By:

Patrick Belott

Athletic Director

 Top player likely to receive help from several junior varsity call-ups   

Albert Einstein High School boys basketball coach Rich Porac wants to use the summer to get back to basics after a 2-21 season. His team will play man-to-man defense and run the floor on offense as often as possible. In other words, it's a style designed to keep players in shape.

So, when he looked up and saw they had put themselves into a zone defense during a summer league loss to Wheaton last week, Porac immediately called a time out and switched them back to his preferred, at least for this time of year, man-to-man.

Porac clearly believes the process, if not cheated, will pay dividends in his second year with the team. That would be welcome news to rising senior Josh Ogburn, who led Einstein with 14.2 points per game last season.

"He's deceivingly fast with his feet," Porac said of Ogburn. "He's an excellent passer. He's extremely strong. He's quick with his hands in ball-handling. Last year, he was my point guard at 6-3, 240. He looks like Charles Barkley in the high school gym bringing the ball up. He can shoot. He's an inside-out guy.

"I'm not trying to make him sound like LeBron James, but for us, for Einstein High School, he can do it all."

On the other hand, Einstein's reliance on Ogburn wasn't solely due to his skills.

"We didn't know as a coaching staff where any points were coming outside of Josh's," Porac said. "Sometimes, Josh, last year, had to do it all. This year, this summer is a transition to let Josh know, 'These other kids can score, too. You have help.'

That help will come from rising juniors Daniel Seifu and Joe Bradshaw, rising sophomore Gil Reynolds and rising junior Abraham Camara. Seifu, Bradshaw and Reynolds played for Einstein's junior varsity team last season, and Porac would've preferred Camara had too, but his size was desperately needed on the varsity squad.

"With those kids, could we have won three, four, five more games?" Porac said. "Maybe. But it still wouldn't have been a, quote, successful season.

"Basketball is a long season, and it's during that time of year where it gets dark at five o'clock, and you're waking up 5:30 the next morning, and it's dark, and it's cold, and you're in the gym and losing for a month straight, that gets old. As far as the young kids were concerned, I just wanted them to feel good, to get excited, to want to work hard this summer."

As a bonus, Einstein's varsity newcomers complement Ogburn.

"With these kids, it's only going to make him look better, because he's a passer first," Porac said. "He enjoys moving the ball, passing the ball, making the no-look pass or finding the open man. And really, he's going to get his points either way.

"You've got to put a guard on him, because you can't put your big men on him, because he'll go right by them. But then, when you put a guard on him, he's so big, he can just back a guard in and score."

All along, Porac has tried to shield his young players from the downside of playing for a struggling team. But as he readies them for the next level, it's unavoidable, such as when Wheaton took advantage of Einstein's simplified approach last week.

"That's why in summer league, it can be frustrating with the kids," Porac said. "The kids can get frustrated, because you're not practicing every day. When you practice every day, you can go over that stuff with them."

As those practices come and the team builds, Porac said, his young players will face fewer frustrating moments.

"They're the core group of guys now that are going to be with me for the next two or three years," Porac said, "which I'm hoping will start turning this thing around a little bit."