All-star snub

Despite their powerful stats, Salem CC’s Taylor and Spencer left off the All-Region 19 Division III Teams

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

CARNEYS POINT – Mike Green will stand up for his guys as high as the day is long, but when the results of this year’s Region XIX All-Division III basketball team crossed his field of view he just couldn’t stand still.

Green’s improved Salem CC team has two of the more dynamic players in the entire region let alone Division III – 6-4 sophomore guard Akeem Taylor and 6-8 freshman post Jyheim Spencer – but when the region’s “All” teams crossed the coach’s clipboard Thursday neither were on any of the three teams. It was presumably because they became eligible at mid-year and didn’t meet the criteria of playing in at least 80 percent of their teams games.

They certainly played in 80 percent of the 14 regular-season games for which they were eligible after being activated Jan. 7. Spencer played in them all and Taylor missed two (86 percent). They both played in Wednesday’s post-season win at CC of Philadelphia.

You can’t argue with their impact or production. Green said the whole first month of the season the Mighty Oaks would be a different team when they joined the lineup and they have been. Salem is 12-3 since they started playing.

Taylor would have been among the Division III leaders in scoring (20.8 ppg) and was undoubtedly the straw the stirred the Mighty Oaks’ drink. Spencer averages a double-double (13.3 ppg/14.3 rpg) and would be the second-leading rebounder in Division III nationally and sixth in blocked shots (42/2.8 per game) had he played enough games to qualify. He already has one Division I offer.

When they first handed Green the all-star list the second-year coach looked to see what he already suspected and threw the paper in the trash. One of his assistants pulled it back and he glanced again to make sure he hadn’t overlooked anything in haste and then tossed it back in again.

The Division III MVP was Sean Emfinger of Montgomery, who the Mighty Oaks will face in Saturday’s North Atlantic District B championship game at Northampton. Green was fine with that call. Emfinger averaged 20.2 ppg (22.1 in conference games) and 8.3 rebounds with 124 assists and 60 steals. He put 19 and 12 on the Mighty Oaks when they played Feb. 4.

Green called the type of season his two players had “amazing years, first-team all-conference type years, an All-American type of year.”

Spencer did get placed on the ballot for second team from what Green was told. Alas, there will be none of that.

“With the way things go around this league I’m never surprised,” Green said. “It’s kind of a fraternity I haven’t gotten in yet. It’s just my first full year.

“Hopefully these guys aren’t penalizing my players because of who they think I am, because they don’t know me. I don’t hardly even know these guys. Hopefully they don’t think the success I had has anything to do with these kids. They’re not playing against me. I kind of get a feeling these guys think they’re beating me, Mike Green, instead of Salem from the way these guys are celebrating after the game.”

The snubs do add fuel to another interesting debate – is Green a viable Coach of the Year candidate? After all, his team put together a record-breaking season with 22 wins (so far), a region-best 8.5-game overall turnaround (11 in the win column) and a spot in the district title game – all without one all-region player.

“The way things are going you’d think it would be me, right?,” he said, not that he’s worried about it. “What they’re telling me is we don’t have a top 15 player in the league, so how are we in the championship game? So, I should be Coach of the Year just on that, but there are a lot of coaches in the league doing a great job. That could go either way.”

If the snub is bothering the two Mighty Oaks stars, they don’t seem to be letting on.

“They’re mature,” Green said. “They’ve got bigger fish to fry. They’ve got a championship (to pursue) and they’re getting recruiting. They’ll get a last laugh.”

Photo by John Holt