National championship game?
There is no such thing, right? The championship games shown were State games I think. So I guess they were considered national champions because they gained the ranking and never lost it?
shareCorrectamundo, jsilk. That's one of the issues I have with this movie -- it's a tad too Hollywood for my tastes, especially since it's supposed to be a trulife documentary (though overall it's entertaining enough to recommend). The AAU Tournament shown in the movie is a national tournament, but the high school championships were Ohio state titles.
On a note of somewhat lesser importance and significance, in the movie Coach Dru is heard telling his crew they have a chance to go down as the greatest high school team in history. That's always debateable, of course, but I beg to differ. St. Vincent-St. Mary had one of the greatest high school players of all-time on its roster, but there have been many HS teams with more overall talent (for one example, check out Dunbar of Baltimore in the early '80s, which had at least four future NBA players -- Muggsy Bogues, Reggie Williams, the late Reggie Lewis and David Wingate -- on its roster. If my memory is correct, Reggie Lewis didn't even start for Dunbar and he made it to the L.)
i think the coach meant all time greatest team(which is still debatable like you said) as far as accomplishment. this team went to the finals all 4 years and won 3 times. dunbar undoubtedly had better individuals, but that doesn't always translate to a better team.
shareI have no knowledge on the intricacies of high school athletics. I believe you if you say there is no national championship game.
But if lebron's team was devastating nationally ranked teams all over the country, how do they barely win the state championship? Also if Lebron is one of the top players of his generation, which I think nearly everyone agrees that he is, and these kids had chemistry from playing together for 9 years, how do they barely win 1 championship. If they barely won 1 championship with one of the greatest players in modern times on their team, how can you claim that this is one of the best high school TEAMS of all time.
Oh and, they said that they won the division 2 national championship. What kind of beastly players do they have in Division 1?
EL, keeping in mind that this is just my opinion, I'll try to answer as best I can.
For one, the movie doesn't always do the best job of indicating what actually happened in the games LeBron's team played. One example, in LeBron's junior year the flick shows St. Vincent-St. Mary's getting ready to play Oak Hill of Virginia and its star, Carmelo Anthony. One of LeBron's teammates is shown basically saying, "whatever," to the prospect of facing Carmelo, then what I assume is a headline created by the makers of the film is shown proclaiming that LeBron "won" the showdown with Carmelo. That's true if all anyone cares about is the fact that LeBron scored a couple more points than Carmelo that day. But what the movie doesn't emphasize is Carmelo's Oak Hill team won the game. St Vincent-St. Mary didn't beat Oak Hill until LeBron's senior year, and by then Carmelo was at Syracuse University.
Other than that, it's my general thought that national rankings in any sport are only to be looked at as a guide, not an end all, be all. Especially at the HS level, there are always going to be some unranked teams around the country that are just as good as, if not better than some of the ranked teams, or at the very least some unranked teams will be able to create matchup problems for a ranked team. It's not unusual at all that LeBron's team would have trouble with/get beaten by an unranked squad from Ohio.
As for your final point, not sure exactly what you mean. If you're referring to the number of state titles LeBron's team won while he was in HS, it's my understanding that they won three out of four years ... also, can't assume Div. I was better than Div. II. It isn't unusual for the best team(s) to be in one of the lower divisions. That's why I like Kentucky's all-comers (i.e., one division) state tournament. Indiana used to be that way, too.
The thing about high school playoffs is that they are only one game. Losing in the playoffs in high school just means you weren't clicking on all cylinders not necessarily that the other team was better. What really measures a teams greatness is how they perform when they are all clicking - like how Lebrons teams were dismantling top ranked national teams by 40+ points.
As far as the D1/D2 thing goes the system is different in high school. You are probably used to seeing D1 college teams dismantle D2 teams based on talent. D1 /D2 are measured simply based on school attendace numbers. St Vincent is a small catholic school so they are D2. A public high school in a city is usually D1. A D2 basketball team could easily beat many D1 teams because all it takes a really a top notch starting 5 to win in basketball. It is harder to do in football - I remember my D1 high school would play D2 schools in football who had to start on both offense and defense where our players only had to play on one side of the ball. The D2 kids were on the field the whole game and obviously were fatigued etc.