The best I saw at the All-West Frosh/Soph Camp

• Tweet

• Tweet

NORWALK, Ca. – Sunday’s Day II of the Pangos All-West Frosh/Soph Camp made it a bit easier to sort through the 200 or so players who attended the event at Cerritos Community College and pick out the 25 of those who most impressed me.

So here we go, beginning with 20 selections from the Class of 2017 (current sophomores) and five more from the Class of 2018 (freshmen). I’ll list them alphabetically, and then follow with some general comments:

SOPHOMORES

*L’Angelo Ball (6-4/Chino Hills, CA)

*Elias Ballstaedt (6-4/Heber, UT, Wasatch)

*Isom Butler (6-1/Etiwanda, CA)

*Daejon Davis (6-3/Seattle Lakeside)

*Myles Franklin (6-4/Villa Park, CA)

*Jalen Harris (6-1/Los Angeles Windward)

*Jalen Hill (6-8/Corona, CA, Centennial)

*Jacob Hughes (6-10/Anaheim Servite)

*Brandon McCoy (6-11/San Diego Morse)

*Matt Mitchell (6-6/Eastvale, CA, Roosevelt)

*Jailen Moore (5-10/Lake Elsinore, CA, Lakeside)

*Charles O’Bannon Jr. (6-5/Las Vegas Bishop Gorman)

*Miles Oliver (6-0/Etiwanda, CA)

*Braden Olsen (5-11/West Linn, OR)

*Billy Preston (6-9/Redondo Beach, CA, Redondo)

*Robby Robinson (6-8/San Diego Kearny)

*Kyle Small (5-5/Lakewood, CA, Mayfair)

*Ethan Thompson (6-3/Torrance, CA, Bishop Montgomery)

*J.J. Watson (6-3/Diamond Bar, CA, Diamond Ranch)

*Chris Williams (6-2/Orange, CA, Lutheran)

Note: Jules Bernard (Los Angeles Windward), Jaylen Hands (Chula Vista, CA, Mater Dei), Justin Hemsley (La Verne, CA, Damien) and Otto Taylor (San Diego St. Augustine), to the best of my knowledge, played on just one day each so were eliminated from consideration for Top 20 status.

 

FRESHMEN

*Harrison Butler (6-4/Santa Ana, CA, Mater Dei)

*Jordan Campbell (6-2/Adelanto, CA)

*Jaden Lee (6-2/Gilbert, AZ, Christian)

*Scooter Smith (6-2/Bellflower, CA)

*Michael Wang (6-8/Santa Ana, CA, Mater Dei)

 

COMMENTS: Based on their play over the weekend (and not just on “college potential”), my choices for a Top Five (sophomores) team, by position, would be Jailen Moore (point guard), Daejon Davis (shooting guard), Charles O’Bannon Jr. (small forward), Billy Preston (power forward) and Brandon McCoy (center).

The two names that will probably cause the most eyebrows to raise are Moore (the most underrated point guard in the Southern California Class of 2017 – at least he was before the camp) and Davis (based on performance this weekend and college potential, he’s one of the 10 or so best western prospects in this class).

O’Bannon is the son of a 1994 McDonald’s All-American (Artesia High in Lakewood, CA) who started for four seasons at UCLA and had a long professional career in Japan.

Unlike his dad and Uncle Ed (the 1995 John R. Wooden Award winner after leading the Bruins to a national title), O’Bannon is right-handed and, at times, could have been mistaken for “Ray Allen Jr.” for as well as he was jump shooting from mid- and deep range.

Preston was easily the most offensively skilled “post-sized” player in the camp and, handled the ball as much as any guard on his camp team and in the Top 30 all-star game.

McCoy – and those who wanted to get a good feel for how good he is now and how good he could be in the future – was fortunate in that he had a couple of other exceptional “big” prospects to play, and measure himself, against in Jalen Hill and Jacob Hughes. And he came out looking just fine in those matchups.