Burlison on Basketball

Frank Burlison | High School Basketball | College Basketball

Drane rises to top of Saturday’s opening of Pangos action

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LA GRANGE, Ill. – A year ago, at this same location, then-freshman Jaylen Drane – who had yet to play in a real game at Simeon High in Chicago – was among the best of the back-court players at the Pangos All-Midwest Frosh-Soph Camp.

Fast forward 12 months at The Park District facility to Saturday’s day of the 2019 version of the camp and the obviously has been no stagnation in the 6-foot-2 Drane’s game – quite the opposite, in fact.

Drane (pictured) bordered on the un-guardable during the two games the “Xavier” squad played in the most impressive performance I saw Saturday with 200-plus players spread across 22 teams.

Besides Illinois, players from Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Kentucky and Tennessee also populated the event.

Among the other Class of 2022 standouts Saturday were 6-6 Ty Rodgers (Grand Blanc, MI), who participated in the USA Basketball Mini Camp a week ago in Colorado Springs; 6-5 J.D. Roberts (Park Hill South, MO); 6-7 Jasen Green (Millard South in Omaha, NE); 6-7 Daniel Wolf (Lake Forest Academy, IL); and 6-9 Ruot Bijiek (Dowling Catholic in West Des Moines, IA).

Some of the better freshmen included 6-7 Omaha Biliew (Dowling Catholic); 6-7 J.J. Taylor (Chicago Morgan Park); 6-8 Gus Yalden (Xavier in Appleton, WI); 6-1 Marcus Pigram (Chicago Whitney Young); and 6-3 Jeremiah Williamson-Johnson (Putnam City North in Oklahoma City).

The final round of camp “league” games begins at 9:15 Sunday morning, with two all-star games (at 1:15 and 2:15 in the afternoon) wrapping the event up.

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