Frank Burlison

ST. GEORGE, UT – The Seattle-based Rotary Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL) 17s squad had a chance to show what might have been Friday night at the Nets of Fire sports facility in the opening day of the Pangos Rocky Mountain Summit.

It has a roster built to challenge as the best on the Nike-fronted spring EYBL and come out atop during July’s Peach Jam championship. But the COVID-19 pandemic dashed those aspirations – and those of the rest of the EYBL’s 40 or so squads.

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CORONA, Ca. – One of the upper-tier grassroots programs in basketball puts it current and former players – as well as its stance on the multitude of social issues of our times – on display Saturday during the “Magic Bubble” event.

Five “pick-up games/scrimmages” were held, involving currents Compton Magic-affiliated players – notably Class of 2021 members Malik Thomas (Damien), Reese Dixon-Waters (St. Bernard) and Isa Silva (Jesuit in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael) and superb sophomore-to-be Mikey Williams (San Diego San Ysidro) – as well as some notable “alumni”.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL – Seven Pacific 12 Conference-bound players are among the 31 BurlisonOnBasketball All-Southern California selections from the Class of 2020.

Notable among those are McDonald’s All-Americans B.J. Boston and Ziaire Williams (each from Sierra Canyon), Josh Christopher (Mayfair) and Evan Mobley (Sierra Canyon).

The college programs landing multiple all-2020 selections were Kentucky (Boston and Devin Askew), USC (Mobley and Boubacar Coulibaly), San Diego State (first-teamers Lamont Butler and Keith Dinwiddie) and UC Irvine (guards Andre Henry and D.J. Davis, first- and second-teamers, respectively).

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LONG BEACH – Sunday’s action during the Pangos SoCal Dandy Dozen club team showcase event served to emphatically drive home this point:

Coach Matt Dunn’s St. John Bosco program could put the best team on the floor for the 2020-21 season – whenever, COVID-19 willing, that takes place.

Several of Dunn’s Braves were on display – notably Jeremiah Nyarko, Scotty Washington and Lamaj Lewis – during the five games played Sunday at the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church.

The 6-foot-7ish Nyarko – originally from Ghana – continued to showcase the remarkable progress he’s made since his freshmen season while climbing the pecking order of the best big players in the western Class of 2022.

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LONG BEACH, Ca. – The first “grassroots” Southern California-based boys basketball event of the spring/summer was held at in the gymnasium of the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church Saturday.

The COVID-10 pandemic has all but shut down “sports”, per se, in not only California but pretty much everywhere in the United States – and the rest of the world – since early March.

But reasonable health-related precautions were taken by event coordinator Dinos Trigonis and his staff for the Pangos Best of SoCal Summer Showcase Saturday, notably temperatures taken of each person going into the gym as well as spectators (and event personnel) abiding by the “wear a mask” edict.

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