Sports

NYS Federation Class AA boys tournament preview

Boys and Girls' Leroy (Truck) Fludd will lead the Kangaroos into the Federation tournament this weekend.

Boys and Girls’ Leroy (Truck) Fludd will lead the Kangaroos into the Federation tournament this weekend. (Denis Gostev)

ALBANY – NYPost.com boys basketball beat writer Marc Raimondi breaks down this weekend’s New York State Federation Class AA tournament at the Times Union Center in Albany. To follow our interactive live blog, click here.

SATURDAY, March 24

Semifinals

3:45 p.m. – St. Raymond vs. Boys & Girls

SUNDAY, March 25

Final

2 p.m. – Mount Vernon vs. St. Ray’s/Boys High

St. Raymond Ravens

Head coach: Oliver Antigua

Record: 21-9

Player to watch: Daniel Dingle

Boys & Girls Kangaroos

Head coach: Ruth Lovelace

Record: 24-6

Player to watch: Leroy (Truck) Fludd

Mount Vernon Knights

Head coach: Bob Cimmino

Record: 23-2

Player to watch: Isaiah Cousins

Outlook: The semifinals has all types of sizzle, pitting the two best teams in New York City against each other for bragging rights and the right to keep their season alive. St. Raymond and Boys & Girls met in February and St. Ray’s won on a Myron Hickman layup at the buzzer.

That win, coming one a day after a victory over Lincoln, has propelled St. Raymond. The Ravens played their best basketball of the season in the playoffs, knocking off All Hallows, Cardinal Hayes and Holy Cross for their first CHSAA intersectional title since 2004 and have won eight straight games. They had to come back from seven points down against Hayes in the semis. Daniel Dingle and Kerwin Okoro, the championship game MVP, have been outstanding. Shane Rector does a little of everything and Larry Graves has been extremely clutch.

Boys & Girls has been marked all year – and really in coach Ruth Lovelace’s tenure – by its oppressive pressure defense. The Kangaroos play extremely hard and have won the PSAL Class AA city title a program-record three years running without arguably the most talent in the league. Of course, there is plenty in the cupboard for Lovelace, Elmer Anderson and Boys High. Leroy (Truck) Fludd is, along with Dingle, a Post All-City Player of the Year candidate. Wesley Myers, a sweet-shooting junior, has emerged late in the season as an extremely valuable player and Rashad Andrews went off for 26 points at the Garden against Jefferson last weekend.

Then there’s Mount Vernon, which awaits the winner of the game between the two NYC teams Sunday. The Knights didn’t win the NYPHSAA title as easily as people thought. With that being said, the defending Federation champions are very talented, led by highly recruited gaurd Isaiah Cousins, and well-coached. Head man Bob Cimmino was inducted into the NYS Hall of Fame last weekend in Glens Falls. Along with Cousins, Mount Vernon has difficult-to-handle guards Randy Stephens and Josh Doughty and swingman Jarrell Marshall. All of them have significant Division I interest.

Dingle is headed to Temple and Okoro to Iowa State. Both of them have been invaluable for St. Raymond. Rector also has a myriad of interest, including from Big East schools. Fludd, meanwhile, has been one of the city’s most valuable players, a kid Lovelace called “the PSAL player of the year” after the Garden game.

It’ll all come down to this weekend. St. Raymond hasn’t won a Federation title since 2001, when Antigua was an assistant under Gary Decesare. Boys & Girls, for all its success lately, has not won a Fed during its streak either. Mount Vernon, of course, is the defending champion.

Only one will leave Albany with the crown this weekend.

mraimondi@nypost.com