LAS VEGAS – It’s 3:36 a.m. as I begin to type this. Unless there is a gnome looking over my shoulder who is a heck of a copy editor, things could get a little dicey. Bear with me.
The first day of action in the adidas Super Sixty Four, Reebok Big Time and Main Event (which is not, contrary to what you may read elsewhere, sponsored by Nike) tournaments get underway Saturday.
It was so hot and dry throughout the day that I longed for the comfort of being at home in South Orange County, where the weather is always a balmy 75 degrees or so.
Oops!
I’ll try to be as concise as possible and just touch on the highest of highlights:
My first stop was at Desert Pines High and the adidas tournament, where I watched the D.C. Assault play a team from Columbus, Ohio.
The Ohio team had a junior forward named Alex Kellogg, whose father is a CBS basketball commentator who played at Ohio State and in the NBA. And I saw Clark Kellogg play when he was a prep senior at Cleveland’s St. Joseph in 1979.
Memo to Frank: You’re old.
Roy Williams (North Carolina), Tubby Smith (Kentucky) and Bob Huggins (Kansas State) were among the couple of dozen head coaches in the gym as well.
I’m not sure what they thought but I left there thinking D.C. Assault’s 6-3, Georgetown-bound Austin Freeman (he goes to DeMatha High in Hyattsville, Md.) was the best player in the game and that he’s one of the 10 best prospects in the class of 2007.
He’s not the best “scoring� guard I saw Saturday, though. I saw him later on at Foothill High, with about 4,400 crammed into the gymnasium when the Southern California All-Stars beat the Mean Street Express team from Chicago by 11 points.
But that “best scoring guard� I referred to is Eric Gordon, who is from Indianapolis but is playing with the Derrick Rose-led Mean Streets team that won the Peach Jam Tournament in Georgia last week.
Gordon made a mockery of any “defense� the SoCal perimeter players tried to put on him and scored 34 points.
But Kevin Love (20 points), Taylor King and Malik Story (17 apiece) scored just about as easily as Gordon did.
The 6-9ish Love (from Lake Oswego, Ore.) is so much the best all-around big man in high school basketball that trying to find another who remotely compares with him would be time better spent elsewhere. And for now, at least, that would be spent sleeping.
But I’m going to persevere.
The consensus of thought on the subject borders on the overwhelming that Love, no matter when he “commits�, will eventually sign a national letter off intent with UCLA, instead of North Carolina, in November. He’ll be what is commonly referred to in the business as “an impact freshman�. Yeah, he’ll be that and then some.
Pat Barrett’s Southern California (he doesn’t actually “coach� the team; those duties fall to Jody Gardener and Kelly Williams, with former Long Beach State center DeAnthony Langston the latest member of the crew to grab a seat on the bench) team would really have to stumble to falter on its way to a Wednesday night championship.
The Mean Streets Express team (which faces O.J. Mayo and Billy Walker and the rest of the D-1 Greyhounds in a pool-play game at 10:20 Sunday morning, lost to SoCal by 11 points Saturday and could be the second best team in the event.
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