COLORADO SPRINGS – Some of Southern California upper-tier boys’ prospects, spread across all four high school classes, were among the approximately 75 players taking part in opening drills and scrimmaging Friday during the first day of USA Basketball’s annual Junior National Team October Minicamp.
The action, held in two gymnasiums on the campus of the USA Olympic and Paralympic Training Center, continues Saturday with 2:30 p.m. MT (athletes from the classes of 2028 and ’27) and 4:45 (’26 and ’25) workouts.
Sunday’s final day of play is split into 9 and 11 a.m., and 2:30 and 4:45 sessions.
Among those from Southern California in the camp are Nik Khamenia (Harvard-Westlake) and Brandon McCoy, Jr. (St. John Bosco/pictured during a Sunday game with SJB, photo courtesy Greg Stein), who led their teams to State Open and Division I titles, respectively, last March in Sacramento.
McCoy is joined at the camp by his newest Braves’ teammate in the Class of 2026, Christian Collins (who attended St. Bernard as a freshman and sophomore).
Brayden Burries, who was selected the BurlisonOnBasketball SoCal and CalHi Sports Junior of the Year for last season, was also a first-day standout from Southern California.
Burries led Eastvale Roosevelt to a 31-4 record in ’23-24, with two of those losses coming to Harvard-Westlake in Open Division title games in the respective CIF Southern and State Southern Regional playoffs.
Others with SoCal ties here are junior guard Jason Crowe, Jr. (now at his father’s alma mater, Inglewood, after two years at Lynwood); senior Mazi Mosley (who attended Heritage Christian as a freshman, and St. Francis the past two years; he’s at Montverde Academy in Florida as a senior) and Sierra Canyon freshman Jordan Mize (who is from Sacramento).
Late scratches from the camp roster were two of the region’s best juniors, Tajh Ariza (Westchester, after two years at St. Bernard) and Alijah Arenas (who led Chatworth to a State D-IV runner-up finish last March).
Zeroing in on a player – or even five-member group of players – can be dicey, at best, with drills often taking place on four half-courts, and scrimmaging on two. It isn’t the best mode of in-depth evaluation.
But here are the non-SoCal guys, in the four classes, that most led me to think “he’s pretty good!” over the course of the respective frosh-soph (’28 and ’27) and junior-senior (’26 and ’25) Friday workouts:
*C/O ’28: Erick Dampier, Jr. (6-foot-9/Ridgeland, MS, Madison Academy).
*C/O ’27: Babatunde Oladotun (6-8/Silver Spring, MD, Blake).
*C/O ’26: Caleb Holt (6-4/Huntsville, AL, Grayson).
*C/O ’25: Darius Acuff, Jr. (6-2/Bradenton, FL, IMG Academy).
It was the first time I’d watched Dampier and Oladotun in person.
Dampier was about as good as I anticipated. He joined the ranks of players whose dads I watched and wrote about as high school, college and NBA players.
Oladotun was even better than I heard.
I’ve watched Holt (first as a freshman-to-be at the June 2022, Pangos All-American Camp) and Acuff multiple times over nearly three years.
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