ZBlogX

It’s safe to say that Thursday’s DCSAA semifinal between No. 1 H.D. Woodson and No. 14 Gonzaga, a 105-102 double-overtime thriller won the Warriors was one of, if not the best basketball game played in the Washington area this season. Fittingly, Friday marks the 10th anniversary of what some have argued is the best high school basketball game ever to be played in the D.C. area.

On March 4, 2006, national No. 1 Oak Hill put its 56-game win streak on the line against preseason national No. 1 Montrose Christian in front of a capacity crowd of 4,000-plus at Coolidge High. While matchups with this type of billing are commonplace in today’s environment of high school sports exposure, this game was far different.

From Montrose’s Kevin Durant and Greivis Vasquez to Oak Hill’s Michael Beasley and Ty Lawson, future Division I and NBA standouts filled the rosters of both teams, all the way down to the end of Montrose’s bench, where a freshman named Isaiah Armwood sat, patiently waiting his turn before moving on to star at George Washington.

In the end, everyone got what they had paid for — with the score tied and the clock winding down, Montrose’s Adrian Bowie rebounded a Durant miss and put it back in for the game-winning bucket in the Mustangs’ 74-72 victory. The journey up to that point, as well as the years that followed, also featured their share of entertaining moments.

Advertisement

“People still come up to me this day and say they remember that game,” said longtime Montrose Christian Coach Stu Vetter, who stepped down in 2013. “Based on the number of people who raved and talked about the game, you would think 10,000 people were there. It was a game of high magnitude.”

[This D.C. family has endured murders and misery. Can basketball save it?]

The 2005-06 high school basketball season began with Montrose Christian atop the national rankings. Bolstered by Durant’s return to the area for his senior year following one season at Oak Hill, the Mustangs were rich with talent, featuring a fiery sparkplug in Vasquez, a glue guy in Bowie and a speedy playmaking guard in Taishi Ito.

Oak Hill wasn’t far behind, thanks to a group whose roots stretched back to the Washington area. Lawson, a Prince George’s County native, began his high school career at McNamara, while his backcourt mate Nolan Smith had spent the previous season at Riverdale Baptist. The Warriors also featured then-junior Beasley, who previously played at Bowie, National Christian and Riverdale Baptist (to name a few), and Jeff Allen, a former DeMatha player.

Advertisement

A meeting between Montrose Christian and Oak Hill was nothing new — in his past stints at Flint Hill and St. John’s Prospect Hall, Vetter had formed a national rivalry of sorts with the Warriors and renowned Coach Steve Smith. But with so much local starpower involved, that year’s contest had the makings of something special.

“I had worked with Kevin and Mike Beasley and Nolan in middle school, so it was pretty cool to see all of that nationally regarded talent on one court and for it to be homegrown,” said then-Montrose assistant coach David Adkins, who is currently on the Washington Wizards coaching staff. “You could tell it had the opportunity to be a great night and that’s what we gave the fans.”

With the help of Clay Dade, founder and president of sports marketing company Hoop One, a deal was secured with Comcast to televise the end-of-season game on what was then known as its In Demand network. Finding a venue was a bit more troublesome.

Advertisement

[Archives: The day DeMatha toppled Power Memorial]

The preferred venues were George Washington’s Smith Center and American University’s Bender Arena, but both had scheduling conflicts. The common thought was that the Wizards homecourt, then known as the MCI Center, was a bit too big, leading Dade to Coolidge’s more intimate gym setting.

“We knew we’d be leaving money on the table with Coolidge being a bit smaller, but it gave it the right type of atmosphere,” Dade said. “I think it set the stage for a lot of the high school showcases you see now at Coolidge and DeMatha with local teams playing against teams from outside the area. It also helped inspire ESPN to bring the National High School Invitational to the Maryland area for its first five years because that game showed what a hotbed this area is for basketball.”

Tickets sold out well in advance of the March contest, resulting in long lines and plenty of scalpers outside of Coolidge for a chance to see 40-0 Oak Hill against the Mustangs.

Advertisement

Initially, however, the buzz outweighed the action on the floor. Lawson scorched the Mustangs early, using his speed and strength to pick apart Montrose’s defense and help the Warriors build a 16-point fourth-quarter lead.

That’s when Vasquez had seen enough.

“I went over to the coaches and said, “Let me guard that [guy],'” recalled a laughing Vasquez in a phone interview. “I wasn’t even Americanized, if you call it, so I didn’t really know who Ty was at the time. I just knew he was killing us. So I got under his skin, played aggressive, talked trash in Spanish, and it was working.”

Durant took it from there, willing his current Mustangs team back into contention during a 31-point performance.

“Any time you play your old team, there’s incentive there, so I know Kevin really wanted to win and his family was very happy when we did,” Vetter said.

Advertisement

The current Oklahoma City Thunder superstar, however, needed a little help from Bowie, who had scored two straight baskets to tie the game. Following an Oak Hill backcourt violation, the Mustangs got the ball back with 14 seconds and no timeouts.

“We spent a lot of time on game situations in practice, so when we got the ball back with no timeouts, the players were already setting up for what was known as the ‘Up’ call, where four guys lined up across the foul line,” Vetter said. “The play was designed for Kevin but there were also players in position to rebound the basketball.”

Skip to the 2:50 mark of the below video to see how the tense final moments played out, with Durant’s miss rebounded and put back in by Bowie.

“That last play was crazy,” Vasquez said. “I just wanted to win. It was the perfect moment for KD, but that’s why basketball is a team game. Adrian was in the right place at the right time.

Advertisement

“It was unbelievable what was going on that night. You knew Mike Beasley, KD and Ty were going to be NBA stars, but it turned that a bunch of us went to do big things in college and the pros. Life changed for a lot of us after that game.”

Over the last 10 years, as the players in uniform that night have blazed their own notable basketball trails, the game itself has taken on a life of its own. In Andy Pollin and Len Shapiro’s 2008 book “The Great Book of Washington, D.C. Sports Lists,” the authors compare the Montrose-Oak Hill game with DeMatha’s 1965 upset of Power Memorial (N.Y.), leaving it up to the reader to decide which ranks as the best among high school basketball games ever played in the DMV.

While DeMatha’s victory holds significance in sparking the national rankings and rivalries now seen across the high school sports scene, the Montrose-Oak Hill contest is lauded for its stature in the modern era, a snapshot of the consistently budding talent within the D.C. metro area.

Advertisement

“I’ve coached and I’ve seen a lot of great games in 37 years,” Vetter said, “but when you have the caliber of players that we had on that night and to see what they’ve gone on to do, you knew it was going to be a special part of history.”

MONTROSE CHRISTIAN
(Name — College — Pro team)
*Kevin Durant — Texas — Oklahoma City Thunder
*Greivis Vasquez — Maryland — Milwaukee Bucks
*Adrian Bowie — Maryland — NBA D-League/Overseas
*Taishi Ito — Portland — Overseas
*Isaiah Armwood — Villanova/George Washington — Overseas
*Troy Brewer — Georgia/American — Overseas
*Terrell Vinson — UMass.
*Ben Thomas — James Madison

OAK HILL ACADEMY
*Michael Beasley (played at Bowie, National Christian, Riverdale Baptist) — Kansas State — Houston Rockets
*Ty Lawson (played at McNamara) — UNC — Indiana Pacers
*Nolan Smith (played at St. John’s and Riverdale Baptist)  — Duke — 2011 first-round pick by Portland
*Jeff Allen (played at DeMatha) — Virginia Tech
*Landon Milbourne — Maryland — Overseas
*Anthony Wright (played at O’Connell) — Michigan

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLumw9JoqZ6boqq2tbXNoGSipqOesaa%2BjrCnaGpgZoNwfJJoZ21nnaS7tb7OrJxmm5intrTAyJqlZq6jYryit4yhoKWkXZZ6rbvOpGSbmZOgeqLAjKilnmWfm3q1tMRmnqudkamytMCMoaCgoF2osKm7zqVkoJmdmsButc1mm2abXZ22tMDOq7Bo