Notebook / Alan Drooz : Metro Coaches Defend Choice of Tyes as Conference MVP

El Camino College basketball Coach Paul Landreaux’s colleagues in the Metropolitan Conference have risen to their own defense after Landreaux’s blast at them for their awards selections.

Landreaux was irritated that Harbor College center Kelvin Tyes was chosen Metro most-valuable player over El Camino’s best player, Roland H’Orvath.

El Camino won the Metro title and Harbor finished fourth, though El Camino was upset in its first playoff game and Harbor is still playing in the state tournament. Landreaux contended that the MVP should be from the conference-winning team.

Santa Monica City College Coach John McMullen, speaking for Metro coaches, said that the majority of them felt Tyes was clearly the league’s superior player and should be honored. He also said the coaches offered to name Tyes and H’Orvath co-MVPs as a concession to Landreaux, but that Landreaux refused that.

McMullen also said that though Landreaux tried to withdraw himself from coaching honors and left the meeting, he was nonetheless unanimously named coach of the year.

Landreaux had characterized the coaches as “insensitive.” McMullen said, “This is as classy a group of coaches as I’ve ever been around.”

James Moses, the talented sophomore basketball player at Serra High, didn’t light up the Sports Arena in the CIF 5-A championship against Mater Dei, but he did show the most coordination--from the calves on down.

No plain old sandals for this Moses. While the rest of the team wore white sneakers with red trim, Moses wore one with red trim and one with blue and socks that alternated as well--red-trimmed sock with blue-trimmed sneaker. Was it for luck? Superstition? No reason, Moses said.

The Serra fight song says in part, “All hail the red and blue.” Now Moses has given it sole.

Award Time: Stanford University and UC Berkeley have two of the brighter basketball squads on the West Coast and two of the best student-athletes are South Bay residents. Stanford’s Novian Whitsitt (San Pedro) and Berkeley’s Dave Butler (Rolling Hills) are both on the Pac-10 all-academic first team. Butler was also named a second-team Academic All-American. Both are juniors, though Butler red-shirted a season and will be a fifth-year senior.

Cal State Dominguez Hills’ basketball team suffered through a 8-19 season but that didn’t stop junior forward William Alexander from having a banner year. The high-jumping 6-4 Alexander, who led the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. in scoring during the conference race, was named to the all-CCAA first team this week despite the team’s seventh-place finish. He also was named to the Division II All-West Region Team for the second straight year. Junior guard John Nojima earned honorable mention.