BURBANK – The combination of the West Coast Elite program and Julius Von Hanzlik invariable produces some of the best “grassroots basketball in the west”, especially as it pertains to middle school-aged players.
And the duo delivered the goods again this past weekend at Burroughs High, which is darn-near located in the shadows of the ABC and Disney studios.
The “Elite 32 King of Kings” Camp provided a sweet showcase for some of the very best of the “barely teen-aged” set in the region and beyond.
The caveat on the observations that follow is that I was on hand for Sunday’s sessions of camp games (I also was court-side for the “Class of 2023” and “Best of the Best” all-star games), having made an 82-mile, one-way trek to San Diego Montgomery High for the Sierra Canyon-Saint Augustine clash Saturday night.
So, with that in mind, the guys who played the “best” when I watched Sunday included (in roughly this order and all eighth-graders): 5-foot-11 Yaqub Mir, 6-5 Brady Dunlap, 5-11 King-Jhsanni Wilhite, 6-3 Dusty Stromer and 6-1 Maurice Wright Jr.
Mir (who lives in Sacramento and said he plans to attend Granite Bay High), Wilhite (who attends Aptos Middle School in San Francisco) and Wright (Palmdale) are on track to be terrific point guards in high school – and maybe beyond.
Each of the three was pretty much un-guardable in both the two camp games each played Sunday as well as in the all-star competition.
Mir was selected for the Class of 2023 game but he was dominant in that contest while leading his team to victory and Von Hanzlik immediately added him to the “Best of the Best” contest, where he joined the likes of Wilhite, Wright, Dunlap and Stromer.
And he was darn-near as impressive as both a scorer and playmaker in his second all-star opportunity as well.
Dunlap (the son of Cal State Northridge assistant coach Jeff Dunlap) and Stromer each attend middle school classes at Heritage Christian in Northridge and are already being targeted by the coaching staffs of a lot of San Fernando Valley-based – and beyond – high school programs.
And with good reason, too: They’ve the ideal combination of skill, innate athletic ability, size and hoops “know-how” to flourish on the highest level of high school competition in Southern California.
Among the many other eighth-graders that impressed Sunday were the Fresno duo of guards Akeem Johnson (Our Lady of Victory) and Blake Freeman (Granite Ridge in Clovis); “bigs” Zack Davidson (6-5/Rancho Santa Margarita MS/he’s the brother of Mater Dei sophomore Nick Davidson) and Orlando Greenlow (6-6/Westside Awareness Magnet School in Los Angeles); 6-3 Drew Steffe (Maus MS in Frisco, TX); 5-11 Amire Jones (Will Rogers MS in Lawndale; he’s the oldest son of Leuzinger Coach Arturo Jones); 6-foot Taj Degourville (Becker MS in Las Vegas); and a couple of guards from Northern California in Logan Robeson (Joaquin Intermediate in Moraga) and Sam Vasconi (Stone Valley MS in Alamo, near Danville).
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