SAN LUIS OBISPO — A night after falling hard in its opener, St. Joseph rebounded with a solid effort against another national bracket team at the 10th Annual Mission Prep Christmas Classic.

Sylmar, a top team led by UCLA signee Tyler Honeycutt, took over in the second quarter with an effective full-court press, defeating St. Joseph 70-47 on day 2 of the tournament.

Bracket play begins today, St. Joseph facing El Dorado of Las Vegas in the Elite Division.

"We took a step forward tonight," St. Joseph boys basketball coach Ed Torres said. "I know it’s funny to hear that when we lose by 23 points. But they (Sylmar) have only lost one game all year. The team yesterday was one of the top 20 in the state. We’re learning. We’re learning to compete. If we continue to do that, I think in some of these games we’ll get some w’s."

The Mission Prep-hosted tournament runs until Tuesday and draws some of the top talent in the state, if not, the nation. The National Division includes such top teams as Taft (No. 5 in the state), Bishop Montgomery (which defeated St. Joseph on Thursday) and Campbell Hall.

"It’s one of best tournaments in California this time of year, if not the West Coast," Sylmar coach Bort Escoto said. "We came to face the best competition possible."

St. Joseph, led by Ryan Smalley in the post, was no pushover. In fact, the Knights were down just one point early in the second quarter.

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Then Escoto inserted his regular starters, including Honeycutt.

For the second straight year, St. Joseph faced a future member of the UCLA Bruins. Last year, it was Malcolm Lee.

This year, the Knights held Honeycutt to 11 points. The 6-foot, 9-inch senior still flashed moments of brilliance.

“After his junior year, he did not have one scholarship offer,” Escoto said. “I brought him into my office and told him if you work hard, you could be top 50 in the country next year. ... I didn’t think he’d take me serious.”

Honeycutt, it turns out, could not be kept out of the gym that summer.

“Every day, he was in the gym asking me to stay with him to work him out. Nine o’ clock. Then 10 o’ clock. Eleven on a Friday. I said, ‘Listen, I want to go home and go out.’ He said ‘Don’t you want me to get better.’”

Honeycutt had more than 100 scholarship offers entering his senior season.

On Friday, Honeycutt did not see any action in the first quarter.

St. Joseph hung tough, despite Sylmar having a clear rebounding advantage. The Knights, at first, struggled to break the full-court press. Steadily, they found a way, converting in transition. At the end of the first quarter, St. Joseph only trailed by three points, 12-9.

And then Honeycutt entered. Along with the rest of the first team. Despite playing primarily from the outside on offense, Honeycutt ate up anything that entered the lane on defense.

He blocked the Knights on his first possession. That led to a layup, 17-11 Spartans.

And then Gary Ricks, another player late to the party, started to drop 3-pointers. He stole a pass and nailed a 3-pointer. The Knights stuck with the second team, down just one point at the start of the quarter. Now, the stars were taking over.

Honeycutt blocked another attempt, and grabbed an offensive rebound for a score. Another Knight watched his shot meet Honeycutt’s long reach. He missed the alley-oop on the resulting fast break, but teammate Malik Johnson cleaned up the miss.

A Ricks layup and 3-pointer fed what became a 15-0 run.

The Spartans took a 37-17 advantage into halftime.

“I thought we did a pretty good job on him,” Torres said of Honeycutt. “We kept him from taking over the game. I think we knew they were going to press us and continue to press until we could consistently break the press. When we did, we got some good looks. But we had to have had a higher percentage of converting off the press.”

Missed free throws and turnovers also plagued the Knights.

“Throughout the whole game, I really believed we had an opportunity to win the game,” Torres said. “If we made free throws and took care of the ball, it would have been a whole different ball game.”

Sylmar scored seven of the first nine points in the third quarter, before St. Joseph went on a 7-0 run.

Jacob Cano scored four of the points, and fed Rodmer Lomboy for another two. K.J. Cusack also started to make a difference, stealing passes and using his quickness to break loose on the break.

In the days other games, Los Osos defeated Mission Hills 58-50, Bishop Montgomery topped LACES 92-52, Campbell Hall beat Campolindo 72-54 and Taft ran past Mission Prep 71-28.

Jim Bashone Cage Classic

Cabrillo (5-4) downed Oxnard Rio Mesa 68-63 in a tournament game at Carpinteria High School.

The Conqus shook off 25 points by the Spartans’ Joseph Soto. Michael Ferrullo led Cabrillo with 19 points. David Terrones scored 16.

In another tournament game, Santa Ynez edged Ojai Nordhoff 52-50. Johnny Henno scored 14 points for Santa Yenz (4-4). Connor Reck put in 10.

Pacifica Tournament

Righetti couldn’t withstand 25 points by Oak Park’s Samuel Levine and went down 52-47 in this tournament game at Pacifica High School in Oxnard.

Van Holloway and Nick Sauer scored eight points each for the Warriors (3-5) who play at 4 p.m. against an opponent to be determined.

December 20, 2008