LADERA RANCH – The Eyes of Texas shined upon the Ladera Ranch Sports Center Saturday – metaphorically speaking, that is.
The Ft. Worth-based YGC36 club program – fronted by Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart and only in existence for four years – rolled out of the Ladera Ranch Sports Center Saturday evening with a couple of adidas Gold Gauntlet Finale championships.
The YGC36 (“Young Game Changers”; 36 is Smart’s jersey number) 17s flipped the result on its Compton Magic counterpart from the adidas Summer Championships in Alabama the week before, holding off the Magic in a gut-twister, 59-58.
The Magic (playing without 7-foot, Rancho Christian-senior-to-be Evan Mobley, on the bench but not in uniform because of back spasms, for the second week in a row) edged YGC36 seven days earlier in the Hoover Metropolitan Complex, 60-58.
And the program’s 16s squad pulled off an even more head-turning stunner than its 17s counterpart (which tipped about 90 minutes after the 17s clash) did, knocking off the Atlanta Celtics, 61-51.
The Celtics, led by 6-9, Class of 2021 standout Jabari Smith Jr. (Tyrone, GA, Sandy Creek), were 8-0 in Alabama while rolling to the title.
The YGC36 couldn’t go 3-zip in titles – it didn’t have an entry in the 15s bracket.
That bit of hardware – pretty sweet championship “basketball” trophies, I’ll concede – went to the Indianapolis-based Team Teague 2022 by way of its 67-65 decision against Grassroots Canada Elite.
In the 17s finale, YGC36 – paced by Class of 2021 forward Harrison Ingram (Dallas Saint Mark’s) and 2020 guard Latrell Jossell (Keller, TX, Central) – led by four points at intermission and was up by seven with barely two minutes to go in regulation.
But six misses in seven free throws by the Texas, along with an “And 1” by Andre Harris (Phoenix Hillcrest Academy) and 3-point jumper by Chibuzo Agbo (San Diego St. Augustine; he scored a game-high 23 points), left the Magic down a point and inbounding from the backcourt after a timeout with 6.7 seconds to go.
Jaylen Clark (Etiwanda) passed inbound to Dalen Terry (Hillcrest), who took six dribbles (the last of those behind his back to free himself from a defender) and passed to Agbo on the right wing.
Agbo gave a slight head-fake, took a dribble to escape his own defender for a possible game-winning jumper but slipped out of his right shoe, falling to the floor and losing the ball as time expired a tick later to set off the first YGC36 celebration of the day.
A couple of hours later, juniors-to-be Lamar Butler (Arlington Bowie) and Damon Nicholas, Jr. (Duncanville) scored 12 points apiece against the Atlanta Celtics in the 16s clash, and the YGC36 euphoria went up another notch as championship t-shirts were handed out and slipped on over uniform jerseys once more.
The Texas-inspired hoopla was wrapped around the 15s finale, in which the Team Teague players, coaches and fans had to hold their collective breath as eighth-grader Elijah Fisher’s 3-point attempt for the Canadian squad was just long as the buzzer sounded.
The 6-5 Fisher scored 13 points in each half – that would total 26, for the mathematically less-inclined among you – while sophomore-to-be point guard Tayshawn Comer (PICTURED/Indianapolis Cathedral) led the winners while scoring 14 of his 23 points after intermission.
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