Frank Burlison | High School Basketball | College Basketball
LAS VEGAS – Wednesday, Day 1 of the final NCAA evaluation period in July, is a wrap!
Bishop Gorman High, home to the Fab 48, was the first stop on five-day stretch of hoops watching.
And here we go . . .
There were three sets of two exhibition games, played side-by-side, on Gorman’s court’s 1 and 2 (there is even a court 3 on the other of the building, where games will also be played when pool-play action gets under way Thursday morning at 8 o’clock).
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LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA – And the NCAA’s first evaluation “week” (ok, four-day period of 5 p.m. Wednesday to ditto on Sunday) for July is a wrap.
And we get to repeat the process this Wednesday (July 18)!
But, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, here’s a quickie recap on what happened on the final day of the first period in Southern California, beginning with . . .
*The Double Pump Tournament (the American Sports Center/Anaheim): In an inter-program confrontation for the 17-under finale, Double Pump Elite (2013) knocked off Pump ‘n Run Elite.
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LONG BEACH, CA – The brief (two-day) Fullcourt Press All-West Camp (presented by Pangos) was capped by three all-star games Thursday night at Cabrillo High – shockingly, even as rain fell in Sunny Southern California!
Nothing quite as startlingly as July rain took place on the floor but the 30-plus college coaches and various recruiting analysts –including yours truly, Joel Francisco (ESPN.com), Josh Gershon and Greg Hicks (Scout.com) and Chad Groth (Area Codes Basketball) – in attendance got a look at some solid prospects, both well-known and others getting their first large-scale exposure.
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NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Led by Nigel Williams-Goss, the Georgetown team rallied from 17 points downs in the first half to knock off Michigan State, 80-77, in the championship game of the LeBron James Skills Academy Monday night.
The comeback – with James and Anthony Davis, who led Kentucky to a national title last spring before being the first pick in the NBA Draft last month, looking on – continued an impressive summer for Williams-Goss, who plays for Henderson-based Findlay Prep about 20 minutes southwest of the Rancho High campus on which the event was held.
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NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Parker Jackson-Cartwright couldn’t have had a more discerning audience sitting along one of the baselines for his opening game of the LeBron James Skills Academy Sunday afternoon in Rancho High’s main gymnasium.
The cozy gathering was made up of NBA standouts/2012 Olympians Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Chris Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers, Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks and the man himself.
And the diminutive (5-foot-8ish and maybe 140 pounds) junior-to-be from Loyola High in Los Angeles dominated things much in the fashion that the man the camp is named for did during many of the 2012 NBA playoff games for Miami – minus a foot and 120 pounds or so, of course.
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