The basketball-viewing action started for yours truly at 8 a.m. in Cincinnati, and wrapped up some 14 hours and 230 miles later in Akron.
In between, some future UCLA guards looked pretty good and a very well-known NBA player mixed it up with high school players who would like to be joining him for real a few years hence.
The adidas It Takes 5ive Tournament gave me one last opportunity Saturday morning to see the Pump-N-Run Elite team in action after a couple of looks on Friday.
And, once again, Bruins-to-be Jrue Holiday (Campbell Hall High) and Jerime Anderson (Anaheim Canyon) dazzled while leading their team to a victory over Indiana Elite in a pool play game.
Indiana Elite had three very good players, in 6-foot-10 center Tyler Zeller (Washington, Ind.), 6-3 guard Walter Offutt (Indianapolis, Warren, Central High) and 5-9 point guard Lewis Jackson (Decatur, Ill., Eisenhower High).
But the PNR lads had too much juice, led by Holiday (who make convert more left-handed layups than any right-hander I’ve ever seen) Anderson as well as 6-6 junior-to-be Reeves Nelson (Modesto Christian), as aggressive a 15-year-old basketball as there is in the world.
After catching a half of EBO (led by 6-7 forward Luke Babbitt of Reno Galena) vs. Hoop Planet (a team of Georgia players), Tracy Pierson (founder and operator of the Scout.com website www.bruinreportonline.com) and I strapped ourselves into his rental car for the 3 ½-hour trek north to the University of Akron’s Rhodes Arena, site of the LeBron James Skills Academy.
Of course, there was a 20-minute stop en route – one that did some serious damage to the diet that had allowed me to lose 33 pounds since the Final Four.
After finding an exit that led to Grove City dining options at, a), Bob Evans; b), Sonic Burger; c), Steak-n-Shake; 4), Dairy Queen; 5), Waffle House; and, 6), White Castle, we opted for No. 6.
And the guilt is killing me right now, although the memories of those glorious four “sliders” and fries are still vividly seducing.
Anyway, the camp – with only 70 players, sort of a streamlined Nike All-America Camp – was chock full of a hefty percentage of the nation’s best prospects.
The five best I saw Saturday during four games were, in roughly this order, 1), Scotty Hopson (6-6, Hopkinsville, Ky., University Heights); 2), Greg Monroe (6-10, Harvey, La., Helen Cox); 3), Tyreke Evans (6-4, Aston, Pa., American Christian); 4), John Riek (6-11, Center Reach, N.Y., Our Savior New Academy); and 5), Al-Farouq Aminu (6-8, Norcross, Ga.).
Hopson is already ``committed’’ to Mississippi State and I wonder how in the heck Louisville or Kentucky didn’t wrap him up long ago.
He’s the best scorer I’ve seen this spring.
More details on the players in the camp will be forthcoming but there was also a pretty good individual matchup involving Demar DeRozan (Compton) and Jordan Hamilton (Dominguez), who will try to lead their respective teams to the CIF Southern Section Div. I-AA title game next Saturday.
DeRozan scored on a few more spectacular drives while Hamilton hit a few more jump shots.
The bottom line is, though, that neither was able to do much to slow the other down.
And, the guess here is that there won’t be any other defenders having any better luck against them next season, either.
Leave a comment