Frank Burlison

SACRAMENTO – Fifty-eight games down with 30 more on tap for Sunday.

That’s how Session One of the 2014 Nike Elite Youth Basketball League stood after Saturday’s second day of play at the Jackson Sports Academy during the first week of the Nike EYBL spring “season”.

I did my very best to zero in, from courtside – from start to finish – on seven of those games Saturday.

Here are some of my observations – often of the “random” variety:

*The “Lawson Brothers” put on a nifty display while helping Team Penny (with players from in and around Memphis) the St.

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SACRAMENTO, Ca. – Session 1 of the 2014 version of Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League tipped off Friday night at the Jackson Sports Academy.

I was courtside for two of the 10 games played, which allowed me to zero in on – up-close and personal – two of the five best players in the national class of 2015.

And Cheick Diallo (Team SCAN/Centerreach, NY, Our Saviour New American) and Allonzo Trier (Athletes First/Rockville, MD, Montrose Christian) more than delivered the goods.

The six-foot-eight Diallo (who came to the United States, from the African nation of Mali a little more than two years ago) dominated play, in and around the lane, while helping his team edge Canada’s CIA (Christians in Action) Bounce club, 46-44.

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GARDEN GROVE, CA. – The two-day, 110-team, 11^th Southern California Hoop Review proved to be a nice preview, of sorts, for the 2014 California Supreme program that is part of the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League field.

It may be the deepest – if not the best, per se – squad put together by director Gary Franklin and coach Miles Simon.

A more vivid indication of how good this version of the California Supreme squad is will be not be available until opening weekend – April 25-27, in Sacramento – of the 2014 EYBL season.

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GARDEN GROVE, Ca. – The 11^th Southern California Hoop Review – arguably the top spring “evaluation event” in the West that will be held outside of the one weekend that NCAA coaches can attend – is on tap Saturday and Sunday at the Next Level Sports Complex.

Action begins at 9:30 each morning and wraps up at about 9:30 in the evening.

Approximately 110 Western-based club program teams are scheduled to participate, including Superior Athletes (led by a trio of 2015 standouts in Kendall Small, Stephen Thompson Jr and Jeremy Hemsley); Cal Supreme (Michael Cage Jr.,

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PORTLAND, OR – The World Select squad has knocked off its USA Select counterpart in the past couple of Nike Hoop Summit games.

How strong are the 2014 World squad’s chances of pulling a third consecutive win Saturday night in the Rose Garden?

I would say “darn strong”, based upon what I observed in three days’ worth of the respective teams practices (including a Team USA scrimmage vs. a group of former college players Thursday night in the Portland Trail Blazers’ training facility) I watched.

Those chances would be significant if only because of the presence on the World team of three players that were together with all 11 Team USA players during the McDonald’s All-American Game festivities last week in Chicago.

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