Nothing “borderline” about Las Vegas hoops event talent

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LAS VEGAS — The collective four-best boys’ basketball players in the Classes of 2024, ’25 and ’26 will be on the same court over a three-hour period Saturday evening at Bishop Gorman High.

The championship semifinals of The Border League will be played at 4:30 (Napa, CA, Prolific Prep vs. Miami Columbus) and 6:15 (Montverde, FL, Prep vs. Chandler, AZ, Compass Prep), respectively, on the school’s main gymnasium floor.

Montverde (aka in this event, “The Florida Eagles) starts a lineup of strong candidates for the 2024 McDonald’s All-American team, including center Derik Queen (originally from the Baltimore area), forward Liam McNeeley (by way of the Dallas metro area) and point guard Rob Wright (Philadelphia).

But the uber-deep squad’s top player — and, possibly, the leading candidate to be the No. 1 selection in the 2025 NBA draft — is 6-foot-9, Cooper Flagg (who is from Maine), who can impact a game in just about way possible.

The outcome of the first semifinal will likely be dictated by the performances of the two best players from the Class of 2025 (Prolific Prep’s 6-7 A.J. Dybansta and Columbus’ 6-8 Cameron Boozer) and ’26 (Prolific Prep’s 6-7 Tyran Stokes).

Each member of the foursome was consistently productive and often spectacular while helping their teams to first-round wins in the event’s eight-team “Top Flight” division Friday.

Columbus (“The Explorers”, 76-53 over Henderson, NV, Coronado “Air Nado”) and Montverde (86-58 over Arlington VA, O’Connell) wore down their outmatched foes, while the host school’s squad “L.V. Orange” suffered a similar fate against Compass Prep.

Only California State Open 2023 champion Harvard-Westlake (“The L.A. Basketball Club” here) had a reason chance at a de facto “upset” Friday.

Led by the three returning starters from the team that won the state crown in Sacramento (guard Trent Perry, who committed to USC later Friday night; Harvard-bound Robert Hinton and multi-skilled, 6-8 junior Nikolas Khamenia), “LABC” trimmed a 23-point deficit to a point with about three minutes to go.

But Stokes, Dybansta and senior Derrion Reid (by way of Georgia) made all the key plays down the stretch — including turning rebounds after two of their own free-throw misses into layups — to hang on, 81-70.