Miami, FL
Russia Defense Ravages Miami East To Remain Unbeaten…Raiders Win, 65-44 – Press Pros Magazine
Offensive highlight, and it came early…Felix Francis flushes a dunk in transition in the first quarter of Russia’s 65-44 win over Miami East. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Sonny Fulks)
Russia played their favorite style of ball — fast and furious — to sink the Miami East Vikings 65-44. The Raiders came out red hot from 3-point land, then made a living off of fast break points.
By Alan Brads for Press Pros
Every great team needs a hustle player.
Russia has eight of ‘em.
No one wants to play against a defense like Russia’s, and not just because they’re skilled. They’re obnoxious, constantly up in your grill. And they’re brutally unforgiving. If you make a mistake, expose the basketball for even a split second, it’s a steal and a layup going the other way every single time.
Alan Brads is a journalism student at Cedarville University, and writes sports at large for Press Pros.
That’s exactly what the 8-6 Miami East Vikings discovered Friday night, on the losing end of a 65-44 ‘Raider’ experience.
Russia (14-0) had Miami East’s offense locked in the brig all night, not giving an inch to any offensive player, regardless of which one had the ball at any given moment. And that goes for all 94 feet of the court.
It’s organized chaos, like a dance that only they know involving perfectly timed traps in every area of the court. But it’s an ugly, gritty dance that involves a lot more diving on the floor than anything you’ll see at prom.
“Playing chaotic basketball is indescribably fun,” senior forward Felix Francis said. “We’re running around almost like we have our heads cut off, but we do it efficiently.”
Russia’s Vince Borcher picks the pocket of an unsuspecting Jacob Roeth during Friday’s 65-44 Raider win.
Most teams would love to apply 32 minutes of pressure like Russia does, but Russia isn’t conditioned like most teams. There’s not a slow player in their 8-man rotation, and they always gain the fatigue advantage as the game progresses. If Russia loses a game this year – and that’s if, not when – it won’t be because someone outran them.
They’re not just fast either, they’re twitchy and quick. Most of their guards could pursue careers as sleight of hand magicians, they’ve got the opportunistic fingers for it.
From the get go the Vikings’ ship looked poised to sink, as Russia knocked down 4 threes, and scored six points in transition to bound to a 25-12 lead at the end of the first.
“Seeing those shots go in for us early was big,” junior guard Benjamin York said. “We’ve been struggling from three especially, but Jaxon [Grogean] who was shooting the lights out.”
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York finished the night with a team leading 15 points, and Grogean scored 10, eight of which came in the first quarter. Braylon Cordonnier and Brayden Monnin both also found their way into double digits on the night.
Both highlights of the evening came in the first quarter. First Felix Francis flushed a dunk in transition, then after a Miami East timeout Hayden Quinter poked a ball free, and connected with Grogean on a slick behind-the-back bounce pass to convert the 2-on-1.
Whatever it takes…Russia’s Hayden Quinter blocks the passing attempt of the Vikings’ Jacob Roeth.
Where everything was working offensively in the first quarter, it froze to a stop in the second. Miami East found their footing in ball handling and slowed down their offense that Russia had previously pushed to play a million miles an hour. But
A more stringent man defense for the Vikings put a stopper in the 3-point bottle the Raiders poured out on them in the first, and held Russia to just seven points in the second quarter.
“We were trying to get some matchups,” Russia Head Coach Spencer Cordonnier said. “We knew [Jacob] Roeth had three fouls, and sometimes when you do that guys tend to stand around, and that’s kinda what happened. I knew if we continued to guard then we could afford to do that.”
The third quarter brought more havoc – steals, loose balls, and now blocks. Felix Francis swatted one into the first row, and got a second on the same possession.
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“We knew Roeth was a big factor scoring double digits per game,” Francis said. “So coach said we were just gonna run people at him and get the ball out of his hands, and we ended up getting our hands on a lot of those balls and get some buckets.”
Roeth finished with a game-leading 19 points.
Jacob Roeth gets to the rim in the fourth quarter for a pair of his 19 points for the game.
The lead casually stretched to 22 late in the third, and a quiet fourth quarter finished in the 65-44 Raider win.
We knew coming over here it wasn’t gonna be easy, and it was gonna be a 32-minute fight,” Cordonnier said. “That’s exactly what we want this time of year.”
This marks win number 14 for Russia (14-0), and as the more old-fashioned among us start thinking about ripping January off the wall calendar, we have to wonder where – or if – this run ends.
Of their eight remaining games, five are against opponents they’ve already beaten – not that history guarantees the future, but it certainly can make predictions.
Houston, Fairlawn and Fort Loramie they blew out. Anna they also beat handily, but Botkins gave them the closest scare of the year.
Circle your February 9 on your calendar for that one, potentially with the SCAL title on the line.
Versailles, Ansonia and Marion Local make up the other three games that lie between Russia and regular season perfection.
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Ansonia likely won’t pose much of a threat, and enough common opponents between the SCAL and the MAC tell the tale that Russia will be heavy favorites against both Versailles and Marion Local – though again, crazier things have happened.
As York said about the possibility of a perfect season, “You gotta take it one game at a time. Everyone’s giving us their best shot.”
Felix Francis rises to reject a Viking shot attempt in the first half of Saturday’s Russia-Miami East game.
That’s the curse of being undefeated, but that’s a pretty darn good problem to have.
Looking eight games ahead is some pretty heavy duty conjecture, but the road to perfection isn’t as winded and twisting as it could be, and with less than a month left in the season it’s on all, or at least most, of our minds.
“These kids really have accepted one game at a time,” Cordonnier said. “Tomorrow we’ll start getting ready for Houston. That’s really what they’re about. Are the kids thinking about it? Maybe, I really am not.”
Even if they are, who can blame them?
“We’re starting to think that way a little bit,” Francis said. “But we’re really just focused on one game at a time right now, that’s it.”
Optimistic for the future, and focused on the present – both can be true.
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Miami, FL
Fiery, fatal crash shuts down southbound lanes of Don Shula Expressway in southwest Miami-Dade
An investigation is underway after a man was killed in a fiery crash with a truck on the Don Shula Expressway in southwest Miami-Dade early Tuesday morning, according to officials.
The Florida Highway Patrol said that a white Mercedes coupe was headed south on SR 847 (Don Shula Expressway), near Southwest 104th Street when it crashed into the back of a truck.
A large fire broke out after the crash, and investigators said that the driver of the Mercedes, who was only identified as an adult Hispanic male, died at the scene.
The fiery crash forced officials to shut down the southbound lanes of the roadway, and drivers were being asked to seek an alternate route.
Heavy delays were reported behind the crash, and delays also started to build in the northbound lanes near the scene.
The southbound lanes have since reopened.
No other information was released.
The Miami Heat woke up Monday no longer in control of the chase they had led for weeks. With the 2026 NBA Draft set for Tuesday and the Milwaukee Bucks closing in on a resolution to the Giannis Antetokounmpo saga, Miami suddenly finds itself in a two-team race it is no longer favored to win.
ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Monday that Antetokounmpo is expected to be moved before the draft, with the Heat and Boston Celtics emerging as the two finalists. The Bucks have narrowed their talks to those clubs, sources told Charania, and are weighing two dramatically different packages for the former two-time MVP.
For a fan base that spent the better part of a month believing Miami was the team to beat, the shift landed hard. The Heat are still in it. They are simply no longer the favorite.
A two-team race with a Tuesday deadline
Milwaukee set the timeline itself. Bucks ownership signaled in May that it wanted Antetokounmpo’s future settled by the start of the draft, and Charania reported Monday on ESPN’s “Get Up” that a trade is expected to land in line with that cutoff.
Charania framed the two bids as opposites. One is built around an established star, the other around youth and draft capital, and he described the negotiations bluntly.
“These conversations have been a blood bath,” Charania said.
He also stressed that whatever happens, it will not balloon into a multi-team construction the way other blockbusters have. Whether the deal closes Monday or Tuesday, Charania said, it is expected to be a one-to-one trade between Milwaukee and one of the two finalists, with no third team folded in. That detail matters for Miami, because it removes one of the lifelines the Heat had been counting on.
Boston changed the math with Jaylen Brown
For most of the buildup, Miami held the perceived edge because the Celtics were reluctant to part with Jaylen Brown. That changed over the weekend. The Stein Line’s Marc Stein reported Monday that Boston emerged “with a real shot” to win the race built around a Brown-centric offer, with Milwaukee willing to consider a swap even without a third team to absorb his contract.
That is the development that flipped the race. Brown is a five-time All-Star and a former NBA Finals MVP coming off the best statistical season of his career, having averaged a career-high 28.7 points per game as Boston’s centerpiece. He is also a bona fide star Milwaukee can plug in immediately, which speaks directly to ownership’s stated preference to get a recognizable face back rather than a stack of prospects.
The money works, too. A Brown-for-Antetokounmpo framework lines up cleanly under the salary cap, and from Milwaukee’s vantage point, flipping one star for another carries better optics than entering a full teardown empty-handed.
Prediction markets moved with the news. Per Kalshi data, Miami’s implied odds slid from the low 60s into the mid-30s on Monday while Boston vaulted toward roughly 70 percent. Those figures shift by the hour and should be read as a temperature check rather than a forecast, but the direction of the swing is the story.
What Miami is putting on the table
The Heat’s pitch leans on volume and flexibility rather than star power. Reported frameworks have centered on Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic, with Kasparas Jakucionis and multiple future first-round picks also in the mix, and Miami holds the No. 13 overall pick in Tuesday’s draft.
It is a thoughtful offer for a rebuilding team. It is also, by definition, not a star, and that is the gap Boston is now exploiting.
There is a limit to how far Miami is willing to go. Bam Adebayo is the only player truly untouchable in the Heat’s discussions, and Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald reported that the front office does not want to strip the roster and its draft capital down to the studs to get a deal done. That restraint is understandable given the franchise’s history of swinging big and missing, most painfully on Damian Lillard three years ago, but it also means Miami may be unwilling to match a price Boston now appears ready to meet.
The case for the Heat to lose this race
There is a real argument, voiced by some of the league’s most prominent analysts, that Miami should be careful what it wishes for. Zach Lowe and Bill Simmons both cautioned against the Heat gutting their young core for an aging star, with Lowe warning that the long-term cost could hollow out the roster.
“The concerns I think are very real for Miami,” Lowe said.
The basketball context behind that caution is hard to ignore. Antetokounmpo is 31 and coming off the most injury-plagued season of his career, appearing in just 36 games amid groin, calf and knee issues while the Bucks finished 32-50 and missed the playoffs, snapping a run of nine straight postseason appearances.
He still produced when available, averaging 27.6 points, 9.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game, but his looming free agency in 2027 is depressing his trade value across the league. For a Heat team that went 43-39 and has been hunting a co-star for Adebayo since dealing Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors, the math of trading a future for a 31-year-old’s prime window is genuinely fraught.
What happens next
The next 24 hours should decide it. Milwaukee has telegraphed the draft as its internal deadline, and the expectation is a resolution before Tuesday night, though multiple insiders have noted the saga could still spill into free agency if the Bucks decide their leverage is better served by waiting.
For Miami, the stakes are stark. Landing Antetokounmpo would end years of frustrated superstar pursuits and reset the franchise’s ceiling overnight. Losing him to Boston, again on the doorstep of a deal, would sting in a way Heat fans know all too well. Either outcome arrives soon, and for the first time in this chase, the Heat are watching it unfold without holding the best hand.
Companies hired by the state to operate Alligator Alcatraz were notified Monday morning to begin “full demobilization” of the facility, quietly bringing an ignominious close a $1.2 billion experiment that had once been hailed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump as a model other states should pursue, four sources familiar with the operations of the detention center told CBS News Miami.
“All vendors got the notice,” one source explained.
The final few detainees left the facility last week, either being transferred to other detention centers or deported to third countries.
Federal and state officials at the time said it was due to safety concerns over the start of hurricane season.
They even suggested the facility would remain ready to take on new detainees.
In fact, officials familiar with the plan told CBS News Miami that it was always the intention to begin full demobilization by taking down fencing and removing trailers and other structures built at the site located in the middle of the Florida Everglades.
That demobilization effort is expected to take several days, and once it is completed, the site will reopen as a small airport used to train pilots.
The decision to close the facility has been speculated for the past two months, with even DeSantis saying he expected it to close soon.
“If we shut the lights out tomorrow, we will be able to say it served its purpose,” DeSantis said earlier this month during a press conference.
The decision to close Alligator Alcatraz was due primarily to the escalating cost of operating the facility, which was once hailed by President Trump as a model for other states to emulate.
The total cost for the detention is now estimated to be $1.2 billion.
Opened on July 3, 2025, the detention center was the brainchild of DeSantis and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and built using state tax money.
At the time, DeSantis maintained that the state would be reimbursed by the federal government for all of its expenses.
However, that funding has yet to come through. State officials submitted a $608 million request at the end of last year.
It was eventually approved by federal officials, but the actual reimbursement has been held up because of court challenges, environmental concerns and other issues.
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