From SNY Press Release - SportsNet New York (SNY), the television home of the New York Mets and Jets, has just established this annual high school basketball tournament that will not only become a pillar of SNY's involvement in the community, but New York's next great high school basketball event.
Players featured four elite boys varsity basketball teams that possess deep roots in the New York City basketball landscape: The Abraham Lincoln Railsplitters, Benjamin N. Cardozo Judges, John F. Kennedy Knights and the Frederick Douglass Lions. One of the represented schools - Abraham Lincoln high school - boasts NYC basketball phenom Lance Stephenson, dubbed "the king of high school basketball in New York City."
The 2008 SNY Invitational presented by Time Warner Cable took place at New York University's Coles Sports Center in Manhattan. Time Warner Cable served as the presenting sponsor of the tournament. Other official sponsors of the event included McDonald's, the United States Marine Corps, Spalding and the New York Daily News.
By Steve Kyritz
For almost the entire first quarter of Saturday’s SNY Invitational championship game, guard Lance Stephenson was kept out of the scoring column. With 22.3 seconds remaining, though, the Lincoln superstar showed why he is one of the most sought after prospects in the Class of 2009. After receiving a pass on the right baseline, Stephenson took one step and exploded to the rim, throwing down a dunk while drawing a foul on his defender.
From that point on, opposing Cardozo had little answer for Stephenson, who finished with 28 points, or teammate Darwin Ellis (22 points), as Lincoln pulled away after a surprisingly close first quarter that saw them with only a 14-12 lead.
Cardozo, paced by guard Trinity Field’s hot hand from the outside, kept things reasonably close in the first half, pulling to within nine at halftime on Edy Toussaint’s buzzer beater three. After intermission though, Lincoln was able to utilize their size advantage, and of course Stephenson, as they scored 49 second half points on their way to a 86-55 victory.
In the evening’s first game, Kadeem Nicholas scored 23 and Ross Vizcaino added 16 points as John F. Kennedy defeated Frederick Douglass Academy 68-54. JFK overcame 23 points by FDA guard Kenny Baez, who helped keep it to a 42-40 game after three quarters before Kennedy broke it open in the fourth, thanks in large part to a 10-1 run started by a Nicholas no-look assist and finished with nine points by Nicholas and Vizcaino.
Overall, the evening was an extremely good time, between the action on the court, a variety of local entertainers, and a very energetic (and surprisingly pro-Cardozo) crowd that, like the SNY Invitational itself, saw the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens in the house. Here’s hoping that the SNY Invitational continues to grow and provide another opportunity for some of the City’s finest high school ballers to come out and put on a show.
