WESTMINSTER, Ca. – Saturday’s first day of action in the Pangos All-West Frosh/Soph Camp at Westminster High made once succinct point:
There are a whole lot of terrific point guard prospects in the event.
There are so many of point guards (or, if you’d prefer, “point guard-types”) on hands that at least two of the camp teams had two terrific prospects at the position on their rosters.
The most notable of those are Arizona State, with 6-foot-1 freshman Richard Isaacs Jr. (Henderson, NV, Coronado) and 6-4 sophomore Chris Howell (San Marcos), and Air Force, by way of 6-2 sophomore Isael Silva (Carmichael Jesuit) and 6-foot sophomore Zaon Collins (Las Vegas Bishop Gorman).
Howell, Silva (maybe the No. 1 prospect from the Class of 2021 in Northern California) and Collins are part of a cluster of terrific western 2021 point-guards that also includes, among others, another player at the camp in 6-3 Devin Askew (Santa Ana Mater Dei).
And if Isaacs is going to get any strong competition for the “best 2022 point-guard in the West” tag anytime soon, it’s going to come from the left-handed Jason Hart Jr. (L.A. Dorsey/PICTURED).
Hart’s dad is an assistant coach at USC who was a standout at Westchester and Inglewood high schools before going onto to Syracuse and a nice NBA career.
Hart and Isaacs had a couple of cool “head-to-head” sequences when Arizona State played UCLA in the second round of games Saturday night.
Three other bigger players who are more “shooting guard/combo guard”-types that were among the most impressive performers Saturday were sophomores in 6-2 K.J. Simpson (West Hills Chaminade), 6-3 Jahmai Mashack (Etiwanda) and 6-4 John Christofilis (Seattle O’Dea).
Simpson was as spectacular as anyone Saturday, blitzing defenders on their heels with the very definition of “blow-by” speed on the dribble and cranking a couple of rim-distorting dunks, the most notable of those that came over the top of the best big man in the camp, 6-8 Wilhelm Breidenbach (Mater Dei).
Mashack – the best man-to-man defender in the camp – continued an impressive fall in which he has played as well as any sophomore in California.
No other player from outside of California played as well as did as Christofilis –with the exception of Isaacs and Collins,
Two other sophomore guards who were standouts at the Sept. 15 Pangos Best of SoCal Showcase, T.J. Wainwright (Santa Monica) and A.J. Burgin (San Diego), also had strong stretches of play Saturday.
Camp competition continues at 9:15 Sunday a.m. and wraps up with all-star games at 1 and 2 p.m.
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