CARTERSVILLE, Ga. – The Vegas Elite 17s squad, after ringing up EYBL’s single-game scoring record in its 130-76 on Friday night, was a slowed down a bit Saturday during the second day of the Nike-fronted league in the Lakepoint Sporting Community’s Champions.
And that was just a little bit.
It improved to 3-0 by holding off against Texas-based Pro Skills, 98-93, Saturday morning and then running away in the second later that night’s against Florida-based Nightrydas Elite, 94-78.
A non-Las Vegas resident, 6-foot-4 Josh Christopher (from Mayfair High in the Southern California suburb of Lakewood), continued operating at full throttle Saturday while averaging 19.0 points, 8.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists on a squad that also includes two of the other very best 2020 prospects in the West (Noah Taitz of Bishop Gorman and Julian Strawther of Liberty) and elite juniors-to-be Jaden Hardy (Coronado) and Zaon Collins (Bishop Gorman).
Another member of Grant Rice’s Bishop Gorman program, 6-5 Mwani Wilkinson, isn’t putting quite the numbers that his Vegas Elite teammates are – here and throughout the spring – but continues to demonstrate why isn’t going to be playing with that “sleeper” tag after being seen by so many college coaches this weekend.
A few other teams winning both of their games Saturday were Michigan-based The Family Seattle Rotary and Wisconsin’s Phenom University.
Six-nine Isaiah Jackson (a Detroit resident who played with a kid named Melo Ball at Spire Academy in Ohio this past season) continued to build a case for his being on a very short list of the very best “power forward-types” in the class with exceptional all-around efforts in The Family’s wins over Team United and The Soldiers.
The Seattle squad knocked off the Russell Westbrook-fronted and SoCal-based “Why Not?” and the Georgia Stars.
Six-nine Paolo Banchero (Seattle O’Dea) – my first choice, at least for now, as the No. 1 player in the Class of 2021 in the west – took names from the low post-and-extended Saturday, averaging 17.5 points and 10.0 rebounds.
Phenom University – in its first season competing in the EYBL’s 17s division – has a roster that, like Vegas Elite, has a multitude of heavily recruited prospects in the classes of 2020 and ’21.
Prime examples of that are 6-8 Jalen Johnson (Glendale Nicolet) and 6-9 Patrick Baldwin (Sussex Hamilton, just outside of Milwaukee), firmly entrenched in top 10s of the respective current junior and sophomore classes.
The Saturday Standout – at least from the standpoint of knocking in a whole lot of deep jump shots – was 6-6 junior Jabri Abdur-Rahim (Blair Academy in New Jersey, who averaged scored 41 and 44 points, while hitting a combined 14 of 25 shots behind the arc, as the New Jersey Playaz split their games.
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