SECTION C

March 24-30, 2010

RENAISSANCE FINISHED No. 2 in the state. – Andre Smith photos

Renaissance comes up short

The Phoenix get outgunned by East Lansing

By Leland Stein III

East Lansing — Before a raucous home gath-

ering, the East Lansing Trojans (26-1) showed all they were not fluke, as they toppled Detroit Renaissance 65-54 in the MSHAA Girl’s Class A state final at the Breslin Center.

Renaissance (23-3) was going for its first

state title since moving to Class A two years ago. It last won a state title in 2005, when it was in Class B.

East Lansing had never been to the Finals or

won a title, but that all changed after the refer- ee blew the game -ending whistle and the home crowd went into a frenzy.

“It was like a home game,” East Lansing

coach Robert Smith said. “The crowd was one of the best I have ever seen and they surely up- lifted this team. We knew Renaissance was a very good team, and we had to make sure they did not get too many put backs, we had to block out and, most importantly, not make too many mistakes.”

One player that did not make any mistakes,

but made all the plays down the stretch that changed the game was guard Malika Glover, who tossed in 25 points.

Renaissance had control of the game leading

at halftime 27-25 and held that margin until the last minutes of the fourth quarter.

But in the fourth quarter Glover scored 11 in

the fourth quarter to lead a furious comeback. “We were going to play the fourth like we

had nothing to lose,” Glover said. “Things just started flowing for us. We wanted it really, really bad. We switched from zone defense to man to and, back to zone and I think that con- fused them.”

Glover scored seven straight to open the final quarter to give East Lansing a six-point

THE TWO best female basketball players, Lorreal Jones ( No. 5) and Klarissa Bell, battle for a rebound.

lead. But it was the Trojans’ full-court pressure that caught Renaissance off-guard and led to its eventually downfall.

EAST LANSING’S Malika Glover (No. 10) shoots over Arrice Bryant.

Renaissance coach Diane Jones observed,

“She (Malika Glover) was awesome, hit all the big shots down the stretch and controlled the

Bird and Magic

By Leland Stein III

HBO Sports Documentaries has produced

yet another must-see remembrance on the times and environment that MBA stars Larry Bird and Magic Johnson traversed in their time as worldwide figures.

The documentary highlights the unfortunate

fact that much of America focused on our dif- ferences instead of our commonalities. Racism and the great divide in White and Black America takes center stage in this basketball historical recountance.

The story illustrates how two simple bas-

ketball players got caught up in the East coast versus West coast, the Boston versus Los An- geles NBA history, White versus Black, and Showtime versus blue collar basketball.

Bird

and Magic unknowingly were thrust into the po- sition of re- vitalizing the NBA in the 1980s and smack dab in middle of this

coun-

In the Game

By Leland Stein III

After the

golden age of the 1960 and 1970s, the 1980s had some in America thinking that the league was too Black. African Americans were domi- nating the league and too many in America did not like that. The NBA was losing sponsors and had no prime time television contracts and was being scorned by the media, too. Then here

try’s serious race prob- lem.

LARRY BIRD and Magic Johnson in Detroit last year. – Brother Love photo

comes Magic and Bird with their I-just-want- to- play-basketball-and-win attitudes. All the racial and cultural differences that came to the national stage and tried to separate them were far from what either one of them was thinking or projecting.

When Magic came to Los Angeles he said

in his initial press conference, “I just want to win.”

When Bird came to Boston, in his initial

press conference, he relayed that all he wanted to do was win, too.

Thrust together by fate, Magic’s Michigan

State team defeating Bird’s Indiana State in the 1979 NCAA Championship Game, which is still the top rated televised NCAA Final ever.

In victory Magic said, “I knew it was gonna

haunt him (Bird) forever ’cause we were going to see each other a lot.”

Bird said, “It still hurts today. I wanted to

win that game so bad. We had won 33 straight and losing was not in our plans.”

HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg did

what he’s been doing — producing documen- taries that flow deep into the players and the times in which they played their game.

I coached at Johnson’s Basketball Camps

for ten years and I got to know him and see his preparation for winning. At the camps we sat around and talked about his and Bird’s battles and how much he disliked the Celtics.

When Bird and the Celtics beat Johnson’s

Lakers in their first meeting in the NBA, the next year at the camp Johnson was not as jovial and happy. There was an edge to him even then.

I’m not saying he did not work with the kids and give all he had to teach the campers the

fundamentals of basketball. But in talks with the coaches at the camp and in down time he was still mad that the Lakers had lost to Boston and Bird.

“That was a long year for me,” Johnson told

me. “I could not put that loss out my mind.” The beauty of the Bird-Magic feud was that

they both could dominate a game while only taking 15 shots, but dishing 10 assist and grabbing close to 10 rebounds. Their attitude of passing took the NBA community by storm and uplifted the entire league.

The HBO special delves into Magic’s wom-

anizing as he took on the Los Angeles Holly- wood scene. It also covers the suicide of Bird’s father, Joe Bird, and how that worked on his personality.

I knew that Bird had a bad back, but the

extent of his terrible back injury came to light. True to the “Hick from French Lick” persona, he hurt his back shoveling gravel while build- ing a driveway at his mother’s home.

The documentary was painfully honest in

dealing with Bird’s father’s death and John- son’s revelation that he had HIV in 1991 and had to retire.

But the story was not over as both Bird and

Johnson in the twilight of their careers played together in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics where they made history as the first NBA players to play in the Olympics. Their participation in the games led to the world bonding with the NBA and today’s league that has multiple foreign players in it.

Bird and Magic are like sun and snow, com-

pletely opposite, but as Bird said, “We got this connection that’s never going to be broken. I mean, right to our graves. They’ll be talking about this a hundred years from now.”

Leland Stein can be reached at lelstein3@

aol.com.

ball. We didn’t know how to handle her.” What Glover did was no fluke, she tossed in

29 in the Class A semifinal against Detroit Per- shing; no matter, the Phoenix were focused on Klarissa Bell, who was named Miss Basketball last week.

She was held to 14 points by Renaissance

senior leader Lorreal Jones, who contributed 17 points and 10 rebounds.

The problem for the Phoenix was not get-

ting running the offense through Jones more as well as the second half press that they never found a way to negotiate.

“Looking back, we could have done a lot of

thing differently,” Jones said. “We gave it all we had but it was not enough. Still I think this team had a great run and I’m proud of how far we came.”

Bell averaged 20 points and nine rebounds

during the regular season was happy with her team’s victory.

“We beat teams by 30 points all last season,”

she noted, “but we lost in the stats last year. This year we were mentally tough enough to play in close games and this was one of them.”

Renaissance outshot East Lansing, 32-19, in

the first half, but managed only a 27-25 lead at halftime. East Lansing didn’t handle itself with poise and implemented smothering press that carried them to victory.

“We had a chance to really get to them in the

first half,” Renaissance coach Jones said, ‘but we missed too many shots. In the second half we turned the ball over more than we would have liked, and we have always played better against the press than we did.”

Leland Stein can be reached at lelstein3@

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