Aztec Basketball Working Hard Over Summer

The Palm Desert boys basketball team isn’t basking in the summer sun, they’re indoors working hard, preparing for the upcoming season. 

Palm Desert lost Friday in the opening round of this weekend's Palm Springs Summer Tournament, falling to Granada Hills 39-38.

Aztec head coach Don Brady said that these summer games aren’t about simply going out and collecting wins. 

“Summer is much nicer if you win, but if you aren’t learning, it doesn’t matter,” the veteran Aztec coach said. “You can go 8-and-2 in a summer league, but I don’t think we learned as much as when we went 2-and-2 down at Mater Dei [High School] against some really good teams.” 

Today’s lesson was in physical play. Granada Hills played one of the more chippy games that Aztecs have seen in a long time; with shirt grabs, flying elbows, and plenty of fouls. 

“I thought we played just as physical as them," Brady said. “They play in the same league as Taft High, and they’re always top 10 in the nation. So they have to play tough.” 

“They made a couple shots that we didn’t, and so be it.” 

Palm Desert junior Brian Serven gave the crowd a scare as he
came down to the floor hard after colliding with a defender while leaping for a pass. Both players were on the floor for a couple long minutes, with Serven came up with a badly scraped right elbow which was bleeding profusely. 

Serven is expected to be ready the Aztecs next action on Saturday, in a losers bracket game at Marywood-Palm Valley School.