LAS VEGAS – Watching all or parts
of 20-plus games, in three tournaments, stretched over about 13 hours and played
in four high school gymnasiums sprinkled across this sprawling city Saturday
left me with plenty to talk and/or write about.
For the sake of time – and sanity,
yours and mine – I’ll attempt to you give the Cliff Notes version:
First stop: The adidas Super
64, Desert Pines High, with the D.C. Assault “Gold” team taking on the Friends
of Hoop-Columbus (Ohio).
First, a roll call (as complete as
comes to mind, about 14 hours after the fact) of the head coaches in attendance:
Roy Williams (North Carolina), Dave Odom (South Carolina),
David Leitao (Virginia), Tubby Smith (Kentucky), Bruce Weber
(Illinois), Jamie Dixon (Pittsburgh), Bob Huggins (Kansas State), Mike Sutton (Tennessee Tech), Oliver Purnell (Clemson),
Barry Collier (Nebraska), Fran McCaffery (Siena) and Robert McCullum (South Florida).
OK, I can exhale now.
After watching D.C. Assault win by
40 (90-54), I wonder if its starting five of Mike Beasley, Nolan Smith,
Austin Freeman, Julian Vaughn and Jamar Samuels is the best of any of
the zillion or so teams in the city this week for the Super Sixty Four, Big Time
and Main Event tournaments.
It could be but I’m not sure D.C.
Assault will win the adidas event unless it plays a lot harder, especially on
the defensive end, and gets back in transition a lot better than it did against
the team from Ohio that was wearing “Friends of Hoop Seattle” shirts.
The team from Seattle – uh, Ohio –
has a very good point guard in Dane Johnson and quality junior-to-be in
Alex Kellogg, a 6-7 forward from St. Francis DeSalles (as is Johnson) in
Columbus. Yes, he’s the son of Clark Kellogg, the CBS hoops commentator
and former Ohio State and NBA player who, as a prep at Cleveland St. Joseph’s,
was a better forward than any prospect, not named Kevin Love, in any of
the three tournaments going on in town right now.
And, after watching him over three
days at the Nike Camp and then Saturday morning, I’m all but convinced that
Austin Freeman is the best prospect on the D.C. Assault team. The only
other off/two/shooting guard in the class of 2007 who is his equal or possible
his superior is Eric Gordon. More on Gordon later.
I then watch two New Jersey-based
teams – Playaz Basketball Gold and Gym Rats – play for about a half. Rick Jackson and Antonio Jardine of the Playaz are Syracuse-bound but
(based on what I saw at the adidas Camp in Suwanee a few weeks ago) both are
better than they played before I bailed on that gym and headed a few miles east
to El Dorado . . .
Second stop: I catch the
second half of the Atlanta Celtics and the Derek Smith All-Stars (from
Louisville). The Celtics, down 17, rally frantically to send the game into
overtime.
But they appeared doomed to a
one-point defeat until Howard Thompkins fires in a turnaround 3-pointer
from the left wing at the buzzer. Never in doubt, right, guys?
I then watch the bulk of the Los
Angeles-based Double Pump Elite’s 30-something point victory over the New York
Ravens and, although I don’t think along those lines at the time, later Saturday
night I began to wonder if the DP Elite’s 6-3 Jrue Holiday might be the
best all-around player in the national class of 2008.
Immediately after that game,
though, I was busting out of El Dorado and sprinting (figuratively, of course)
for my car. Then it was 10 minutes and a few turns, and I was south-bound on the
95 Freeway for the southeastern-most portion of the city and Foothill High.
Little did I realize what I was going to find after I arrived.
Stop three: It just took a
quick glance at the Foothill parking lot to figure out were the happening place
was on Saturday.
The back-to-back offerings of (at
2:20) the D-1 Greyhounds (aka, “The O.J. Mayo and Billy Walker
Show”) vs. the Michigan Hurricanes and (following its conclusion) the Southern
California All-Stars (with integral parts coming via Oregon and Mississippi) vs.
the Mean Streets Express of Chicago (and a pretty fair player from Indianapolis,
Eric Gordon).
After parking a lot closer to
College Drive than I did to the school, I cruised into the gym’s hallway and saw
something approaching a mass of humanity blocking the entryway to the
gym.
Later, I was told that the capacity
for the gym is 4,400. If there was anything short of 4,350 when I actually got
into the gym, proper, I’ll have to re-tool my crowd estimating
skills.
I watched the second half of the
D-I Greyhounds and the Hurricanes from the doorway of the auxiliary gym. Mayo
and Walker . . . uh, I mean D-1 prevailed by eight points. It was a little
difficult to concentrate on the remainder of the game from my (disad-)vantage
point but I don’t feel upset about it. My evaluation of Mayo and Walker as
prospects was pretty much etched a while back. They’re good and there are only
so many ways to write it or say it. And I think I’ve covered them
all.
There is a nice little buzz out of
what remains of the crowd (which is
about 98 percent capacity) as Southern California and Mean Streets tip
off.
Derrick Rose of the Chicago
club makes a couple of nifty plays and it’s 7-2, Rose & Gordon (I mean,
Mean Streets).
Eventually, power (the
aforementioned Kevin Love from Oregon and Renardo Sidney from
Mississippi) and long-range shooting (from Taylor King and Malik Story) enable Southern California to tie the score at 20 and then pull away
to 42-27 advantage at intermission.
By now the buzz was the result of
those who’d noticed that a couple of fellows working out with the USA Basketball
program at Cox Pavilion, LeBron James and Chris Paul, are seated
along the baseline near one of the gym’s entrances, watching while eating (I’m
assuming here) Chinese takeout out of Styrofoam containers. It must be nice to
be the King(s).
Gordon (who finishes with 34
points) and Rose (22 and seven assists) are pretty much un-guardable by the
Southern California perimeter players but it matters little (other than to those
retooling their Class of 2007 ratings, I would guess) as CEO Pat Barrett’s
club, with Love (20), King (17), Sidney (12)and Story (17) combining for 66
points in an 84-73 victory.
The matchups Sunday morning at
10:20 (Rose-Gordon vs. Mayo-Walker) in Mean Streets vs. D-I are gong to be
tastier than the best brunch you’ve ever eaten.
But the only way Barrett’s team
isn’t receiving Big Time championship hardware Wednesday night is if his
starters can’t be rousted from naps on that chartered bus they tool to and from
the gym and hotel in.
I stick around in the Media Center
long enough to grab a box score for the game, maneuver my rental card onto the
orth-bound 95, then merge onto the west-bound 215 before exiting, north-bound,
on Rainbow.
Durango High . . . I’m almost
there!
STOP FOUR: The Main Event .
. .
Six-ten junior Greg Monroe
is playing for the New Orleans Panthers against the Indiana Elite. And the
left-hander looks as skilled and vibrant as he did at the Nike All-America Camp
in Indianapolis two weeks ago.
Over the next four games, it’s a
revolving door of recognizable NCAA Division I coaches on hand, with Roy
Williams, Jim Calhoun (Connecticut), Bruce Weber, Thad Matta (Ohio
State), Tim Floyd (USC) and Bob Huggins in the bleachers for all
or parts Portland Elite Legends (minus Kyle Singler, back home in Medford
after calling a halt to his July traveling) vs. Team Final, Team Texas vs. Team
STAT and King James Shooting Stars (Ohio) vs. South Florida.
Team Final (from Philadelphia) has
Tyreke Evans, often touted as the No. 1 prospect in the Class of
2008.
I’ve seen him at the past two Nike
Camps and Saturday night in the Durango gym. Unless I’m missing something (or
there was an imposter wearing his uniform), Evans isn’t the prospect that fellow
2008’ers Greg Monroe, Jrue Holiday and Drew Gordon (to pull three
names off the top of my head) are.
The best looking prospect over
those final four games in Durango is King James Shooting Stars (and future Ohio
State) center Kosta Koufos.
I’m going to bed very early Sunday
morning thinking that Koufos is second only to Kevin Love among the best
post prospects in the Class of 2007.
But there are four more days of
tournament action. And one thing that can be said about my opinions is that they
are extremely flexible. So, stay tuned.
Inducted into the USBWA Hall of
Fame in April, 2005, Frank Burlison is Scout.com’s national basketball expert and is
also a columnist for the Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram. He can be reached at
frank.burlison@presstelegram.com. Read more of Burlison’s pieces at
www.frankhoops.com