LAS VEGAS – Dennis Smith and his Team Loaded/North Carolina teammates had a busy – and quite productive – Wednesday evening on the opening of the NCAA’s third July evaluation period.
Smith (16 points – missing just one shot from the field – to go with four assists, three steals and just one turnover, according to my stat keeping) and his buddies burst out to a 13-2 advantage and then coasted to a 101-83 victory over the Big Ballers (based in Chino Hills, CA) in a first-round game of the adidas Uprising Summer Championships’ “Creators’ Cup” tournament in the Cashman Center in the northern part of town.
They then took their show on the road south for about 20 miles to Bishop Gorman High, where, about an hour later, they took on Canada Elite, led by 7-footer Thon Maker, in a Tip-Off Challenge game of the Fab 48 Tournament.
And they made it 2-zip, rallying from seven points down (31-24) at intermission to come out of the building with a 66-62 victory.
According to stats provided by one of the Fab 48 directors, Dinos Trigonis, slender 6-foot-4 guard Brandon Robinson (Douglasville, GA, Douglas Country) led Team Loaded with 29 points – hitting seven 3s – in the victory in the Gorman gymnasium to go along with the 12 points scored by Smith and the 10 added by 6-9 Edrice Adebayo (Pinetown, NC, Northside).
Maker was limited to nine points but three of those came via a 3-pointer that was the culmination of a dribble move that left Adebayo staggering before Maker launched the shot.
Gosh only knows how many times the vine of the sequence was re-Tweeted Wednesday night and Thursday morning by people who had no idea Maker only scored nine points and his team lost.
A few hours earlier in the Cashman Center it seemed as if Adebayo might have had 10 dunks and Robinson 10 3-pointers as Team Loaded sliced and shredded the Big Ballers’ gambling full-court “defense” for wide open-jump shots and just-as-open slams.
Lonzo Ball scored 20 points but hit just eight of 23 attempts with a healthy (or, more accurately, “unhealthy”) number of those misses coming from well behind the arc.
His other numbers – 13 assists, six steals, seven rebounds and four turnovers – served to make things more entertaining if never really putting his team into position to overtake Team Loaded.
A lot of missed very deep 3-point attempts on the Big Ballers’ part and a lot of point-blank makes by Team Loaded saw to that.
In the other three Creators’ Cup games in the Cashman Center, Texas Pro rolled past the New York Rens, 84-64; Team Loaded/Virginia toppled Indiana Elite, 76-61; and the Utah Prospects collected an “upset” of sorts by building a 20-point advantage before prevailing over the Atlanta Celtics, 66-58.
As in the Team Loaded/NC-Big Ballers affair (with Smith and Ball), there were two of the more touted guards in the Class in the Utah-Atlanta contest by way of Frank Jackson (the Prospects) and Kobi Simmons (the Celtics).
Simmons (six of 17 from the field and 22 points) and Jackson (seven of 15 from the field for 20 points) – especially Jackson – each converted some impressive buckets.
But they combined for a collective 15 turnovers – according to the stats I kept – with Simmons accounting for eight and just three assists, Jackson with two of those.
In Thursday’s Creators’ Cup schedule, the Rens and Indiana Elite (9:20 a.m. PT) and Celtics and Ballers (10:40) meet in consolation semifinals, with Texas Pro and Team Loaded/Virginia (noon) and the Utah Prospects and Team Loaded/North Carolina (1:20) hooking up in championship semifinals.
Games for seventh (4 p.m.), fifth (5:20), third (6:40 and the championship (8) follow with all games Thursday on Court 5.
Events also continue at Bishop Gorman (Fab 48) and Rancho High (Big Foot Las Vegas Classic), beginning Thursday morning.
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