DUNCANVILLE, Texas – The annual, two-day Pangos All-South Frosh/Soph Camp, held in the spiffy Duncanville Fieldhouse, tipped off Saturday afternoon.
As always, the event – which attracted 200-plus players (with more expected Sunday) – and included a significant percentage of the better current freshmen and sophomores from within Texas, as well as Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
But it the camp’s depth of quality prospects also expanded to Alabama, Tennessee and Florida, as well as such distinctly non-Southern/Southwestern states as Minnesota and California.
The players were divided into 24 teams, with games played on three of the facility’s six courts, and each squad playing twice over the course of the eight sets of games that wrapped up about 9 o’clock (CT) Saturday evening.
Each team will play once Sunday morning (games are set to tip at 9), with Top 60 and Top 30 all-star contests set to go off at 1 and 2 in the afternoon, respectively.
All of the camp’s action is being live-streamed, and archived, by BallerTV.
Robert Jones Jr. (Little Elm, TX, Braswell), Finley Bizjack (Trophy Club, TX, Byron Nelson) and Drew Steffe (Frisco, TX, Memorial), from the Class of 2023, are among the players I selected as my “Top 25” at this same event a year ago.
So was Jaxson Ford, then an eighth grader at Rodgers Middle School in the Texas City of Prosper.
And each was among the Saturday standouts while showing off how much growth – literally and figuratively – the players have undergone over the past 12 months.
Another player from within the Lone Star borders Saturday was the multi-skilled, 6-foot-6 freshman Liam McNeeley (Pearce in Richardson, a Dallas suburb about 27 miles northeast of where the camp is being held).
McNeeley, who scored almost too easily against anyone who tried to check him while playing for the “Tulane” squad, traveled to Southern California last March where he earned co-Most Outstanding Player during the Pangos Middle School All-American Camp at Cerritos College in Norwalk.
Jones (pictured) demonstrated succinctly Saturday while he should be on any short list of the top “shooting” or “combo guards in the national Class of 2023 while showcasing his skill as a handler, passer and jump shooter, and sheer power as a finisher, rebounder and defender.
Jones’ “TCU” squad engaged in the most entertaining and competitive camp game I watched Saturday, against “North Texas”.
The latter prevailed, 78-77, in one of the 7 o’clock clashes despite the mostly spectacular play of Jones.
Two free throws with 1.9 seconds to go by one of the first-day freshman standouts – 6-4 Dalen Fuller of Union in Tulsa – provided the tying and go-ahead points for North Texas.
Ford, now standing close to 6-8 and attending Prosper High, joined the left-handed Fuller as one of the dazzlers from the Class of 2024 Saturday while blocking about a half-dozen shots for “Auburn” in a game played in front of me on Court 2.
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