LONG BEACH – Guard Jaden Raines, after taking an overtime inbound pass from the backcourt baseline with five seconds to go, sank a five-foot floater in the lane at the buzzer to give the Kings of Basketball squad a 76-75 win over The Truth Sunday night at McBride High.
The shot by the San Diego eighth-grader gave the Irvine-based KOB a spot in the 14-Under Pangos Middle School Challenge of Champions tournament semifinals Monday morning at 10 o’clock against Why Not’s Hometown Favorites.
In the other 14U semifinal, the Compton Magic plays Paul George Elite at 11, with the title game set for 1 p.m.
The Paul George program also has a team in the 13-Under finale (noon) Monday, where it will take on the Humble Players.
The Truth (playing with its best player, guard Jason Crowe Jr., sidelined with an ankle injury) went up by a point on a drive by guard Akachi Okoh before KOB got its timeout that set the stage for Raines’ five seconds’ worth of game-winning heroics.
Raines (pictured), who is from San Diego and said he plans to enroll at St. Augustine, scored 22 points while teammate Kaiden Bailey scored an event-high 36 points.
They’ll likely often being played head-up on the Hometown Favorites’ terrific pair of eighth graders, Brandon McCoy and Sean Preston – who scored 18 and 14 points, respectively, against Team Why Not Red Sunday night – in the Monday semifinal.
The Compton Magic (which rallied to beat KOB, 63-53, earlier Sunday in a pool-play contest) had too much both inside (6-foot-5 Jaidyn Smith) and from the perimeter (Justice Griffith, Isaiah Rogers and C.J. Richardson) during its 72-59 quarterfinal with San Diego-based Players Play.
In then final quarterfinal Sunday night, Paul George Elite cruised past another San Fernando Valley-based squad, Raycon Elite, 73-53.
Four players – Delan Grant (15), Joe Sterling (14), Brennen Martinson (12) and Amir Jones (11) – scored in double figures for the Paul George Elite.
Several of these players are also likely to be among the standouts next weekend at McBride High during the annual Pangos All-American Middle School Camp which will draw some of the top seventh- and eighth-graders from across the country.
Each of Monday’s four games will be live-streamed and archived on BallerTV.
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