Frank Burlison

LONG BEACH and ORANGE, Ca. — Thursday was the first day of the first July NCAA “viewing period”, for men’s’ basketball coaching staffs.

And, from my courtside perspectives at McBride High and Santiago Canyon College, it was a productive one.

Many of the coaching staffs of the western-based college programs were on hand to take up-close looks at the players at two events I attended — the BallerTV/Pangos Premier 80 Showcase  and the Cali-Live Summer Showcase (by way of James Johnson’s Hoop Circuit, the Elite Association Hoops, and ACES).

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ORLANDO, FL — The 29^th National Basketball Players’ Association Top 100 Camp wrapped with a marvelous championship game Friday evening in ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Center at Disney World.

Future Montverde (FL) Academy teammates Cooper Flagg and Robert Wright III led the camp’s “Denver Nuggets” club to an 83-80 victory over its Atlanta Hawks counterpart in the final.

The 6-foot-9 Flagg (who transferred to Montverde Academy a year ago after his freshman season at Nokomiss High in New Hampshire) scored 10 points with 10 rebounds, three blocked shots and two assists in the title game.

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GLENDALE, AZ — Sunday’s final day of the fifth annual Section 7 Boys’ Basketball “extravaganza” — my apt one-word description — wraps up with what should be a scintillating “rematch” from a year ago.

Studio City Harvard-Westlake and Miami Columbia — champions from California and Florida in March — hook up in the Powerade Bracket final at 11:45 a.m., on Court 9, in the State Farm Stadium.

Last June, the programs — with much of the same lineup composition as will take the floor — met in a bracket semifinal.

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GLENDALE, AZ — Day II of the fifth annual Section 7 Boys Basketball Weekend has some nifty second round — and potential seminal — matchups on the floor of the State Farm Stadium.

Notable among those is Saturday morning’s 11:45 clash on Court 9 between a couple of teams that could meet in the 2024 California State Open Division title game in Sacramento.

And the game is six days after the hooked up in a marvelous championship game of the first Cali Live in Irvine last Sunday.

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GLENDALE, AZ — The largest collection of the top boys’ high school teams and players in the west — and beyond — gathers in the annual Section 7 Basketball Tournament this weekend in the State Farm Stadium, home to the NFL’s Phoenix Cardinals.

The stadium’s playing field has been modified to fit 12 regulation-sized courts, where games in nine 16-team divisions and one 12-team bracket tip on Friday at noon.

The action is set to conclude with each of those 10 championship games — and the other teams get one last game, too — that are scheduled to begin at 8 o’clock Sunday morning.

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