LONG BEACH – The Pangos Best of the West Middle School Showcase had a distinct NBA flavor Saturday at McBride High.
The sons of three former NBA players – Gilbert Arenas, Matt Barnes and Kenny Smith – were among the 100 or players on hand for the Dinos Trigonis-fronted event that showcased a lot of quality sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders from the west coast.
But it was a kid without any NBA bloodlines – although I’m sure, like all hoopers who’ve reached this stage, he aspires to carving his own niche in the league someday – that bagged Most Valuable Player honors for his performance in the Top 30 Cream of the Crop all-star clash that wrapped the camp up Saturday evening.
Brannon Martinsen (pictured), 6-foot-6 left hander from Aliso Viejo – deep in the southern-most region of Orange County – scored 17 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as the white jersey-wearing squad held it opponents in dark jerseys, 106-100.
Martinsen, who said he plans to enroll at JSerra, Mater Dei or Santa Margarita for his freshman year, was a load to handle down low in his two camp games as well as in the Top 30 finale, during which he hit a couple of deep 3s to help shut off an impressive rally by the dark jersey-wearing crew.
Alijah Arenas (who attends Heritage Christian Middle School in Northridge), was listed at 6-feeet but – with long arms and wearing size-14 shoes – seemingly is on his way to 6-4 or so before too deep into his high school career, led the dark jerseys with 19 points.
Molloy Smith (Campbell Hall in North Hollywood) and Delan Grant (another Heritage Christian student who is built like a Southeastern Conference strong safety) scored 14 points apiece in support of Martinsen in the white jersey’s victory.
Smith (whose older brother, Kenny Jr., played as a senior at Mater Dei High and also had college stints at the University of Pacific and his dad’s alma mater, the University of North Carolina) was given his first name in honor of the legendary Queens (NY) high school his father attended and played for as an eventual McDonald’s All-American: Archbishop Molloy.
“And that’s only because I couldn’t name him ‘Jack Curran’,” said the elder Smith – the member of the NBA on TNT crew who actually offers consistently illuminating insight into the game and its players and coaches – of his coach at Molloy who died in 2013 after producing quality players and young men for the better part of five decades.
Matt Barnes played four seasons for Steve Lavin at UCLA (when his teammates included future NBA guards Baron Davis and Earl Watson) before going on to a 14-year NBA career, after a couple of seasons in the “minor leagues”, including a 2003-4 season with the late the Long Beach Jam – which I wrote about at the time with the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
Barnes, now, too, in the analyst/commentator biz, was well-repped by his seventh-grade twins Saturday, Isaiah and Carter Barnes – an infectiously gregarious and high-energy pair of 5-4ish lads who also attend Heritage Christian.
Isaiah had seven points for the winning squad (102-78) in the “7th/6th Grade Cream of the Crop clash, while his brother knocked in a 3-pointer for the dark jerseys.
Isaiah is particularly crafty on the dribble and knocked in six 3s in his first game (with “Arizona”) Saturday.
James Evans (a 5-8 7th grader who attends Rancho Pico in Valencia) scored a game-high 22 points for the winning club in the 6th/7th grade all-star tilt.
Among some of the other standouts were slick eighth-grade guards Rashod Cotton Jr. (Bethany Middle School in Mountain House, which is located about 50 miles of San Francisco) and Tai Coleman (Democracy Prep in Las Vegas).
They were teammates on the “Iowa” team that lost two tight camp contests – go figure – despite Cotton dropping 31 points in their first clash and Coleman 40 in the second.
They were placed on different teams for the Top 30 game, with Coleman going for 14 points for the dark jerseys and Cotton nine for the winners.
Leave a Reply