Frank Burlison

LAS VEGAS – Many of the nation’s high school and prep school basketballs stars were in alignment over the past weekend during The Border League.

And — as anticipated —the largest constellation shined ever-so-brightly for Florida-based, prep school powerhouse Montverde Academy.

Sunday night the Eagles blasted to a 16-point advantage at intermission then withstood a Boozer-brother led rally and held off Miami’s Columbus High, 83-77, at Bishop Gorman High for the championship of the eight-team, GEICO Top Flight Invitational division.

The division also included four other “traditional high school” programs in Bishop Gorman, Coronado (in near-by Henderson), SoCal powerhouse Harvard-Westlake and Arlington (VA) O’Connell, along with two other prep-school powers in Napa (CA) Prolific Prep and Chandler (AZ) Compass Prep.

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LAS VEGAS — Championships in seven of the events nine divisions — and showcase games in the other two — are on tap for Sunday’s final day of The Border League at Bishop Gorman and other sites within an 18-or so-mile radius of the campus.

Of course, all the games since Friday’s action began have been showcases:

No. 1,  for the teams’ coaches, to give them an idea of what they need to improve upon and polish as the real season rapidly approaches.

No. 2, for a lot of college coaches to evaluate the players involved and — often — to be seen by a lot of those players as a remainder to the kids that they think enough of them to how much those coaches’ programs want to sign them to letters of intent next month, and finally:

No.

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LAS VEGAS — The collective four-best boys’ basketball players in the Classes of 2024, ’25 and ’26 will be on the same court over a three-hour period Saturday evening at Bishop Gorman High.

The championship semifinals of The Border League will be played at 4:30 (Napa, CA, Prolific Prep vs. Miami Columbus) and 6:15 (Montverde, FL, Prep vs. Chandler, AZ, Compass Prep), respectively, on the school’s main gymnasium floor.

Montverde (aka in this event, “The Florida Eagles) starts a lineup of strong candidates for the 2024 McDonald’s All-American team, including center Derik Queen (originally from the Baltimore area), forward Liam McNeeley (by way of the Dallas metro area) and point guard Rob Wright (Philadelphia).

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LONG BEACH — St. John Bosco High sophomore Brandon McCoy Jr. capped a superb two days of action Sunday afternoon, scoring 25 points to pace the white jerseys to a 120-115 victory in the Top 25 Cream of the Crop all-star game that wrapped up the 20^th Pangos All-West Frosh/Soph Camp at McBride High.

That performance probably was the final nudge that gave him the camp’s overall Most Outstanding Player designation over Tyran Stokes (Napa Prolific Prep), a camp teammate — “San Jose State” — cohort from the USA 16U team last summer.

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LONG BEACH — Two hundred-plus players, from 13 states and Canada, were on hand at McBride High Saturday afternoon for the start of the two-day, 20^th annual Pangos All-West Frosh/Soph boys’ basketball camp.

And the event had plenty of what passes for “star power”, relative to the regional and national classes of 2026.

*Tyran Stokes (Napa Prolific Prep) and Brandon McCoy Jr. (St. John Bosco), teammates on the USA 16U national team last summer, were too skilled, too quick, and too bouncy for their competition Saturday afternoon.

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