BELLFLOWER, Ca. – Under Armour held eight regional “UA Next” workouts for some of the best players in the high school Class of 2022 on Saturday.
The western version of the event was held at St. John Bosco High, with 36 eighth graders from California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Nebraska on hands for a couple hours of drill work and then a few more hours of scrimmaging.
Approximately 24 players from the collective sites will be selected to attend the national “UA Next” event in New York on a date to be determined in August.
Among the standouts at SJB were players from Nevada (6-1 Richard Isaacs Jr. and 6-7 Max Allen/Las Vegas), Utah (6-5 Jaxon Kohler/American Fork) and Arizona (6-10 Dylan Anderson/Litchfield).
I haven’t seen a better point guard prospect in the western class of 2022 than Isaacs (who is expected to attend Coronado High in Henderson), and he showed why each time the ball was in his hands Saturday, be it as a playmaker, jump shooter or finisher.
Allen, who is expected to enroll at Bishop Gorman, has as nice combination of strength, bounce, touch and low-post feel.
On the topic of “low-post feel”, I can very view players at his age (14) and size with the back-to-the-basket savvy and footwork possessed by Kohler – a standout for the Exum Elite/Utah Prospects 15s squad.
His fundamentals are a lot sounder than some very good prospects in the Class of 2018 that are already bound for NCAA Division I programs.
As for long-term “prospects”, it’s difficult envisioning there being many on the same level in the national class of 2020 than is Anderson.
He could be 6-10 going on something like 7-2, as he sports size 20s (he was wearing Nikes with the swoosh covered in tape, as Under Armour doesn’t make anything in his size right now).
And his innate athleticism – as a runner and jumper – and, especially, his jump shot, put him on the same tier of most of the better players his size in recent years from the west.
Among the other standouts were point guard Ben Shtolzberg of Northridge (only Isaacs was a better passer/handler at the position); 6-4 Ramel Lloyd Jr. of Long Beach (he’ll be at Sierra Canyon, where his dad is an assistant coach, in the fall); 6-4 Pejan Slater of Lancaster (a left hander who was impossible to keep out of the lane); 6-3 Kristian Jemerson of Los Alamitos (he was more impression as the session wore on); 6-2 Jack McCloskey of Costa Mesa (a “scorer”, via a nice jump shot and ability to get into the lane); 6-foot Devin Newsome of Fresno (scored in a lot of ways and also made plays for others); 6-1 Sam Slutske of Los Angeles (deep jump shooter and impressive passer); 6-4 Chris Bunch of Diablo/Northern California, the second-best “jumper”, after Anderson, among the front-court players in the event.
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