to have come from upstate (most likely), and there certainly won’t be any musicals. But at least this article will highlight just a few of the bigger names to have graced us with their presence on the hardwood over the last decade. A few players from the class of 2012 are heading to Division I programs after solid high school careers. In terms of inclusion in this article, they will have to pay their dues.

The most prominent star to arise from Section II in recent years and take the nation by storm is none other than Jimmer Fredette.  In high school at Glens Falls, he amassed 2,404 career points, making him the sixth leading scorer in New York State Public High School history. During his senior campaign playing in Glens Falls, NY, he eclipsed the 40-point mark twelve times on his way to averaging 25 per contest. Because of his Mormon faith, Fredette attended Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City, Utah, and took the world by storm his senior year, leading the nation in scoring at almost 30 points a clip. Drafted tenth overall in the 2011 NBA draft, he played his rookie season with the Sacramento Kings. He will be entering his second season in the NBA in November.

From the same high school class was Penn State standout Talor Battle.  A graduate of Bishop Maginn in Albany, the Section II Class AA Champion went on to play college ball at NCAA Division I Pennsylvania State University.  He received quality minutes from the get-go, as he averaged over 30 minutes of playing time as a freshman.  Averaging double-figure scoring totals in each of his four years at Penn State, Battle led his team to their first NCAA tournament berth in ten years as a senior. Battle currently plays for Telekom Baskets Bom over in Germany and recently appeared in a CDBA game for Team Deas, leading them to victory as a one-game free agent pick-up.

Although not a scholarship player at Boston College, CBA grad Johnny Cahill must be mentioned as he played in one of the NCAA’s best Division I conferences, the ACC. A walk-on as a senior, Cahill received major minutes off the bench. He stayed on for the next season, and earned a spot in the starting rotation. A two-year varsity starter for the Brothers, Cahill was known for his shooting prowess, knocking in 51.1% if his shots from beyond the arc as a senior. He played a key role on the 2006 Sectional Championship squad and hit huge shots down the stretch to preserve the Brothers’ undefeated record heading into the 2007 Section II Class AA final.

Before Arizona’s Mark Lyons attended prep school at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire, he was spearheading Schenectady’s fierce rivalry with CBA. A member of the 1,000 point club at Xavier, whom he played for in the 2011-2012 season before transferring to Arizona last month, Lyons finished 11^th in scoring in the Atlantic-10, averaging 15.1 points per game. He was an Atlantic-10 Third Team selection as a sophomore, and was the fifth best scorer as a freshman at 7.8 a clip.

Galal Cancer has just finished a solid rookie campaign for the Big Red at Cornell. An Ivy League Rookie of the Week pick for the week of December 19, Cancer averaged 6.1 points, 2.7 assists, 2.5 boards, and 1.1 steals per contest on the season. A 2011 CBA graduate, Cancer was a two-time NYS All-Tournament team pick, and the 2011 Times Union, Troy Record, News Channel 13, and Big 10 Player of the Year. He was a key member of the 2010 NYS Championship squad, and was ranked among the 150 best point guards in the country by ESPN as a senior.

Division I players usually get all the love, but Guilderland’s own Steve Dagostino surprised a lot of people when he signed on to play at Division II College of Saint Rose in 2004. “Dags” went on to become only the tenth player ever to win back-to-back Northeast-10 Player of the Year Awards and has gone on to play overseas in England, Iceland, Italy, and, in 2011-2012, Spain. During the off-season, “Dags” spends his time in the area with his fiancé and running his own basketball skills improvement firm, Dags Basketball. An undersized point guard with a great feel for the game, “Dags” proved the critics wrong, as he was able to play and succeed at a high level of competition. Locals who have followed him from his days as part of the Guilderland Dutchman and later as a Golden Knight at Saint Rose, can see him a few more weeks in the CDBA at Rensselaer High School.

Many more could be mentioned here. A number of pro basketball players on the Albany Legends of the IBA, who are solid local talents, can be seen in action during Legends’ home games at CBA in Colonie.  There are also a number of current Division I players playing in the CDBA for Eric Medved’s NBT Bank squad. If you start looking into the history of Section II basketball, you may be surprised to see what great talent we have had, and maybe overlooked, in our own backyard. There is a stigma that this region does not produce any serious basketball talent. Some Division III or JUCO players maybe, but never the real thing. But routinely in AAU tournaments, teams from upstate mop the floor with teams from the city and no one pays attention. Section II just may be a sleeping giant.

Mike Long Jr., Staff writer