La Grange, IL – Six-foot-nine Patrick Baldwin Jr. demonstrated precisely Saturday at the Park District facility that he intends on collecting his second consecutive Most Outstanding Player honor for the Midwest version of the Pangos All-Frosh/Soph Camp.
Baldwin (Sussex, WI, Hamilton), making his third appearance at the Dinos Trigonis-fronted event, used his two camp games (with “Cincinnati”) to showcase the remarkable growth – literal and figurative – he has made as a player since he made his debut at the camp two years ago.
The son of the head coach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee had a strong spring and summer on the grassroots circuit with the Milwaukee-based Phenom University 16s club program while also having a solid effort during the NBPA Top 100 Camp in Charlottesville, VA.
Baldwin also held up quite well during the USA Basketball mini-camp held in Colorado Springs a couple of weekends ago.
He was far from the only standout Saturday during the event resumes Sunday with a final round of camp games at 9 a.m. and a couple of all-star games at 12:30 and 1:30 p.m., respectively.
Among those who also stood out Saturday were other camp “returnees” in sophomores Sekou Gassame (6-8/St. Louis DeSmet) and Brandon Weston (6-4/Lake Forest, IL, Academy) and freshmen Andre Casey Jr. (6-8/Chicago Simeon) and Khamari Lands (6-6/La Porte, IN, La Lumiere Academy).
Casey, who doesn’t turn 15 until January 26 and joined Baldwin and Casey at the USA BB event, has grown about four inches since his appearance as an eighth grader at this camp a year ago.
Gassame (one of a rising number of exceptional athletes from Mali playing basketball on the high school level in the U.S.), has added considerable polish to his offense in the past year and put all of those new skills on display in a matchup with Baldwin in their game of the day Saturday afternoon.
Among those joining Casey and Lands as players from the Class of 2022 who were sharp on the first day were a high school teammate of Casey, 6-2 playmaker Jaylen Drane; Gary (IN) Westside’s 6-7 Jalen Washington; 5-10 Leland Walker (Indianapolis North Central); and 6-6 Dylan Arnett (Chicago DePaul College Prep).
A kid who may have been the most “complete” guard on display Saturday was 6-3, left-handed Kobe Bufkin (Grand Rapids, MI, Christian). He’s pictured on the Twitter link.
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