Stanley dandy at Frosh/Soph Camp

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CORONA, CA – Anyone wondering why Stanley Johnson is a consensus as one of the top 20 or so sophomore basketball players in the national class of 2014 needed only to attend the Fullcourt Press All-Frosh/Soph Camp at the Player’s Edge on Saturday and Sunday.

The 6-foot-6 Santa Ana Mater Dei standout was terrific over his four camp games, then scored just as easily when – in theory – the going got its toughest.

Johnson, jumping over the top of defenders before they could react or creating space off the dribble, jump shot and drove his was to a game-high 21 points while leading his team to a 126-91 victory in the camp’s Top 30 all-star game Sunday afternoon.

Being the clear-cut standout in that contest was no easy feat, not the caliber – and depth – of talent found in the group of 160 or so players who participated in the camp.

Consider some of the other players in that final contest:

• Six-four Tyler Dorsey of L.A. Ribet Academy (who scored 19 points for Johnson and the white team in the top 30 game) is considered the top freshman shooting guard prospect in the west.
• There is a stunning class of freshmen point guards in Southern California and three of those – Marcus LoVett (Burbank Providence), Sedrick Barefield (Temecula Chaparral) and Ke’Jhan Feagin (Long Beach Poly)  – played in the camp’s final game. All three were tremendous over the weekend and LoVett is very likely the complete freshman PG in the west right now.
• Even as well as the point guards performed – and there were plenty of quality sophomores at the position, as well, including Shaquile Carr (Las Vegas Canyon Springs), Trevor Dunbar Jr. (San Francisco St. Ignatius) and Justin Bibbins (Torrance Bishop Montgomery. Carr, who was so good during the Sept. 28 Las Vegas Fall Classic at Bishop Gorman, wasn’t quite as sharp Sunday afternoon as he was during the camp games. I still rate him as the best “true” pg at the event, regardless of age.
• Among the best of the wing/”shooting guard”-types (along with Johnson and Dorsey) in the Top 30 game were sophomores Namon Wright (Palmdale, CA, Highland), Christopher Sandifer (L.A. Price), Rashad Jackson (Bakersfield Garces) and the Las Vegas duo of Darryl Gaynor (Palo Verde) and Gerad Davis (Canyon Springs).
• As productive – and, often, spectacular – as the guards were, it was the group of post players on hand that separated this camp from similar ventures by Dinos Trigonis, who runs the camp and a multitude of other “evaluation” events.
• Six-ten Stephen Zimmerman (Las Vegas Bishop Gorman) is rated the No. 1 post prospect in the national class of 2015 and you only needed to watch him during two or three treks up and down the court. But sophomores 6-8 Elston Jones (Goodyear, AZ, Millennium) and 6-7 Fetai Eke (Bakersfield East) were consistently good and at times, dominant. A couple of 6-7 freshmen, Nicholas Pete (Hemet, CA, Tahquitz) and Nick Pallas (Las Flores, CA, Tesoro) were likewise high-caliber in their performances. Other than Zimmerman, Jones was by far the most advanced, offensively, among the bigger post players.

Standouts in the Top 60 game included 6-5 freshman Tyler Burch (Huntington Beach, CA, Ocean View) – who led all scorers with a game-high 21 points – to go with fellow freshman Nick Blair (6-4/L.V. Bishop Gorman) and his 18 points. Another was a sophomore, 6-5 Darius Hamilton (Fresno Central), who scored 16 points and grabbed 11 rebounds.