Sweet matchups galore at Bishop Gorman Saturday

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LAS VEGAS – Day III of the five-day NCAA hoops evaluation period – a universe for which this city is unquestionably at the center of – set the stage for potentially a terrific Day IV.

Pool play is over and bracket play – which means win and move to the next round or lose and get ready to head to cooler weather – will be in full effect on Saturday morning.

Into the third day Saturday are Fab 48 (at Bishop Gorman High), the adidas Super 64 (Rancho High) and the Las Vegas Classic (Spring Valley High).

Also on tap in the second-round of action in the initial “The Eight”, a tourney featuring eight club teams that are being “coached” by current or former NBA players associated with the programs.

Among those are Anthony Davis of New Orleans with Mean Streets of Chicago and Carmelo Anthony with – appropriately enough, “Team Melo” from Baltimore.

Those games, which begin at 9 o’clock on Saturday morning, are being played at the Impact Basketball facility (121 E. Sunset Road).

Bracket (playoff) gets underway at Bishop Gorman, Rancho and Spring Valley at 8 a.m. on Saturday.

Many of the first-round games on Saturday at Bishop Gorman feature teams led by at least one “national-caliber” standout that will produce some potentially compelling team and man-to-man matchups.

For example, at 9:40 a.m. on Court 1, the San Diego (CA) All-Stars, led by 6-foot-4 Trey Kell (St. Augustine) faces The Juice (New York City), led by 6-5 Isaiah Whitehead (Brooklyn Lincoln).

At noon, also on Court 1, Prodigy Elite of Southern California, led by 6-foot point guard Jordan McLaughlin (Etiwanda, CA), takes on Net Gain of Minnesota, which is led by 6-5 Rashad Vaughn (the Minnesota transplant to Henderson, NV, Findlay Prep).

Belmont Shore, with the Bellflower, CA, St. John Bosco duo of Daniel Hamilton and Tyler Dorsey, faces Elite Prospects of Los Angeles, which has one of the better 6-10 juniors-to-be in the country in Chance Comanche.

Some of the action at Bishop Gorman on Friday included:

*McLaughlin led his team from a seven-point deficit late in the second half and to a 61-55 victory over Team Rise from Philadelphia.

McLaughlin hit several 3s and found teammates with quality passes that led directly to layups.

He’s probably somewhere among the top half-dozen PG prospects in the Class of 2014, which is why head coaches such as Bill Self (Kansas), Tom Crean (Indiana), Steve Alford (UCLA) and Andy Enfield (USC) were courtside.

*Kell, who reportedly has been offered scholarships in the past few days by Arizona, UCLA, USC, Virginia and Oregon – among many other suitors – helped the San Diego All-Stars knock off Colorado Chaos, 54-36.

*In a hotly contested game between Southern California-based programs, the Earl Watson Pangos Elite edged Double Pump on Court 2, 63-60, behind the exceptional play of 2014 guard Devin Watson (San Diego Army-Navy).

Watson scored 20 points while 6-7Tavrion Dawson (Gardena Serra) scored 13 points and was too tough a 1-on-1 matchup for the DP posts.

Power forward Jack Williams (West Hills Chaminade) added 13 points for DP while point guard Jeremy Lieberman (Calabasas) played a lot of plays at both ends of the floor down the stretch to keep DP within striking distance.

The reason the game was a tad more intense than the usual pool play-affair is that most of the players involved were only recently part of the same Double Pump (brothers David and Dana Pump) program before the brothers “general” of sorts, Ryan Silver, broke away and formed his own now-rapidly expanding organization, the headliner of which is the Earl Watson squad.

*The New Jersey Gymrats toppled the Detroit Stars in a Pool E game for third place behind the play of 2015 power forward Horace Spencer (who attended William Tennent High in Warminster, PA, but reportedly is transferring to Findlay Prep in Henderson, NV). He’s one of the better shot blockers and rebounders in any of the tournaments in town.

I started the day at Del Sol High in the eastern part of the town, where I watched Indianapolis Elite/Team Indiana edge the Compton Magic, 66-61.

IE/TI got quality performances from a lot of players, including point guard Hyron Edwards (East Chicago Central) and posts Josh Speidel (Columbus North) and Caleb Swanigan (Ft. Wayne Homestead).

But the Southern California squad, despite trailing by double-digit margins most of the way, kept the Indiana team from pulling away behind the jump shooting of Rex Pflueger (Santa Ana Mater Dei), who nailed seven 3s, and the overall play of point guard Sed Barefield (Corona Centennial).