Curtis’ Dashawn Richmond goes up for a shot in traffic. (Denis Gostev)
Rich Buckheit began talking about the leadership he needed out of his four senior starters when last season ended in The Bronx to Wings Academy. The Curtis coach brought it up often this summer, the fall and during the preseason, if only because it wasn’t where he thought it could – and should – be.
If Curtis was going to get to where it wanted to go – to reclaim the Staten Island High School League title and advance far in the PSAL Class AA playoffs – a change was in order. It took a disappointing non-league loss to Eagle Academy and season-ending injury to star junior Hassan Martin (torn finger tendon), but Buckheit finally feels his veteran group is in the right place.
“They’re finally showing leadership we need to be successful on the court, not getting rattled, not letting anything bother them,” the fourth-year coach said after his Warriors’ surprisingly dominant 86-59 rout at Moore Catholic on Friday night that remarkably wasn’t even as close as the final score would indicate. “I was really impressed with their determination tonight.”
It was an all-encompassing effort at both ends from Curtis (11-1), starting with the four seniors, Dontay Jackson, Kevin McIntosh, Debonair Edwards and DaShawn Richmond. They remained focused throughout, not letting a missed shot, bad call or turnover alter their resolve. It began in the last week with a series of no-frills practices, dating back to the loss to Eagle, even before the unfortunate news about Martin.
“It made us realize we have to work harder and put it all out there more,” Richmond said. “We did exactly what we practiced. We’ve been focusing on discipline and you saw it out there.”
Mark Fiorello led Moore (13-2) with 20 points and five 3-pointers while Scott Schaefer had 10.
Curtis’ four seniors combined to score 49 points, 25 in the opening quarter to set a dominant tone. It was Edwards (12 points) owning the paint against the smaller Mavericks and showing a deft touch around the hoop; McIntosh running the show; Jackson (16 points) hitting jump shots and beating his man off the dribble; and Richmond (14 points), the three-year starter, doing everything, from rebounding to finishing to creating for his teammates.
“Hassan stole a lot of the thunder in the first month of the season,” Buckheit said. “Some guys see it as an opportunity. … Our guys are mature enough to say, ‘hey, sometimes things happen.’ Our seniors don’t want to look back at this year and say we lost our best player. They want to look back and say we played great anyway.”
Another junior, meanwhile, took over for the injured Martin as the team’s spark. Jermaine Anthony-Huff, the skilled guard who helped lead the Curtis junior varsity to a city title last March with Martin, picked up the slack for his injured classmate. He poured in 17 points, including 10 in the second quarter as Curtis built a 20-point lead by halftime.
“Jermaine shot the ball well, he’s a great offensive player,” Buckheit said. “If we can get Jermaine to play defense the way he plays offense, he’ll be an outstanding player.”
From there, the final result was inevitable. Curtis led by 30 after three quarters and 80-44 at one point before Buckheit emptied his bench. Considering both teams entered undefeated in Staten Island, Curtis was somewhat reeling having lost Martin and its last game, the lopsided nature of the result was somewhat surprising.
Just not to Curtis, which has the same high expectations despite the loss of Martin.
“Everybody said Moore-Curtis, the best teams on Staten Island,” Jackson said. “We felt we had something to prove. We showed a lot of toughness. We played hard – no letdowns.”
