Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
Friday, March 3, 2006, Washington Post

Princes and Arenas: Cases in Point

With the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics being the big sports stories of the past month, I haven't had a chance to write about a couple of interesting basketball stories. So let's talk some hoops.

Epiphanny Prince: The New York high school senior scored a record 113 points in a girls' game last month. Prince broke Cheryl Miller's single-game record of 105 points, set in 1982. The boys' high school record is 135 points by Danny Heater of West Virginia in 1960.

Scoring that many points is amazing. Prince hit 54 of 60 shots, including four three-pointers. But I have to wonder: Why did she play all 32 minutes and pile up points while her team, Murry Bergtraum High School, crushed Louis D. Brandeis High School, 137-32?

I know it's special to beat a record that has stood for more than 20 years. And Prince didn't do anything wrong. She just obeyed her coach and played her best. But too many high school coaches, and coaches of younger kids, play their "best" kids too much and stick the rest on the bench.

Maybe the Bergtraum coach should have used this blowout game to give the kids at the end of his bench more minutes instead of getting Prince more points.

Gilbert Arenas: One player you don't want on the bench is Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas -- even if it's the National Basketball Association All-Star Game.

Arenas did not get picked by the fans or the coaches for last month's big game. He went as a substitute for the injured Jermaine O'Neal. The fans and coaches picked Allen Iverson of the Philadelphia 76ers, Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat and Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton of the Detroit Pistons.

I'd pick Arenas ahead of any of those guys, and I sure wouldn't skip over him for Iverson. Arenas scores almost as much as "The Answer" and, at 24, he's six years younger than Iverson.

Billups and Hamilton are part of a terrific team, but they don't do as much for the Pistons as Arenas does for the Wizards. And Wade? Well, he's awfully good, but he's got Shaquille O'Neal on his team. Shaq makes any player better because the other team has to cover the big guy.

The good news for the Wizards is that the All-Star snub doesn't seemed to be affecting Arenas's play. Last Saturday he poured in 46 points in 30 minutes against the New York Knicks.

Looks like Gilbert Arenas may be ready to start scoring like . . . Epiphanny Prince.