Frank Burlison

COLORADO SPRINGS – Eighteen members of the Class of 2018 are among the 54 players on hand for the two-day, USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team “mini-camp”.

For those seniors, it’s another opportunity to pad their resume in order to get a spot on the USA squad that will play in the Nike Hoop Summit Game in Portland in April.

And, with multiple Selection Committee voters (myself included) on hand, it’s also another way to build their cases for inclusion on the McDonald’s All-American team that will be unveiled in mid-January.

[Click to continue reading]

CULVER CITY, Ca. – The First-ever “Ryse Up Fall Classic”, in honor of the late basketball star Ryse Williams, is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday at Culver City High.

Williams, a four-year varsity letterman at Redondo High, died from the effects of an extremely rare form of cancer on June 22 – a day before he and the rest of the Redondo senior class were scheduled to go through graduation ceremonies.

The 6-foot-3 Williams was a two-time all-CIF Southern Section selection and had signed a national letter of intent last November to attend Loyola Marymount University as a member of its basketball program.

[Click to continue reading]

Many of the very best high school programs from Southern California will be taking part in the “Hoops for Houston” event to be held Saturday and Sunday at Culver City and Pasadena Maranatha high schools.

Thirty-four different teams will play a collective 21 games, eight each at Culver City and Maranatha on Saturday and five at Maranatha on Sunday.

All the proceeds from the paid admissions ($10 daily) will go to Miller Intermediate School in Houston, whose students and their families were among those devastated by the impact of Hurricane Harvey.

[Click to continue reading]

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Ca. – The first-ever PrepHoops So-Cal Top 250 Expo was held Sunday afternoon at Fountain Valley High.

There were approximately 80 players on hand.

But what the event might have lacked in quanity was more than made up for by way of the quality of players and instructors on hand.

Players got in nearly two hours of exceptional teaching from Clint Parks, Kris Johnson, Aaron Wright, Dominique Dunning, A.J. Gaspora and D’Cean Bryant (the coach at the host school).

Collectively, there isn’t a better group of “skills instructors” to be found anywhere.

[Click to continue reading]

LAKEWOOD, Ca. – It was a “quasi rematch” of the 2017 CIF Southern Section and State Regional Open Division championship games.

And the Santa Ana Mater Dei Monarchs made the “third time the charm” Sunday afternoon at Artesia High during the title game of the fourth Ron Massey Memorial Fall Hoops Classic.

Harvard-bound point guard Spencer Freedman’s eight-foot runner in the lane with two seconds to play gave the Monarchs a 55-53 victory over the Torrance Bishop Montgomery Knights in the last of the 12 games played in the “Elite 8” bracket over the two-day event

There were also eight “Showcase” games played, with 15 teams participating (L.A.

[Click to continue reading]