Leading off today: Ebenezer Ogundeko became the 13th New York senior to commit to a BCS football school, announcing Friday that he will sign a letter of intent next month with Clemson.
The Brooklyn Thomas Jefferson linebacker picked the Tigers over Syracuse, having briefly been a UConn commit over the summer before an avalanche of interest caused him to re-evaluate. He will enroll for the spring semester this month.
“It was pretty close, a lot of people convinced me (for SU), but at the end of the day it’s a business and I have to do what I have to do,” he told NEXT/Scout.com. “I had to keep all these people off my mind, people that just met me this year just trying to convince me and trying to get close to me."
Big numbers: One shudders to think what Argyle's Joey Lufkin could have accomplished Friday had he played beyond the middle of the third quarter. The 5-foot-9 senior scored 28 points in the first quarter and 54 for the game during a 96-47 Adirondack League boys basketball victory over Whitehall.
Lufkin, averaging 33.6 points per game, made eight of his 13 3-point attempts en route to the school's single-game record.
Meanwhile, Saniya Chong took a first-quarter bagel in No. 1 Ossining's Class AA girls basketball showdown with No. 8 Christ the King. She made up for it late, however, pouring in 29 of her 46 points in the fourth quarter of an 89-84 victory.
Chong had been feeling ill early and was nauseous at halftime. “I talked to her one-on-one during a timeout,” Pride coach Dan Ricci told The Journal News, “and I said, ‘Girl, your teammates are playing their hearts out for you. You need to step up. You’ve just got to take this game over.’ And she did.”
Eighth-grader Andra Espinoza-Hunter scored 18 points behind five 3-pointers in front of UConn coach Geno Auriemma. Christ the King’s Sierra Calhoun and Kollyns Scarbrough connected for 30 points apiece.
More Section 2 boys action: It was a newsy day in Section 2 boys basketball beyond Lufkin's scoring rampage.
Albany Academy, ranked 20th in Class AA, held Collegiate to 2-for-15 shooting in the fourth quarter and defeated the state's top-ranked Class B squad 52-43.
Earlier in the day, Watervliet forfeited five victories for using a player who lived outside district boundaries to drop to 0-7, then came out to beat Mechanicville 52-49 on senior guard Jordan Gleason's 19 points. Watervliet was ranked eighth in Class B to begin the week.
More girls basketball: A showdown between two 7-0 Class D teams from the Adirondack League in Section 2 turned out to be a mismatch as No. 3 Fort Edward dominated No. 8 Fort Ann 64-39.
Senior Taylor Boucher and sophomore Alexis Thomas scored 17 points apiece to offset 21 by Jordan Aubin in a losing cause.
And then there was one: Whereas there are still four unbeaten boys basketball teams in Section 5 Class C alone (and four more in other classes), there is just one unblemished record left on all of Long Island according to Newsday.
