The calendar definitely read Dec. 14 and the schedule confirmed this as Newark East Side's opening game.
It's just that anywhere one looked, the Red Raiders were blithely defying that seasonal reality Friday afternoon against Irvington.
Yes this was indeed the first game, technically speaking. But from an aesthetic perspective, this played more like something East Side would have been proud to display somewhere in the late rounds of the Essex County Tournament.
And if they continue to perform in this manner, the Red Raiders will be there.
Junior guard Akbar Hoffman led a nicely balanced offense with 13 points off the bench, Abdul Lewis scored 12 points and had eight rebounds and fellow junior forward Ismael Sanogo contributed six points and a game-high 14 rebounds to pace a 55-36 victory in Irvington.
"With this team here, everybody should get 10, 12, 15 points," co-head coach Anthony Tavares said. "As long as they play defense the way they did today, we have an opportunity to be pretty good."
Signs of quality were evident last year when the Red Raiders won 13 of 14 games from mid January to late February before falling to eventual champion Plainfield, 71-57, in the semifinals of the Group 3 tournament. The many underclassmen from that club quickly filed that loss away in a mental folder that could be retrieved at a moment's notice.
"As soon as we lost that game against Plainfield, we started working, and we pledged that we would never lose another game like that again," Sanogo said. "We're here to make a statement."
That statement on Friday seemed like it had been spilled directly from the lips of coaches Tavares or Bryant Garvin before being processed by the players.
Which, in effect, was true. The ball sharing and rebounding, the defense both on the perimeter and in the lane, and the constant communication that kept that defense sound were all things that guys preach over and over in coaching clinics. And it's all stuff the Red Raiders have been focusing on now for months.
"We put a lot of time and effort in the summer driving up to Paterson playing in the league up there with (director) Jimmy Salmon," Tavares said. "And in the fall, these guys were in the (Paterson) Kennedy league playing against teams like St. Anthony and St. Benedict's. We prepared ourselves for the wars in this (Super Essex) conference."
Irvington was well prepared to do battle, too, but just found itself a bit undersized and not quite deep enough to contend with an opponent playing this crisply on both sides of the floor. East Side shot almost 50 percent, got at least four points from all eight players, forced 17 turnovers and blocked eight shots. The 6-7 Lewis swatted three, 6-6 Sanogo and 6-4 Will Joyce had two apiece and 6-1 senior guard Stephen McNair blocked one.
"The key was we just kept getting stops," Lewis said. "We were just playing hard and not letting them score. We look for good D and we like to have everybody score."
Shakur Juiston, a 6-7 junior forward, scored 13 points and pulled down nine rebounds and 5-8 senior point guard Al-Jahaad Bradford scored 12 points to pace Irvington. Juiston, who showed energy and diligence in the lane, netted nine points and also had two steals in the first half, but his team had already fallen behind, 27-15, before intermission.
Lewis was East Side's leader in that half with six points, though right behind were Sanogo, Hoffman and Jamar Gilbert with five each.
Sanogo had the prettiest basket of that stretch with a putback dunk and Hoffman had the longest with a 3-pointer from the right corner. But everything else was almost undistinguishable because it was all predicated upon tough defense and good ball movement.
"It doesn't matter who scores," Sanogo said. "It only matters that we stop them on defense, we score and then we get back and play some more D."
East Side's defense was so thorough that Irvington had not reached 20 points until a putback by Juiston early in the fourth quarter made the score 41-21. The Blue Knights did play more cohesively on offense for the rest of the period, while East Side's overall shooting dropped off slightly. There was nothing for East Side to fear, but those small lapses will help the group sharpen its product.
"I didn’t like in the fourth quarter how we turned the ball over and stopping playing defense," Tavares said. "What we'll stress tomorrow is to not get complacent and work hard every day."
Mike Kinney covers boys basketball for MSG Varsity. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeKinneyHS
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