Crusaders head south over Christmas to the Arby's Classic!

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the Father Henry Carr Crusaders will head south over the Christmas Break next season to the Arby's Classic in Bristol, Tennessee. This marks our 6th consecutive trip to a premier American tournament. We have participated in the Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, SC in 2004 and 2006; the Arby's Classic in 2005 and 2007; and the GSK Holiday Invitational in Raleigh, NC in 2008.

Our tentative schedule in 2009-2010 includes:
The adidas Early Bird Classic at FHC in November
The Cathedral Gaels Invitational in December (Hamilton)
The University of Windsor Invitational in December
The Arby's Classic over the Christmas Break (Bristol, Tennessee)
The Silver Fox in January (Hamilton)
The Blessed Mother Teresa Invitational in January
The Forest City Shootout in February (London)

For more information, please feel welcome to email me at henrycarrhoops@aol.com

Coach Melnik

melnik, i was just wondering, when you guys went to the GSK Holiday Invitational did you get to see John Wall play in person?

Unfortunately, we did not get to see John Wall play. We tried to watch the semi finals, but when we arrived at the gym, there was at least 500 people waiting in a line to get in and they were already at capacity.

It was very disappointing because I have seen his highlight films and he is a very special player. However, Wall did see the Crusaders play. He sat in the first row and watched our win over Richland, Texas.

Coach is this another way to recruit on this site?

I would like for everybody to take it for what it is, a coach taking pride in his school and keeping us updated on what is going on with his team. One thing that a lot of us found refreshing was the constant game by game updates by Coach Philippe from West Hill so this trend seems to be continuing here.
Great job Coach as always. Your school has represented us well and obviously will continue to do so. I do not see anything here that resembles recruiting. If a kid reads this and it makes up his mind then there is nothing wrong with that. There is no promises, recruiting or negative slags against other programs. Nor is this a coach saying "Come here, we are better than the rest". This actually can only help other GTA schools get accepted into Tournaments down South.

[quote="Coach Melnik"]Unfortunately, we did not get to see John Wall play. We tried to watch the semi finals, but when we arrived at the gym, there was at least 500 people waiting in a line to get in and they were already at capacity.

It was very disappointing because I have seen his highlight films and he is a very special player. However, Wall did see the Crusaders play. He sat in the first row and watched our win over Richland, Texas.[/quote]oh man, 500 people were just waiting in line? wow. i seen his highlight films too, he is a very talented player, i see him going far with basketball. and he watched you guys play? well at least something good came out of it i guess.

lol imagine if you had to play against him and his team...

Actually, when the original draw came out we were scheduled to play Word of God in our second game. But they changed the draw.

Recruiting? If I am recruiting on here, I can think of a few others you might want to go at.

i'm curious to know what would be your game plan, if you were to play Word of God.

Well, we would try to limit his catches, deny him the ball, and provide early and aggressive help. We would also run some double teams at him to force him to give up the ball. He is very, very good and if we could stop him he likely would find his teammates. WOG had a couple other great players, like CJ Leslie, who could also have monster games. Offensively, we would try to move the ball to create dribble penetration opportunities. Sounds like a good plan, but they would be very difficult to beat.

oh yeah for sure. first off if wall is on his game which he almost always is, they are extremely hard to beat. and their team is not only limited to wall, they have two or three other guys who can really play and are athletic as hell.