SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – If you were inside Blake Arena on the campus of Springfield College Monday for the better part of 10 hours, you got a nifty on-court primer for future McDonald’s All-American teams – 2015 and beyond.
The final day of the High School Invitational of the Spalding HoopHall Invitational featured five games – and at least twice that many players likely to be chosen McDonald’s AAs before they graduate.
And several of those, no doubt, will see their names and faces on their television monitors when the 2015 squad is unveiled on ESPN on Jan. 28.
Three of those gentlemen (Jaylen Brown of Marietta, GA, Wheeler/Dwayne Bacon of Mouth of Wilson, VA, Oak Hill Academy and Ben Simmons of Montverde, FL, Academy) scored 30 or more points.
Several others didn’t exceed that threshold but did impact the proceedings – in a positive fashion – in multiple other ways.
And no player better illustrated that point than did Ivan Rabb (Oakland, CA, Bishop O’Dowd).
The Dragons trailed Brown’s Wheeler club at intermission (38-37) when they struggled to get the ball cleanly into Rabb in or around the lane on offense.
That wasn’t the case over the final 16 minutes, though, during which Rabb often powered his way over or around multiple defenders to hit eight of nine shots, grab nine rebounds, block three shots and trigger numerous transition opportunities with outlet passes to help his club pull away from a team that came into the contest with a single loss.
Rabb, in helping push his team’s record to 10-3 with the 79-70 victory, finished with 24 points (11 of 15 from the field), 12 rebounds and five blocked shots.
He got plenty of help from his teammates, most notably Boise State-bound Paris Austin – among the more overtly underrated point guards in the national Class of 2015) – who scored 18 points to go with nine assists and mostly got the ball where his teammates needed it, by dribble or pass.
Foul issues may have chipped into his productivity – if not his aggressiveness –before he went to the bench with his fifth and disqualifying foul late in the contest.
But Brown muscled – literally, often – to 31 points (13 of 22 from the field) and snatched eight of his 12 rebounds when his team was in possession of the ball.
And the Dragons also a nice effort, especially during those dominating final 16 minutes, from the bench from a freshman left hander who is already on the path toward becoming “the next really good one” from the Lou Richie-coached program.
Elijah Hardy, who has scoring, handling and passing skill in abundance, was perfect from the field (on three attempts) and knocked in three of four free throws.
Another senior guard, Jeevin Sandhu, added 14 points, five rebounds and three assists for Richie’s crew.
The 6-foot-8 and left-handed Simmons – originally from Australia and bound for LSU – is the most multi-skilled player in this class, especially when in the context of “relative to his size”.
That was never more evident than in what were mostly sloppy and harried 32 minutes in his team’s much-tighter-than-the-score-implies 76-57 victory over Las Vegas Bishop Gorman.
The teams combined for 55 – yep, five-five – turnovers with Gorman accounting for 33 of those.
And Gorman’s two expected 2015 McDonald’s All-Americans – posts Stephan Zimmerman and Chase Jeter – never got unwound and in-sync while combining for 11 of those 33 miscues and just 14 points and 12 rebounds.
Both were almost immediately saddled with foul issues – both relegated to the bench for stretches and Zimmerman eventually fouling out while Jeter still had a fifth in his pocket when the buzzer sounded.
Simmons was credited with seven turnovers but hit 15 of 24 shots from the field – mostly via either-hand finishes in transition or after short bursts into the lane – and would have cracked the 40 barrier with a tad more accuracy from the free-throw line, where he barely batted .500 (six of 11).
The stat crew credited him with nine rebounds and three steals but I’ve a hunch they shorted him in the assists category where he was given just one.
Fine but if the stat “passes that led to passes that led directly to scores” was kept, he would have been credited with a half-dozen or so of those.
And the son of a 1993 McDonald’s All-American alumnus and Bishop Gorman sophomore is an early candidate for the 2017 MDAA squad.
Charles O’Bannon Jr. did his best to keep things close before the proverbial dam burst on the Gaels in the late going, scoring 11 points in each half via nifty drives and finishes and jump shots of both mid-range and deep variety.
Oak Hill has a roster that includes guys heading to Ohio State (center Daniel Giddens), Missouri (point guard Terrence Phillips), Iowa (wing Andrew Fleming) and Penn State (wing Josh Reaves).
But the Warriors were firmly in the hole by as many as 14 points in the first half before finally pulling their way out in time for a 76-72 win over Cleveland Villa Angela St. Joseph.
Thirty-three of those points came from Florida State-bound Bacon, who saved his team’s figurative bacon (sorry; I couldn’t resist) with 19 of them coming in the second half.
It did take a lot of attempts – he was credited with 28 shots from the field, hitting 10 of those including five from behind the arc – but St. Joseph should have done a better job of making sure Bacon didn’t get the ball in his hands enough down the stretch to remain a “volume” shooter.
He wasn’t totally in the tunnel-vision mode – he was credited with three assists, after all – and grabbed eight rebounds with two steals.
Giddens had 12 points and seven rebounds and blocked four shots while Phillips had seven points, five assists and seven rebounds.
Carlton Bragg (who recently committed to Kansas) didn’t shoot well from the field, missing 11 of 17 attempts.
But he did just about everything else very well for St. Joseph with 23 points (11 of 12 from the free-throw line), seven rebounds, six assists, three blocked shots and two steals.
I’ll go into convulsions if his mug shot doesn’t appear on the screen with the 2015 MDAA squad is unveiled via all of that ESPN fanfare.
In the final game played on Monday night, two early favorites to be 2016 MDAAs only enhanced that perception with their efforts.
Jayson Tatum got off to a chilly shooting start – he missed all five of his field-goal attempts in the first quarter – and finished just seven of 20 for the field but had 25 points (in large part via 11 of 12 free throws) to go with 14 rebounds, three assists, three blocks and five turnovers in St. Louis Chaminade Prep’s 88-78 defeat of Fairfax, VA, Paul VI.
And his defense was mostly ineffectual when it came to checking V.J. King – although the same was true of Tatum’s teammates, as well.
King finished with 38 points – according to HoopHall veteran observer Tom Konchalski, it is likely an event record.
King, who spent his first two years in high school at the alma mater of LeBron James (Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary’s), knocked in 14 of 24 shots from the field – including two of five 3s – and eight of 11 free throws.
Tatum had much more help than did King as classmates Mike Lewis (23 points, 18 coming on six of eight shooting on 3s) and Tyler Cook (15 points and 10 rebounds) turning in impressive performances, as well.
In the first game played Monday morning, Jersey City St. Anthony held off Philadelphia Constitution, 57-56.
The left-handed, George Mason-bound Ahmad Gilbert barely missed on a right-handed, transition layup attempt at the buzzer that would have pulled off the upset for the Philly lads.
Gilbert had 27 points for his team while junior Jagan Mosely had 15 points and four assists for St. Anthony, coached by the well-beyond-legendary Bob Hurley.
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