Last night at Moody

[LA_Mustang]

Moody played host to two terrific high school playoff basketball games last night. Both games were close and the building was alive (which was nice to see- a big, lively crowd at Moody for a basketball game), but the reason for my post is the lack of security or a police presence at the games. I’m not sure in a situation like that who is responsible for providing the security (SMU, UPPD, DPD, DISD), but the lack of it last night almost cause a very ugly scene.

I’ll be honest, the crowds at DISD games can get a little volatile at times, especially at the bigger rivalry games.....which we had last night. Towards the end of the first game (Lincoln vs SOC) Moody was close to being full, I would guess around 8,000 (I know the paper said 6,000, but it was closer to 8,000), and I saw zero police officers in the building. As the crowd filed out of the first game, the hallways became very dicey.....I saw two fights developing with a lot of innocent people trying to leave or go to the restroom or get in to see the next game (including bball TV announcer Jim Hallren sp?- who was trying to get the hell out of there with a look of fear in his eyes), and not one police or security officer around. I just felt it made SMU look unprepared to handle a big, hostile sports crowd and I overheard several other people saying that very same thing. Bottom line. when you have two rival inner city schools playing a game on a Friday night, there needs to be ample security or police around to make sure things don’t get out of hand. I’m not blaming SMU, but someone dropped the ball last night.

BTW, now that I’ve painted such a pretty picture of HS bball at Moody, the Regional final is today at 1:30 between SOC and Seagoville, which should be a fantastic game. There were a ton of scouts in attendance last night watching Donald Sloan and Darrell Arthur (which happen to be #1 and #2 on SMU's wish list for next year) and they will be play each other today. Seagoville has the best guard trio in the state and SOC has the best set of big men in the state, possibly the country.....should be a good one.

[Hoop Fan]

LA, I was there with HF junior but fortunately didnt run into that incident. Pretty tame where I was but I think most of the students were on the west side. The games were pretty good. I wish we could have gotten Kevin Rogers to SMU. Lincoln missed Gary Flowers big time, it was a little surprising they were able to stay in the game. Seogoville is relentless with its on ball pressure. I didnt make to Moody for the finals today, but I bet it was a great game. By the way, I thought Reggie Rawlins from Hebron looked a little better than a low major recruit, going to Sam Houston State. He handled the ball pretty well for 6'6 and he has some muscle.