Everything from A to Z works for Mietus’ team on first day
Former Ferris Saxons player John Mietus came into his own as a basketball standout at a college in Oregon, named of all things, Lewis & Clark.
But for all of his individual and team successes, Mietus rates the Hoopfest title he won with Happy Wife Happy Life in 2004 as the pinnacle of his accomplishments.
“I’ve won conference championships in high school and colleges and played in the national championships three times,” he said during Saturday’s opening day. “Winning Hoopfest was the best thing that’s happened to me. The atmosphere is incredible.”
Mietus was missing last year when the team, now named A to Z Rental, with former Whitworth players Bryan Depew, Chase Williams and Scott Bierlink, reached the semifinals but failed to repeat.
He was playing basketball and spending his summer in Europe.
“I definitely heard from Bryan,” he said. “He gave me a real hard time about it.”
Mietus is back and A to Z Rental won twice Saturday in its 16-team bracket of the Men’s Elite 6-feet-and-over division.
The 64-team tournament, and a like tourney for Men’s Elite 6-feet-and-under, has a long way to go before surviving teams in each reach today’s semifinals and finals at Center Court.
But A to Z doesn’t have as far to go as teams like defending champion Battle in Seattle, which was upset by Global Compusearch in its opening game.
By beating Triple A and Green Lit, A to Z Rental can return to the semis with two more wins. By contrast, Battle in Seattle must win a total of eight games, six of them today, to make the final four.
What has Mietus meant in his return?
“John brings a lot of offense inside,” said DePew. “Kyle (Jensen) in his first Hoopfest didn’t look to shoot. With John, he’s attacking.”
Said Williams, whose outside shooting helped rally the team from a 9-8 deficit to a 20-16 win over Green Lit: “I don’t have to do anything but stand out there and shoot 3s.”
Actually, the shots are good for two points, but the three shots he made during the game proved his point.
Mietus downplayed his return, pointing to the number of free throws he bricked during the second game.
“I’m going to go shoot free throws for two hours so it doesn’t haunt me (today) when it counts,” he said. “Kyle played so well for them last year, I’m just trying not to be a downgrade. They made the semifinals last year and I’d like to do it again.”
Of the 16 top-seeded 6-feet-and-over teams, eight are unbeaten heading into today’s semis, including Team Alabama, whose Charles Burkett and Earl Warren played on 2001 and 2003 champs.
Hoop Hearted, of former Gonzaga University player Winston Brooks and winners of the last three 6-feet-and-under titles, won its first two games as well.
It’s a slam dunk
Chewelah junior-to-be Erin Smith was too nervous to go first in the three-person women’s slam dunk contest.
When it was her turn, she was asked by Center Court emcee Dennis Patchin if she could defeat the other two.
Her microphoned answer was: “No.”
Then she proceeded to nearly make a spinning behind-the-back try and put down a high bounce off the court jam at the 8-foot high basket.
But it was her fancy double-pump move and dunk from the side that proved the winner over former University of Idaho player Heather Thoelke.
“I’d never done it before,” Smith said of the dunk contest. “I have hops and had to try something new. I guess I looked good. I don’t know.”
There were more non-dunkers than dunkers in the men’s competition, but the winner, Kirk Sheppard, was a crowd pleaser.
The Air Force airman, a mechanic stationed in Korea, put one down with such force it bounced off his head and back up through the rim.
On his winner during a three-player dunk-off, he took off 10 feet away from the basket, soared and put it down.
Sheppard is from Wisconsin and first dunked at age 14, he said. He enlisted after high school and was stationed at Fairchild before volunteering for Korea.
He was here on leave expecting to play in Hoopfest, but his team canceled.
“I saw this and thought, ‘Cool,’ ” Sheppard said.