Frank Burlison

COLORADO SPRINGS – Aaron Gordon and Billy Donovan had reactions unlike the majority of those who follow college basketball did immediately after it was reported on April 16 that Marcus Smart was going to play a sophomore season at Oklahoma State.

The wide-spread assumption was that the 6-foot-4, 220-pound point guard, after earning Big 12 Conference Player of the Year and All-American honors for his fabulous freshman performance in Stillwater, was going wrap his arms around the opportunity to be among top five or so selections in the June 27 NBA Draft.

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COLORADO SPRINGS – USA Under-19 Coach Billy Donovan said Monday afternoon that he wanted to take a team to Prague that “can really pressure people all over the court, defensively.”

When USA Basketball announced the final 12-player roster Monday night after seven practices over four days, the University of Florida’s coach’s wishes appeared granted.

Five of those selections – guards Marcus Smart (Oklahoma State) and Rasheed Sulaimon (Duke), as well as frontcourt players Jarnell Stokes (Tennessee), Jerami Grant (Syracuse) and Montrezl Harrell (Louisville) – played for Donovan during the USA Under-18 squad run to gold during the 2012 FIBA Championships last June in Brazil.

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The 20^th NBA Players Association Top 100 Camp’s competition  wrapped up Saturday evening with a championship game between the teams that had rolled to semifinal victories a couple of hours earlier.

And, ultimately, it was the Celtics that did the rolling in the finale, cruising past the Mavericks, 81-67, in the John Paul Jones Arena on the University of Virginia campus.

Ja’Quan Newton, a 6-foot-2 senior-to-be at Philadelphia’s Neumann-Goretti High, scored a camp-best 32 points – often while another top 2014 PG, Josh Perkins (from Aurora in Colorado but bound for Huntington Prep in West Virginia), was attempting to defend him – to lead the Celtics, who wrapped up their competition 7 and zip.

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – A camp already laden with quality center prospects in the Class of 2014 picked up another player Friday evening who fits neatly into that category.

Karl Towns, a 7-foot (give or take) senior-to-be from the Dominican Republic – by way of St. Joseph High in Metuchen, NJ — showed up after the other participants at the 20^th NBA Players Association Top 100 Camp had already played three times.

Towns, who committed to the University of Kentucky last season and is expected to sign with the Wildcats in November, got into town with his parents and suited up for the Mavericks for the team’s 8:30 game on Court 1 in the John Paul Jones Arena.

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – How many teams will be able to offer a more impressive starting backcourt than the “Mavericks” squad put on the John Paul Jones Arena floor Thursday night during the 20^th NBA Players Association Top 100 Camp?

That’s a rhetorical question.

The answer is, of course, “almost certainly none”.

With James Blackmon Jr. (Ft. Wayne, IN, Bishop Luers) and Josh Perkins (who announced recently that he will move from his hometown of Aurora, CO to attend Huntington Prep in West Virginia as a senior) dominating the proceedings, the Mavericks burst out to a 20-point advantage after a quarter and then coast to a 30-something-point victory over the Thunder to conclude the second session on the opening day of game-action at the camp being held on the campus of the University of Virginia.

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