CITY BOYS’ BASKETBALL PREVIEWS : CENTRAL LEAGUE : Missing Pieces Adding Mystery to This Race

SAN DIEGO — Time to read between the lines.

“The kids we do have here are working real hard and I’m pleased with their efforts.”

Hmmm? “The kids we do have . . ..”

Kind of implies there’s someone missing, doesn’t it?

Well, yes. Dennis Kane, who muttered that sentence, is coach at San Diego High and was both speaking of the players on his roster and alluding to some missing links.

Those would be Raynard Wells and J.R. Greer, two players with superstar potential, according to area coaches, but two who left the Cavers for personal reasons.

San Diego is not alone; absenteeism seems to be the trend throughout the Central.

Lincoln is learning about basketball after Joe Temple and Aaron Wilhite, two Times’ all-county picks who have graduated.

Crawford is making due without Tracy Halton, considered one of the top college prospects in the county but out with a bum knee. Crawford has also had to replace two other injured starters.

Madison, new to the Central League, is missing three starters they expected to have back from last year’s team that went all the way to the Division III championship game. Point guard Kirk Bannister, for example, moved back to Flint, Mich.

Also missing this year are two schools. Christian and St. Augustine bolted to the Harbor League.

THE RACE

Top contenders: Lincoln (25-1 in 1988-89), San Diego (17-4).

Surprise potential: Crawford (16-8).

Hoping for improvement: Hoover (2-21), Madison (14-11).

Game of the year: San Diego at Lincoln, Jan. 19. San Diego appears to be the better team, but Lincoln has won four consecutive league titles.

THE PLAYERS

The man: San Diego’s Clark James is the county’s second-leading scorer, averaging 29.0 points. “Clark’s kind of like Magic Johnson of the Lakers in that I play him all over the court,” Kane says.

James is a kind of 6-foot-5 forward-guard-center who gets a lot of his points off the transition game.

“He gets the ball a lot in the open court,” Kane said. “And the big guys can’t hang with him, and the small guys aren’t strong enough.”

Who will fill Joe Temple’s and Aaron Wilhite’s shoes? Hmmm, tough question.

Archie Robinson is said by Lincoln Coach Ron Loneski to be the most-talented player he has coached. But he won’t be able to fill either pair of shoes this season. He could, however, fill one of them with water and take a swim--he’s a guppy of a player at 5-1, 100 pounds.

He’s also a freshman and not starting. Which leaves the chore of filling the void up to a number of teammates, including football heroes Darryl McMillan and Victor Dean, both of whom Loneski calls great athletes though not yet great basketball players.

Others to watch: Hoover’s Roger Blake is “our version of a big guy,” Coach Hal Mitrovich said. But Mitrovich’s version stands just 6-3. He’s averaging 11.8 points.

And how about Marc Carter, a senior forward at Crawford, the guy who will be spelling Tracy Halton until the knee heals?

Carter, 6-7, was recently named the most valuable player of the Barons Optimist tournament. He’s averaging nearly 18 points. And he seems to have particular success against Morse. In Crawford’s two meetings with the Tigers, Carter has scored 30 and 22 points.

“He’s a player,” stressed John King, Crawford’s coach. “He’s dominant.”

Crawford point guard Tito Singleton may also warrant some attention. He’s a transfer from the Fresno area, where he was a three-year starter and all-conference performer last year. A perimeter shooter, he beat Morse in the championship of the Barons Optimist tourney with a three-point shot at the buzzer.

Madison’s John McKenna is a 6-1 junior swing man averaging 18.9 points for a team that won only once in its first 15 games.

THE INTANGIBLES

The Hoover-First Advantage: Hal Mitrovich has a reputation of coaching a basketball game as if he were on a search-and-destroy mission. He will search out an opponent’s shortcomings, then destroy.

“He’s the best guy to play first,” said Crawford’s King, “because he’ll take advantage of whatever weakness you have and you say, ‘Boy, we’ve got to work on that.”’

This year, Crawford has a bye on the first day of league play but will play Lincoln Wednesday. Lincoln Coach Ron Loneski, however, says he already knows his team’s weakness: “We’re horrible,” he said. “We just don’t have any chemistry.”

The Lincoln Defender’s Advantage: It would seem Lincoln has no advantage coming into league play with a 9-8 record. But Central coaches fear a monster is about to awaken.

They draw their fears from the fact the Hornets have won four consecutive league championships, going 39-1 in league play during that time.

Choosing not to quell those fears, Loneski brushed off his club’s preleague record by admitting, “We always shoot for league.”

The Crawford Ligament Advantage: Since the Colts lost Halton to damaged ligaments, they have won three in a row.

“Without Tracy we beat Kearny (50-49), Bonita Vista (60-37) and Morse (after previously losing to the Tigers, 68-67),” King said. “As a team, the kids are playing a little better without Tracy. It’s kind of a cruel thing for a coach to say, but with Tracy in there, we look for Tracy, look for Tracy, look for Tracy. Now without him, we’ve been forced to become a better team.”

The hope is, he said, that the team will continue to improve and be that much better when Halton is expected back at the beginning of the playoffs.

Madison’s 2-A Disadvantage: Going from the perennially competitive 3-A Eastern League into the 2-A Central should be akin to dropping a trigonometry course and adding origami.

But not this year. The Eastern is down and the Central, with San Diego, Lincoln and now Crawford playing well, is considered tougher.

Not good news for the 3-A section runner-up, which expected to have three starters return from last year, only to watch them disappear one by one.