Lincoln Phenom Off to Dazzling Debut
December 27, 2018
By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half
When Ypsilanti Lincoln’s boys basketball team faces off against another MHSAA title contender River Rouge on Saturday, it won’t be just another game.
And, that’s just how Lincoln freshman Emoni Bates likes it.
“He loves the lights, the crowd and playing the game of basketball,” said his father, E.J. Bates. “That’s part of the game. He loves the big stage when the lights are bright. He embraces that.’
So far in his young basketball career, there have been plenty of lights for the 14-year-old Bates. He’s touted by some as the No. 1 ninth-grade basketball player in the nation.
That’s a hefty title to carry, but one Bates is carrying well. While just a month into his high school career, the 6-foot-8 Bates is as calm and collected doing media interviews as he is shooting jump shots and throwing down thunderous dunks.
Lincoln has started the season 5-0, and Bates is the leader of a team that would be good without him but is a threat to win the Southeastern Conference White championship and make a long tournament run with him.
Every gym he’s played at so far this season has welcomed big crowds. Bates is attracting a lot of that attention.
Adrian High School had what Maples athletic director John Roberts called one of the biggest regular-season crowds he’s seen in several years when Lincoln played there on a Friday night earlier this month. Bates was clearly a big reason why. Some Maples students found their way over to Bates before the game to ask for an autograph.
Bates was impressive even in warm-ups, starting off with a big-time whirlwind dunk that got plenty of attention from the crowd.
Once the game started, Bates was equally as impressive. With every touch of the ball, the crowd expected big things from him – and he didn’t disappoint.
“Some of the people in the crowd have never seen me play, so I’m trying to put on a show for those who came out to see me,” the freshman said after the game.
Bates is averaging 28.6 points per game through five contests. He scored 32 in his varsity debut against Ann Arbor Huron in November. He scored 28 against Saline, 23 against Adrian, 32 against Pinckney and 28 against Temperance-Bedford. Lincoln’s only home game so far was the opener.
Bates said the crowd doesn’t faze him, mainly because he’s used to garnering the attention after playing before big crowds during AAU events.
“I just go out there and have fun,” he said. “I’m used to it.”
Bates has been working on his game for years. He emphasizes speed training and just getting better at all aspects of the game. On the floor, he is intent on keeping his teammates involved in the game as well.
“We are building trust,” he said of his teammates.
Lincoln is actually a veteran team. Seniors Tahj Chatman and Amari Frye were first-team all-SEC White selections last year, and senior Jalen Fisher was an honorable mention choice. Chatman has had a great start to this season, averaging in double figures, as is Fisher. The Railsplitters have 10 seniors, three juniors, a sophomore and Bates.
Lincoln head coach Jesse Davis is in his fourth season coaching Lincoln after more than 15 as an assistant at various levels. He coached at Lincoln, Willow Run and Ypsilanti before joining Josh Tropea at Milan. Davis was an assistant at Milan when the Big Reds won the 2014 Class B championship while featuring Division I college talents in Latin Davis and Nick Perkins.
The connection between the player Bates and Davis, and to Washtenaw County and southeast Michigan, runs deep.
E.J. Bates played his first three years of high school basketball at Milan, reaching the 1,000-point milestone before his junior year was over. He finished his high school basketball career at Ann Arbor Pioneer before playing collegiately in Kentucky and professionally in Europe. He and Davis have a friendship that dates back three decades.
Davis said his job is to keep the younger Bates focused on basketball and not worrying about the hype surrounding him and the team.
“He believes in his ability,” Davis said of Bates.
Tropea will have the challenge of facing off against Bates multiple times over the next couple of years, but he’s excited for the chance.
“It will be great for our league,” said Tropea. “He’s the real deal. He’s an incredible talent.”
Saturday, the Railsplitters take on River Rouge in the Washtenaw County Challenge. The event is an example of a growing trend in high school basketball in Michigan – to bring together multiple teams at one venue for a full day of basketball.
Ypsilanti Community is host and will take on Detroit Henry Ford in the last game of the day. The event kicks off at noon with Ann Arbor Huron playing Southfield Arts & Technology. Chelsea plays Parma Western in the second game, Lincoln takes on River Rouge in the third and Ann Arbor Pioneer takes on Wayne Memorial in the fourth game of the day.
The event will feature some of the most talented players and teams in the state, but Bates is sure to be in the spotlight – and not just from fans. Both University of Michigan and Michigan State University are showing interest in him, and college coaches from around the country have Bates on their radars. At the Adrian game, MSU assistant Mike Garland sat in the front row.
E.J. Bates said the attention isn’t getting to his son just yet. But he is monitoring it because, he said, “at the end of the day, he’s still a kid.
“We regulate it, so it doesn’t get too overwhelming for him. Everything is fine. If it gets too out of hand, we’ll sever ties with it. If he needs a break, we’re going to give him one.”
E.J. has coached his son in AAU basketball. This prep season, he’s enjoying watching his son develop his game at the high school level in the same area where he grew up playing.
“I love it,” E.J. Bates said. “I always wanted him to be able to stay at home and play basketball. … First of all, like I always tell everybody, if you are that type of talent and you want to leave a legacy behind, you should leave it at home. You shouldn’t go somewhere you’ll never visit after you graduate, and no one knows you. At home, your family and everybody can be proud of you for doing something for your hometown. It’s giving back to where you came from.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Ypsilanti Lincoln’s Emoni Bates brings the ball upcourt during a win over Temperance Bedford this winter. (Middle) Bates after that victory, which was part of his team’s 5-0 start. (Photos by Vanessa Ray.)
Hoops Finds Annual Home During Holidays
December 27, 2019
By Ron Pesch
Special for Second Half
Nothing says the Holidays like a high school basketball tournament.
It started, like many things do, with a drip. Well, make that a dribble.
The Michigan High School Athletic Association has allowed Holiday basketball tournaments for years. When was the first? That’s hard to establish. No one really kept track of such. A 1934 Wakefield News article indicates that a “Christmas Tournament will be held for the (Gogebic) Range teams at Wakefield December 27 and at Ironwood December 28.” Hurley, Bessemer, Ironwood and Wakefield were entered in the “blind” tournament, with opponents drawn just before game time. It was a new idea, at least in the Upper Peninsula.
“Nothing of its kind has ever been attempted in the Peninsula before,” stated the Ironwood Daily Globe. The tournament, won by Hurley, was a financial success. After expenditures, including the purchase of trophies, profit equaled enough that $22.42 was distributed to each school competing in the tournament. Plans were announced to bring back the tournament in a larger format the following year. It did return the following December, with the same teams in the same format but with all games played in Wakefield. This time out, Ironwood topped Hurley 22-21 for the tournament title.
In the Lower Peninsula in 1935, an All-Berrien County Holiday tournament was held Dec. 26, 27 and 28, with Three Oaks winning the Class B-C division title, 15-13 in the final over Berrien Springs. St. Joseph Catholic emerged as the Class D victor with a surprising 27-26 win over the reigning MHSAA state champ from Stevensville. The 14-team competition was played at Niles High School. Attendance was “slim, very slim” for the opening day of the tourney. The event did not return in 1936.
A similar, but much smaller, event was staged in Berrien County in 1941 with the Bridgman Class C Invitational. The tournament featured seven teams with contests spread over three nights. It was a success.
“Some 450 paid admissions were checked in Wednesday night for the championship finals, which Bridgman won from Berrien Springs. … The total paid admission for the three night event was 1,420 fans with a gross gate of approximately $400.”
By the mid-1940s, the idea of playing prep basketball during the Christmas lull had begun to take off across the state.
In December 1946, before a crowd of 1,500 at the Flint IMA Auditorium, Holland, the reigning Class A champion, downed Flint Northern 51-48 behind a pair of late field goals by Ken ‘Fuzz’ Bauman in the first annual Motor City Invitational. In Jackson, Detroit Catholic Central won the Michigan Catholic Invitational, beating Kalamazoo St. Augustine, 42-40. Bridgman again snagged the title at the Sixth Annual Berrien Class C Christmas Holiday Tournament. It was the Bees’ third Christmas championship in four years. The Little Eight Conference Holiday Tournament was played across four school gymnasiums as the calendar transitioned from 1946 to 1947. Bangor downed Covert, 34-29, in the championship contest hosted at Watervliet High School on Saturday, Jan. 4.
“Holiday tournament basketball has really caught on in Michigan,” said Hal Schram in the Detroit Free Press in 1947. “There will be no Christmas-New Year’s rest for at least 60 Michigan high school squads which have jumped at the chance to sharpen their collective shooting eyes for the long season ahead. … At last count, tournaments will be played between Dec 17 and Jan 3 at Flint, Saginaw, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Lincoln Park, Fremont, Negaunee, Marquette, Benton Harbor and Detroit.”
The same eight schools that played at the first Motor City tournament – Jackson, Grand Rapids Central, Holland, Muskegon Heights, Monroe, Midland, Flint Central and Flint Northern – were invited back for the second year. According to Schram, “Not a single participating school of a year ago wanted to be left out.”
Jackson downed Flint Northern in the title game, 39-34.
The Saginaw Invitational, hosted at Arthur Hill High School, boasted six Class A schools as well as Alma and Mount Pleasant, both Class B schools. Mount Pleasant surprised the field, winning the tournament with a 40-25 triumph over Dearborn Fordson in the championship game.
A year later in December, Schram wrote, “The Michigan High School Athletic Association wasn’t caught unaware when the tournament bug started to bite every sector of the state.”
“Never did we expect such a wave of tournament play as we will see during the next three weeks,” said Charles Forsythe, state director for the MHSAA, noting 34 Christmas vacation tournaments were scheduled between December 15 and January 8 during the 1948-49 basketball season. “Perhaps we’re lucky at that. The Oklahoma association has had to sanction 123 tournaments.”
Forsythe and Schram explained the reasons for the wave of popularity. Of particular interest was the fact that, at the time, a school sponsoring both football and basketball could play a total of no more than 24 games, combined, in the two sports. However, MHSAA rules allowed a basketball team the chance to play as many as three games during a Holiday tournament and be charged with only one of its allotted combination of 24 contests. (The MHSAA rules changed prior to 1972-73 to allow basketball teams a maximum of 20 games.)
Coaches could keep their squads sharp during the two-week layoff with games rather than just mandatory practices. And, as a bonus to all because tournaments were financed through gate admissions, invitations to larger tournaments meant teams got to “stay and eat at the best hostelries, go on sightseeing tours when not playing and play non-conference opponents from other sections of the state.“
Add in the chance to play before larger-than-normal crowds, and the formula for a successful tournament was cast.
Beginning with the 1950-51 season, the football-basketball rule was altered to count play in mid-season invitational tournaments as two contests. With the change, according to the Detroit Times, “the number of such meets dropped sharply.”
Only nine Holiday tournaments, involving 50-plus teams, were recorded by the MHSAA during the 1951-52 season: the 5th annual Flint Parochial Invitational, the Alpena Catholic Invitational (involving 16 teams), the 5th Annual Greater Lansing Invitational, the Albion College Invitational, the Twin-Five Conference Christmas Tournament (a 10-team replacement for the disbanded Little Eight Conference’s tournament), the Otisville Invitational, the Columbiaville Invitational and the 1st Annual Portland St. Patrick Christmas Invitational.
But by the 1960s, Holiday Tournaments were again regaining popularity, with more now focused on teams from a specific community or section of the state, especially among smaller schools.
The St. Patrick tournament was still going strong in 1966 – its 15th year – with an eight-team, four-day design. Williamston downed a Cinderella squad from Carson City, 64-44, before 1,100 fans at Portland to earn the championship. Other Mid-Michigan holiday tournaments played out in Chelsea and Swartz Creek at the same time.
The Flint Parochial League Tournament was a mainstay of the Holiday season until the breakup of the league in the early 1970s.
“Basketball tournaments have become popular around the state and nation in recent years,” wrote Wendy Foltz, longtime Battle Creek Enquirer sports editor, before the kickoff of the inaugural Battle Creek Central Holiday Cage Tournament in 1968. In a twist that harkened back to earlier days, the eight-team event represented nearly every section of lower Michigan. “Battle Creek never has been a rabid basketball town like some around the state,” added a hesitant Foltz, noting a hope that the event could at least break even.
Hosted at the Cereal City’s historic Fieldhouse, built in 1928, that first tournament was won by host Battle Creek Central, which downed Traverse City 71-53 before a crowd of 2,000. Phil Todd led the Bearcats with 29 points, including 21 in the first half, while 6-foot-8 Tom Kozelko paced TC with 24. Muskegon Heights won the consolation game, holding off a late Ypsilanti Willow Run rally, 78-77. Other schools competing were Battle Creek Lakeview, Grand Blanc, Romulus and recently-opened Jackson Lumen Christi.
Chuck Turner, Central’s head coach, and junior varsity coach Jack Schils had contacted 60 schools during the summer of 1967 to organize the 12-game schedule.
“The response was terrific,” said Schils, who added, “Many schools could not accept because of schedule commitments but want to enter a year hence.”
The Battle Creek tournament was back in 1969, again hosting teams from near and far. Schils noted that cost ran high when teams were brought in from long distances: “However, this type of tournament is highly desirable so we hope fans will support it.”
But the event was discontinued following the 1970-71 season when the “eight team format became too unwieldy,” according to the Enquirer “… and both crowd and the quality of play declined.”
Pared down to a four-team format, it returned in a big way in December 1975. The tournament saw standing-room-only crowds of more than 3,000 for games between Battle Creek Central, Detroit Northeastern, Class A quarterfinalist Lansing Everett and reigning Class A champion Highland Park.
Detroit Northeastern downed Lansing Everett, 63-58 for the Cereal City championship trophy. Everett junior Earvin Johnson scored 22 points and, with teammate Reggie Chastine, was named to the all-tournament team along with Northwestern’s Wilbert McCormick, the tourney MVP, and his teammate Greg Lawrence. Highland Park’s William Trent and Battle Creek Central’s Leon Guydon also were named to the team.
By the 1980s, it seemed that the Christmas break nearly mimicked March in Michigan.
“I think a Christmas tournament really helps your program,” said Turner in 1980 to the Enquirer. He had taken over the head coaching position at Battle Creek in the fall of 1967 after a successful stint at Willow Run. “I don’t understand basketball teams having a preseason, playing three or four games, then taking two weeks off. When you get back, it’s like starting over.”
Besides Turner’s squad, the 1980 field included Detroit Western, Detroit Murray Wright and eventual winner Kalamazoo Central. The event would ultimately be re-christened the Battle Creek Central Chuck Turner Holiday Classic.
“The late Chuck Turner started bringing big games to the city over the holidays when he first started at the school in the 1960s,” wrote Bill Broderick in the Enquirer in 2018.
“Chuck started this because he wanted to give people the chance to come back home for the holidays and see everyone play. It’s been like a family reunion over the years,” Fred Jones told Broderick. Jones was a longtime assistant to Turner. “That we can keep it going in his name is great and hopefully we can keep if going for another 50 years.”
The girls are now part of the action. All five Battle Creek city schools – Central, Pennfield, Harper Creek, Lakeview, and St. Philip – were part of the event in 2018.
This year the Chuck Turner Central Field House Holiday Classic will again span two days – December 27 and 28 – and will again see all five city schools play on the historic floor.
Other Holiday tournaments scheduled this year include:
Petoskey Invitational – December 13-14
Raider Shootout – December 21
18th Annual Muskegon Area Sports Hall of Fame Classic – December 27
Earl McKee Classic – December 27-28
North Farmington Holiday Extravaganza – December 27
Motor City Roundball Classic – December 27
Cornerstone Invitational – December 27
Washtenaw Hoops Showcase – December 28
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) The Battle Creek Central and Pennfield girls face off during the 50th Chuck Turner Classic. (Middle) Shaheen Shaheen scores two points for Flint Northern, which fell to Jackson 39-34 during the 1947 Motor City championship game. (Below left) Lansing Everett’s Earvin Johnson makes a move toward the basket against Detroit Northeastern during the 1975 Battle Creek event. (Below right) Box scores from the 1975 tournament include Johnson’s 22 points in the 63-58 loss. Photos courtesy of the Battle Creek Enquirer, Lansing State Journal and Ron Pesch archives.)