LONG BEACH – The Nothing But Net Magazine/Pangos “Diamond in the Rough Showcase”, held at McBride High Saturday, proved to be nice platform for a lot of Southern California-based boys’ hoopsters.
But a bit more than a couple of weeks before the “real” high school season tips off, a bunch of players who made hefty trips to get to Long Beach were nothing short of terrific.
And a couple of Class of 2024 members, via middle America, showed why they’re already a couple of well-polished gems.
Merritt Alderink (West High in Zeeland, MI) and Jonathan Mekonnen (East View High in Apple Valley, MN), each left-handed and each likely targets of a lot of Big Ten Conference – and beyond – programs, were the clear standouts during an event that produced a myriad of terrific performances from the 75 over so players who participated.
Alderink (pictured) was not only the strongest and most vertically explosive player in the gym, but he also displayed a level of basketball skill (at both end of the floor), effort and savvy that – despite what many assume in this era of social media-driven narrative – is rarely found on the high school and grassroots level.
He scored 14 points and grabbed at least as many rebounds – and defended aggressively, from the low post to the 3-point line – as the black jerseys rallied from a 21-point deficit to knock off their white-wearing counterparts, 89-87, in the Top 30 Crème of the Crop all-star tilt that wrapped things up Saturday night.
Six-seven Sage Wayans, a June graduate of South Pasadena High now playing for L.A. Premier Prep, scored a team-high 21 points including the winning bucket.
The slender Mekonnen looked like the smoothest and most effective deep jump shooter in the event during his two game camps with the “Suns”.
And that observation was locked in by way of his 25-point effort for the white jerseys in the Top 30 game, a performance that included five 3s.
Another “distant traveler” who was among the better players at the camp was 6-3 Damarion Clemons, a multi-skilled sophomore who traveled from Texas with his father (who said he once attended near-by Wilson High, ironically the alma mater of Pangos CEO Dinos Trigonis).
Clemons is good enough to have made the Top 30 all-star game during the Pangos South Frosh/Soph Camp in in Texas earlier in October. But he couldn’t participate because his Round Rock (TX) Stony Point High team was in a fall tournament that weekend.
Another player who had to utilize an airline to get to the event, 6-3 Isaiah Cunningham (Lincoln in Tacoma, WA), once more showed why he is one of the better Class of 2025 prospects from the Pacific Northwest.
A couple of terrific junior guards from one of Northern California’s top programs, Salesian Prep in Richmond, also showed up.
Aaron Claytor (who played as a freshman and sophomore for Iolani in Honolulu) was, perhaps, the best “traditional” point guard at the event and one of the three-best passers in the building, along with Alderink and Leuzinger’s 6-4 Joshua Garland.
And his now-teammate and classmate, Zander Jimenez, has a 4.3 GPA and is one of the state’s best hurdlers. He hit three 3s in one of his camp games, and nailed one in the Top 30 clash.
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