Quote from: T990 on January 07, 2009, 12:20:09 PM
Jimmy Bartolotta and Kevin Snyder (Williams) were HS teammates.  They won the HS state championship in Colorado.  I believe another HS teammate of theirs is playing D1 (not sure who/where).

Bartolotta, Brown, and Snyder were teammates starting in the 6th grade and remain best friends to this day.  They were tri-captains of the HS state championship team and they are each captains of their respective college teams.  Their HS team had no size (no one over 6' 4") but they were very skilled and played extremely well together.  They went 21-2 as juniors (lost in state semifinals) and 27-1 as seniors (only loss was in a tournament in Texas).  A fourth starter from that team, Brian Tracey, is doing very well playing for Bentley College, a top D2 program.  When Heritage won the state championship in 2005, the team they beat in the championship game was ThunderRidge.  That team was led by Matt Bouldin (Gonzaga), Tyler Nading (Washington U.), and Mike Evans (Slippery Rock and the son of former NBA player Mike Evans).  Heritage actually beat ThunderRidge 3 times that season because they were in the same league.  All games were extremely close.

Regarding the MIT player transferring to Williams - the player was/is Jimmy Bartolotta.  He is the best player on his team (by far) and is probably the best player in his conference.  He is a very dedicated player who works extremely hard on his game.  He briefly considered transferring to Williams in order to play on a better team that might have an opportunity to advance deep into the NCAA tournament.

Bartolotta and Kevin Snyder (Williams guard) were high school teammates, and as seniors their team won a state championship.  They remain close friends so Jimmy knows quite a bit about Williams and the basketball program.  From what I understand, he has decided to stay at MIT.  He was tempted by the opportunity at Williams but feels that he has too much invested at MIT to leave at this point.

That's good news for MIT and that's too bad for Williams - the addition of Bartolotta would have been a huge benefit for them.  He can really play.

nescac1 - good research by you.  Jimmy Bartolotta, Kevin Snyder, and Andrew Brown (starts at point guard for Lafayette in the Patriot League) all played at Heritage High School in Colorado.  They lost in the big school (5A) state semifinals as juniors and then as seniors they went undefeated in Colorado to win the state championship.  All three were first team all-league and Brown and Bartolotta were first team all-state (Brown was state player of the year), while Snyder was honorable mention all-state.  They had no starters (or guys that contributed) over 6' 4" but they were highly skilled and played very well together.  Brown and Snyder were in the top five in the state in 3-point shooting during the 04-05 season.  An interesting side note - the team Heritage beat in the state championship game in 2005 was ThunderRidge - their two best players were Matt Bouldin (who now plays at Gonzaga and was Colorado State Player of the Year in 2006) and Tyler Nading, who is a sophomore at Washington U. in St. Louis and one of their best players.  That's the same Washington U. that is playing in the DIII national semifinals this weekend.