Frank Burlison

COLORADO SPRINGS – Saturday’s Day II of the USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team Minicamp is in the book after several nifty individual match-ups – and a spectacular sequence by one of best guards in the Class of 2020.

Six-foot-four Josh Christopher (Mayfair High in Lakewood, CA) provided the latter in an evening session scrimmage in the U.S. Olympic Training Center’s Sports Center 2 gymnasium.

Another like-sized and California-based guard, Jalen Green (Prolific Prep in Napa by way of Fresno), did his usual “dang, it’s like he’s bouncing on a trampoline!”

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COLORADO SPRINGS – The heaviest concentration of high school talent in one place for the foreseeable future is in town for the annual USA Basketball Junior National Team October Minicamp.

Approximately 80 players – spread across all of the high school grade levels – were spread across eight teams, with drills beginning Friday morning and drills continuing, with some scrimmaging, taking place in the evening in the USA Olympic Training Centers two basketball facilities.

Twenty-one of those athletes are members of the Class of 2020 (seniors), notable among those being the consensus No.

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DUNCANVILLE, Tx. – The Dallas-based Oak Cliff Faith Family Academy boys’ basketball program won the Texas State 4A championship last spring.

Based upon what transpired during the Pangos All-South Frosh/Soph Camp Saturday and Sunday in the Duncanville Fieldhouse, it may be something like “Thank you, Texas .  . . may we have another?” in 2020.

Three sophomores from the program, Trae Clayton, Dallas Hobbs and Jordan Walsh, were among the “best of the best” at the event and were among my choices for the Top 25 performers in the camp.

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DUNCANVILLE, TX – Texas may be smack dab in the middle of high school football season.

And, by the way, all things football – especially the high school version of the sport – are pretty big in this state.

Friday Night Lights, anyone?

But the two-day Stop No. 2 on the 2019 Pangos All-Regional Frosh/Soph Camps tour

got underway Saturday at the Duncanville Fieldhouse.

Some terrific Texas high school hoops, anyone?

Approximately 220 players, the overwhelming majority of them from Texas and from the high school classes of 2022 and ’23, were on hand to show why the state can go toe to toe – metaphorically and literally — with the likes of California, Illinois and Florida when it comes to high-level prep hoops.

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CULVER CITY – The third Ryse-Up Fall Classic wrapped Sunday at Culver City High, with six boys’ basketball games played in honor of the late Redondo High standout, Ryse Williams.

Williams died in June of 2017, just a day before his scheduled high school graduation, of a rare form of cancer, Renal Medullary Carcinoma.

Five games were played Saturday at Fairfax High in the first day of the event, proceeds from which go the Ryse Williams Foundation.

Four strong contenders for Open Division Sectional post-season play came away with impressive victories:

*Birmingham, an L.A.

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