Jaylen Brown-led Wheeler opens with 75-49 win over host Liberty: 2014 Les Schwab Invitational

  • 12/26 - 7:00 PM Boys BasketballFinal
    Wheeler (GA) 75
    Liberty 49
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HILLSBORO – After practicing in their home gym Friday morning, the Liberty boys basketball players returned from a team breakfast to see the venue transformed into the home of the Les Schwab Invitational.

“It’s a totally different feeling,” Liberty junior Koby Alvarado said.

Since 2004, the Les Schwab Invitational has brought its crowd-pleasing basketball tournament to Liberty High School. For the first time Friday night, Liberty found itself playing on the floor rather than admiring from the bleachers.

“I’ve been to a lot of Schwab games here and it was always so fun,” Liberty junior Jacob Mast said, “and now it’s our turn. We’re all just so grateful to be in it.”

Byron Greenlee (44) and the Liberty players shake hands with the Wheeler players following the Falcons' first game in the Les Schwab Invitational. (Jeff Smith/The Oregonian)

The final score – Wheeler (Ga.) 75, Liberty 49 – didn't matter as much as the thrill the Falcons players experienced while playing in the tournament's opening game against a team ranked 10th in the country by USA Today.

Wheeler (10-0) is led by 6-foot-7 senior Jaylen Brown, who showed why he’s the second-ranked player in the nation with a dominant 17-point, 13-rebound performance.

But after traveling all day from Marietta, Ga., the Wildcats were a little sluggish early and Liberty took advantage. After Brown missed the game’s first shot attempt, Mast found himself with room to shoot and sank a jumper to give Liberty a 2-0 lead.

“I noticed that no one picked me up so I just stopped and shot because I didn’t want to drive into three of their big guys,” said Mast, who finished with a team-high 11 points and seven rebounds. “The shot felt good and gave me a little confidence boost.”

Falcons junior Lane Josi followed with a jumper and Alvarado added a three-pointer to give Liberty a 7-2 lead and several new underdog-cheering fans in the building.

“We told these guys, ‘If you make it a game, everyone in that gym will be cheering for you,’” said first-year Liberty coach Aaron Johnson, who was an assistant on a Pat Coons-coached Westview team that upset Wheeler 79-76 in the quarterfinals of the 2006 LSI. “And you could hear that in the first quarter. You felt the energy from the crowd.”

Of course, the LSI crowd also loves seeing powerful dunks and Brown provided a couple of two-handed jams that helped Wheeler regain control. The Wildcats, who also received a game-high 18 points from senior guard Shembari Phillips and 16 points from junior Cameron Jordan, led 15-14 before closing the first half on a 25-11 run.

“Liberty came out and played hard on their home floor,” said Brown, who has received college offers from Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas and UCLA, among others. “We just got off a plane a few hours ago and didn’t play how we were supposed to play. But tomorrow is a new day and we’ll get it together.”

Wheeler will play in a quarterfinal game at 8:30 p.m. Saturday against the winner of the Reynolds-Jesuit game that tips off at 9 a.m. Saturday.

Class 5A Liberty (4-3), which also received 10 points from Byron Greenlee and eight points from Alvarado, will play the Reynolds-Jesuit loser in a consolation game at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

“It’s a great opportunity to play all these 6A teams,” said Mast, who watched his older brother, Jordan Mast, play for Jesuit in a previous Les Schwab Invitational. “We get to go up against some of the best teams in the state and that will help prepare us for the rest of the season.”

Johnson, who played against elite competition as a Westview player at this tournament in the late 1990s, knows that his players will never forget the time they faced a Brown-led Wheeler team in the LSI opener.

“You could tell before the game, when they were walking in and looking all around,” Johnson said. “It’s their own gym, but it’s a different place. It’s a pretty neat experience.”

Jeff Smith | @JeffSmithSD

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