DOWNEY, Ca. – Ryan Silver’s West Coast Elite Spring Breakout Camp offered a nice sampling of Southern California’s top prep players across the graduation classes Saturday and Sunday at Warren High.
Saturday was a showcase for some of the best of the “soon-to-be” high school standouts in the Classes of 2019 and ’20 (current seventh- and eighth-graders).
Among the most polished and impressive of those from the Class of 2019 included 6-foot-2 Jared Lucas (Hacienda Heights), 6-4 Johnny Juzang (Oak Park), 6-0 Amani Harris (Inglewood), 6-5 Matt Bender (San Diego) and 6-0 Jadon Jones (Long Beach).
Sunday provided the older kids with the opportunity to shine in front of a gathering of hoops evaluators including Joel Francisco (ESPN.com), Ronnie Flores (Cal Hi Sports), Gerry Freitas (Hoop Review), Chris Popoola (Premier Ball) and Devin Ugland (www.HoopsByUgland.com) and yours truly, of course.
Among the representatives of Silver’s “Earl Watson Elite” top squad who turned in solid efforts on Sunday were center Jayce Johnson (Santa Monica), guard Leland Green (Redondo) and forward Luka Radovic (Montebello Cantwell) and Kavaughn Scott (Orange Lutheran).
Johnson, who played for the Southern California All-Stars “Red” club during the two April “NCAA evaluation periods” but will be with EWE in an Under Armour event this weekend, continued to show why he is one of the most rapidly improving posts in both the regional and national classes of 2016.
Green has a chance to be an elite defender in college and, on this level, is pretty much impossible to keep out of the lane on offense.
Radovic has a nice combination of both perimeter and post-up skills. Scott, an exceptional student, is quite the forceful presence in the lane as both rebounder and scorer.
Playing well from the Earl Watson 16U squad were juniors-to-be Matt Mitchell (6-5) and Jemarl Baker (teammates at Eastvale Roosevelt in Riverside County); another junior-to-be in 6-6 Adrease Jackson (Las Flores Tesoro in Orange County); and promising 6-7 power forward candidate from the class of 2018 in Jordan Guest (Santa Margarita in Rancho Santa Margarita, also in the O.C.).
Mitchell much “bullied” (in a positive sense) his way to anywhere he wanted to get into the lane at the rim Sunday.
Two more terrific prospects from the class of 2018, Miles Norse (6-8, Chula Vista Mater Dei in San Diego County) and Michael Feinberg (6-4, Sierra Canyon in Chatsworth), showed off the traits that will eventually make them among the most heavily recruited players in the West.
I also came away duly impressed with the play of a couple of members of the class of 2017 that I hadn’t seen (as far as I can recall) before Sunday in 6-1 Charles Neal Jr. (Rancho Mirage) and 6-7 Ajani Kennedy (Moreno Valley Rancho Verde in Riverside County).
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