The BCANY Festival came about largely as a way to fill the loss of not having the Empire State Games in New York this year due to state budget cuts. The basketball tournament, which featured some of the best boys and girls high school players all over the state, was held in Johnson City, New York over the weekend and included teams from eight separate parts of New York State, including Buffalo, who had their boys team coached by Larry Jones of Depew High School.
After dropping their opener Friday evening to Long IsLand, a game Buffalo led at halftime, things began promising on Saturday as Buffalo defeated Mid-Hudson, 93-85 behind 16 points from Adam Weir (Canisius) to go with 15 points and 19 boards from Reggie Agbeko (St. Joes.) The momentum didn’t last however, as Hudson Valley handed Buffalo a convincing 97-69 defeat. Weir and Agbeko again led the way in scoring for Buffalo with 21 and 17 points respectively. Agbeko hurt his ankle in the second half, the same ankle he twisted in last year’s Manhattan Cup playoffs against Timon and was forced out of the lineup for the final game Sunday.
Donte Whitner is a good… but not great football player. His God given talents, along with heavy-duty emotions of which he wears on his sleeves got him to the NFL and made him a multi-millionaire at this point of his career.
