Cleveland Unwilling to Fade After Benching of Bankhead

Cleveland High defeated Reseda in a tough road game Friday afternoon, but Kevin Crider, the winning coach, talked afterward as if his team had lost.

“We just did not play well today,” he said of the 55-51 Northwest Valley Conference victory. “Naturally, when they play at home they’re excited. But now they go back on the road and they just didn’t have the intensity level they needed. It just wasn’t there. Everything we asked for them to do, they did something else.”

Perhaps the biggest culprit for doing “something else” was Shawn Bankhead, the Cavaliers’ leading scorer. Bankhead, a 6-foot-6 senior who scored 40 points Wednesday in a home victory over El Camino Real, sat on the bench for most of the second half.

Cleveland (10-6, 4-0 in league play) had a third-quarter lead of 29-22 and seemed to be in control.

But Reseda (4-8, 2-2) went on an 11-4 run, highlighted by consecutive three-point shots by forward David Horesh, to even the score at 33.

At that point, Crider sat Bankhead down, unhappy that his standout wasn’t applying enough pressure in the backcourt as part of the Cavaliers’ full-court press. Bankhead did not return until 5 minutes 42 seconds remained in the fourth quarter. When he did, he made a thunderous entrance.

Bankhead, the game-high scorer with 16 points, had consecutive dunks, punctuating an 8-0 run that gave the Cavaliers a 48-39 lead with 4:58 remaining.

The Regents had an eight-point run of their own to shave the lead to one at 48-47. But they would get no closer.

Bankhead made two steals in the final minute to preserve the victory for Cleveland.

But Bankhead gave credit for the victory to his team’s play during his own stint on the bench.

“It’s a team effort. My lack of defense held the team down. Coach got mad at me and pulled me out and the team kept going with the flow,” Bankhead said.

Cavalier forwards Jimmy Harris and Jermaine Hall scored 11 and 10 points, respectively.