Trey & Co. lead SDA to Best of Summer championship

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ANAHEIM, Ca. – His given name is George Kell III.

He’s better known as “Trey”. But by either name the San Diego St. Augustine High senior-to-be is carving out quite the hoops reputation over the spring and summer.

Kell hit the go-ahead shot with about eight seconds to go in the semifinal against for a 39-36 semifinal victory over Greg Monroe (based in New Orleans) late Sunday morning, then paced his team to a 49-40 win over Hoops Dreams (based in Boise, ID) to lead the San Diego All-Stars to the championship of the 17U division of the Double Pump Best of the Summer Tournament at the American Sports Centers, just a few blocks from Disneyland.

The 6-foot-4 Kell, with the help of a lot of teammates (including sophomore-to-be point Justin Moore of Mission Bay and 6-5senior-to-be Israel Seales of Chula Vista Mater Dei), led the Marshawn Cherry-coached club to a 9-zip record over the five-day event.

Each of the SDA games were witnessed by a large contingent of college coaches, with San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher, accompanied by assistants Brian Dutch and Justin Hutson, courtside, as were New Mexico head coach Craig Neal and assistants from Arizona, Boise State, Cal Poly, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Northridge, Colorado, Connecticut, Gonzaga, Long Beach State, Loyola Marymount, San Diego, UCLA, USC, Utah, Utah State and Virginia, among a lot of others.

Of course, those coaches weren’t on hand just because of the presence of Kell.

One of the other reasons was Hoops Dreams’ Isaiah Wright (Boise Borah).

And Wright used the five days in Anaheim to demonstrate – to those, at least, who didn’t already realize it – that he is one of the better 2014 point guards in the west, and elsewhere.

Wright ran a jump shooting-oriented offense that had little trouble slicing up opponents (including Pump-N-Run Elite), via Wright’s playmaking and the shooting from the likes of E.J. Boyce (Eagle Rocky Mountain) and Hunter Young (Boise Capital).

But Cherry’s defense did a marvelous job of chasing the shooters off the 3-point line and forcing them to be drivers (which they are not).

That left Wright to keep his keep close – or at least relatively so – to SDA, which he was able to do most of the second half by scoring off of penetration moves (especially via his terrific crossover dribble moves).

Other championships were won Sunday in the 16U (Oakland Rebels, 66-52 over Utah Pump-N-Run Red) and 15U (Dream Vision, 72-50 over the Oakland Soldiers)

Other players who impressed Sunday included (from the 2015 class):

*Six-seven Isaiah Thomas (San Leandro King) and 6-0 Juwan Anderson (Oakland Bishop O’Dowd) of the Oakland Rebels;

*Six-three Malek Harwell (Pocatello, ID, Century) and 6-5 Noah Togiai (Salt Lake City Hunter) of Utah PNR Red and;

*Six-six Tres Tinkle (Missoula, MT, Hellgate) of Montana D1 Ambassadors.

Those who played well in the 17U semifinals included 2015 prospects 6-1 Jeremy Lieberman and 6-6 Max Hoetzel (both from Calabasas and PNR Elite) and 6-5 Bryce Washington (New Orleans St. Augustine) and 6-8 Curtis Anderson (Kenner, LA, East Jefferson), both of Greg Monroe.