CBC honors Larry Hughes, dispatches Chaminade 59-50

It was a special night all-around for Christian Brothers College High School basketball on Friday night.

On a evening where former great and retired NBA star Larry Hughes and the 1997 state championship team was honored, the present-day Cadets went out and paid proper homage to their predecessors by putting on a show on the hardwood.

When the smoke cleared, CBC had four players score in double figures as the Cadets dispatched Metro Catholic Conference rival Chaminade 59-50 before a packed CBC gym.

“Honoring that 1997 championship team that was very deserving, then retiring Larry’s  jersey and then having the kids go out and get a home victory made it a special night,” CBC coach Bobby McCormack said.”I thought out effort was good and I thought we also shared the ball extremely well.”

The win over Chaminade was the Cadets second in a week after winning the Pattonville Tournament title against the Red Devils on Nov. 30.

The loss for Chaminade (2-3) as its second of the week as the Red Devils dropped to 0-2 in MCC play.

“The first half, I wasn’t happy with our team,” Chaminade coach Kelvin Lee said. “We gave up too many layups. We did a better job the second half but then again we’ve just got to put it all together.”

After leading by no more than six points in the first quarter, CBC (5-1, 1-0 in Metro Catholic play) went on a 9-4 run as a three-ball from Pat McCaw and a put-back bucket from Ray Doby staked the Cadets to a 24-13 lead with 5:00 left in the first half.

“We kind of figured out their zone and got them out of that zone and did a good job of attacking the basket,” McCormack said. “The second quarter was really big for us.”

A pair of buckets from Tyris Lockhart kept CBC rolling as the Cadets took a 36-21 lead into the locker room at half.

In the third quarter CBC kept the lead at or near 15 points as the Cadets continued to roll with a 50-39 edge going into the final stanza.

Balanced scoring made the Cadets too much for Chaminade to handle as McCaw led the way with 14 points followed by Jordan Barnett with 12 points, Lockhart with 12 points, and junior forward Ray Doby with 10 points.

The offensive balance was a thing of beauty for McCormack.

“Whenever you share the ball like we did, you are going to get a good result and tonight is no different,” he said.

Chaminade was paced by Damon Patterson with 14 points and Andy Kleinlein added nine points.

NOTES: Before the game, the school honored the members of the 1996-1997 CBC squad that won the state championship. Also, during halftime CBC alum and ex-NBA star Larry Hughes’ number 20 CBC and Washington Wizards jerseys were retired by the school and will hang in the rafters of the gym. Hughes is the school’s all-time leading scorer with 2,152 points and led the school in scoring average with a 19.7 points per game.