LYNWOOD, Ca. – Approximately 90 players were on hand Saturday afternoon at Lynwood High for the first two rounds of games during the Pangos All-American Preview Camp.
The bulk of those were from in and around Southern California with the lure of the camp being that playing well enough on Saturday and Sunday could help a player bag an invitation the mega-prestigious, June 5-7 Pangos All-American Camp in Las Vegas.
But a player who covered the longest trek to the event – 2,150-plus air miles from Florida – was as impressive as anyone during the first two sets of games among the 10 camp “teams”.
Chris Arias, a 6-foot-6 sophomore from the Providence School of Jacksonville, scored 15 and 27 points, respectively, during the “Michigan” wins over “Iowa” and “Ohio State”.
Arias, a standout with the Southeast Elite 16s teams on the adidas club circuit and a member of the Puerta Rican 17s’ national program, pushed his fluid ball-handling skill, deceptive quickness and vertical pop, and air-tight jump shot – knocking in three 3s in his first game and five in the second.
Arias (pictured) has been offered scholarships by coaching staffs from in-state programs at the University of North Florida and Jacksonville University.
If his two performances on Saturday can serve as a barometer, he could be well on the way toward being recruited by three other Florida-staffs in the Atlantic Coast and Southeastern conferences.
Another Saturday standout from the deep-south region was 6-6 junior Dylan Purnell, who is from Raleigh (NC) but is attending Tennessee Prep in Memphis.
Purnell, who also played well in the late-October version of this camp in Long Beach, opened Saturday afternoon’s action with 17 points – including a so-smooth-yet-so-eye-popping soaring one-hand snag of a pass and finish over the top of a 6-8 defender – in “Oregon’s” first game.
He added 26 more –including three 3s – a few hours later.
And one more from a great distance from Cali – 6-3 Jalen Milt (a junior from Norview in Norfolk, VA), who shot it as deep as anyone on display Saturday, dropping five 3s (27 points) for “Stanford” in his first game and then a couple more from behind the arc in a 26-perforamnce in the early evening.
OK, among the local cats:
*Bishop Montgomery – which finished at No. 4 in the BurlisonOnBasketball SoCal team ratings – was well-repped by four members of its strong junior class in Will Smith III, Xavier Edmonds, Kelsey Phelps and Will Brenner;
*Harvard-Westlake, which was 25-4 while losing to Corona Centennial in the CIF SS Open Division title game, will be on the short list of the best teams in California again in 2022-23.
And two of the reasons why are two current sophomores in 6-5 Robert Hinton and 6-3 Trent Perry, veterans of Pangos Frosh-Soph Camps who were among the upper-tier of 2024 prospects at Lynwood Saturday;
*Two of Hinton’s fellow standouts for the Why Not 16s team that competes on the Nike/EYBL circuits, 6-1 freshman Gavin Hightower (L.A. Windward) and 6-4 sophomore Ben Roseborough (Sacramento by way of Prolific Prep in Napa), were also dealing in the realm of the “un-guardable” – mostly by way of their nails’ jump shots, Saturday.
Action resumes Sunday morning with two rounds of camp games (beginning at 10) followed by all-star games at 1:15 and 2:15 in the afternoon.
All games are live-streamed and archived by BallerTV.
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