A High School Basketball Breakdown I Promise You Won't Want to Miss
An epic recount of an equally epic matchup between myself and Arizona State tight end Jalin Conyers
The play below, a simple pass completion to an ASU tight end in the first quarter of Oklahoma State’s Week 2 matchup, most certainly went unnoticed by most.
For me, it was one of the most memorable moments of the entire game. The announcers voice came over the Boone Pickens crowd and said, “Pass complete to 12 Jalin Conyers.” A name that I had not heard since my Senior year of high school, when my basketball team, the Happy Cowboys took on the West Texas Comanches in an exhibition tune-up game before we began our respective playoff runs.
Somehow, I miraculously managed to find this grainy newspaper picture in the depths of google.
Conyers was 16 years old at the time and, along with ranking as the top tight end in the nation in his class, he was a very skilled basketball player. Although I was two years older than him, some would say he had a slight edge in athleticism. That did not stop me from throwing all I had at him.
I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to dive into the tale of the tape. A couple things to note before we get into it:
If you don’t have a twitter account, I will link a Youtube video at the bottom with all of the highlights.
Just for clarity, Conyers and I both wore the number 10. So, given our similar stature, I can understand if you get the two of us confused. Just remember that I am the one in black and he is in white.
Sadly, a lot of the game tape was mysteriously lost in a fishing accident but I’ll do my best to fill in the gaps.
Conyers and I battled back and forth the whole game. I guarded him from tip to buzzer and I locked him down, as I remember. Here are a couple clips of my tenacious defense.
My coach did not like that last one.
He had a quick first step on him, and often left me watching from several feet back as he made contested layups over my teammates.
I got it figured out toward the end of the game and pinned two or three of these layups on the back board, but those clipped were among those lost in the aforementioned fishing accident.
Thank goodness some of my offensive clips survived. Here is a quick montage of my three point shots. They are not pretty but they go in!
Conyers got me back though.
The close and block out is executed to perfection. Jalin did not seem to care however.
Here's two clips of a similar offensive rebound and put back to really compare our abilities side by side:
Pretty comparable if you ask me.
This is where the clips lost to the fishing accident become really unfortunate because for some reason I can only find the clips of Conyers' dunks and impressive layups and all of the clips of my dunks are nowhere to be found…
After all was said and done, the Comanches got the best of my squad, with a final score of 77-50.
Oh well. You Can’t Win ‘Em All.
The Comanches went on the win the 2017-18 2A State Championship.
Conyers transferred to Gruver high school where he led his team to a football State Championship. He then played for tight end at OU for Lincoln Riley before transferring to Arizona State last year. He said in an interview one time that I was still the most fierce competitor he had ever faced…but that clip if you can believe it was lost in the same fishing accident.
He could not lead his Sun Devil team past the Cowboys though.
Go Pokes.
Boynton really missed out on a hell of a recruit out of Happy TX.