Top boys basketball teams battlling it out at Rumble for Rosecreans Avenue Tournament

Sunny Hills coach Joe Ok is joined by two of his players Aaron Hong (left) and Emmanuel Seddoh at the Rumble for Rosecrans Avenue Tournament (Photos Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone)

Twenty-four boys basketball teams from Orange and Los Angeles counties are getting an early season test this week at the inaugural Rumble for Rosecrans Avenue Tournament at Sunny Hills, Buena Park and Norwalk.

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Players from Beckman (white uniforms) and Warren warm up Tuesday.

Sunny Hills coach Joe Ok has been pleased with this week's tournament,

Beckman players walk to the bench for a timeout Tuesday.

“With the change in the CIF sports calendar and everything moving up, with the coach over at Norwalk High School who is also a Sunny Hills grad we, decided to take an opportunity to start our own tournament,” said Sunny Hills Coach Joe Ok, now in his fourth year as head coach and his 22nd year at the school.

“And we had great interest and I think it’s because there isn’t any out there yet. I’ve seen a few tournaments, but we jumped on it and we got 24 teams to participate. We thought about maybe making it eight teams at first, but then all these schools started asking, so we expanded all the way to 24 and now we’re using three sites.”

WEDNESDAY’S TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE AND SCORES

The tournament began on Monday, Veteran’s Day, with eight games at Sunny Hills and it will wrap up on Saturday with eight games at Sunny Hills.

“I think there are going to be great games all week, we’ve got Orange Lutheran here, they looked fantastic, Beckman looked really good and five out of the six Freeway League teams are in this tournament,” Ok said.

Ok said plans are to make the tournament, which also includes Esperanza, Troy, University, Sonora, Troy, La Habra and Foothill, an annual event with the championship being rotated among the host schools.

“Hopefully we will continue to have the interest that we had this year,” he said. “We had to turn away a few teams in the end.”

Beckman Coach John Goins, a Sunny Hills graduate, was impressed with how the tournament has gone.

“I’l help him (Ok) out in any way I can and I was looking for a tournament that had good teams in it to start off the year,” Goins said. “I wanted to play teams that were better than what I think are in the Pacific Coast League but I don’t think it would have helped us to play a bunch of private schools.

“It took the place of the Crean Lutheran Tournament also, that was a good level for us as well. It’s good, I like helping out my buddy and so far we’re 2-0.”

Sunny Hills opened the season Monday night with a 71-55 victory over Montebello. The Lancers will host California High School Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m.

“We actually knocked some shots down in the first half,” Ok said of the opener. “We were able to create some separation and hung on the rest of the way. It was a good sign for us.”

Junior guard Wilson Cal, who was coming off a great year as a receiver with the football team, led Sunny Hills on Monday with 16 points and four 3-pointers. Junior Emmanuel Seddoh had 15 points and junior  Peter Park had 14 points.

“It was very balanced scoring for us, which was good,” Ok said.

“Our biggest goal is just to improve from last year. Last year, we were young, mostly sophomores and we definitely went through some growing pains.

“The change of speed and physicality to the varsity level from the lower levels was eye opening for a lot of these guys. And so I think this year with the experience we have we want to hopefully turn those games that we lost into W’s next year.”

Sunny Hills was 11-17 overall and 4-6 in the Freeway League, missing the playoffs by one game.

“We had a chance to force a Friday playoff game and we lost that last game at home, so we missed out at the playoffs. It was the first time we’ve missed playoffs since 2009. We’re hoping to get back into that as well.”

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com