Frank Burlison

MIAMI, Fl. – Among the standouts of the second Pangos Miami Fantastic 40 was a player whose dad is a legendary NBA jump shooter – including with a notable stint with the Miami Heat.

Ray Allen III, a sophomore at Miami’s Gulliver Prep, dazzled over last weekend with the “Florida Lightning” club team that mostly is made up of Gulliver Prep teammates.

His dad – inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2018 after helping the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat win titles in 2008 and ’13, respectively – was the team’s coach as it won its four games over the weekend at the Pangos Fantastic 40.

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A look at the first three days of the most surreal NCAA men’s basketball tournament ever . . .

*The COVID-10 pandemic forced cancellation of the bulk of the conference tournaments, as well as the entirety of the NCAA tourney, a year ago – and pretty much wreaked havoc through the course of the current season.

The abrupt COVID-related conference tourney pull-outs of Duke and Virginia (ACC) and Kansas (Big 12) just days before the 68-team tourney bracket was revealed on March 14 were harsh reminders that – even with the vaccine-induced euphoria of late – the pandemic hadn’t finished its business of destroy the life-long NCAA tourney teams of so many players and coaches, and their schools’ followers.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – If you’ve come here looking identification of potential “pitfalls” in the way of the Gonzaga Bulldogs becoming the first unbeaten NCAA men’s basketball champion in 45 years, you’ve come to the right place.

But don’t I equate “potential pitfalls” with “likely to derail Mark Few’s club before it wins six tournament games in Indiana”.

OK, for the “potential”:

The 26-0 Bulldogs beat four NCAA tournament teams that are seeded 2 (Iowa), 3 (Kansas and West Virginia) and 4 (Virginia), respectively, by an average margin of just less 13 points.

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ST. GEORGE, Utah – A couple of soon-to-be-high-profile high school players – from near-opposite ends of the country – shared the 10^th annual Pangos Junior High/Middle School All-American Camp Most Outstanding Player honors Sunday afternoon.

Six-foot-three Alexander Lloyd (from Hollywood in Florida), who led the winning White squad to a 76-65 victory in the “Best of the Best” all-star camp that wrapped up the two-day event, and 6-6 Koa Peat (Chandler in Arizona) were each terrific over the course of the event that it was too difficult to separate one from the other when it came to awarding top honors.

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ST. GEORGE, Utah – Arizona was well-represented Saturday during the opening day action of the 10^th annual Pangos Middle School All-American Camp in the Nets on Fire facility.

And none repped the state better than did Koa Peat, who was easily the most dominant “big” player on hand Saturday.

Peat, who attends Aprende Middle School in Chandler, is listed as standing 6-foot-6.

But he’s likely to be a lot closer to 6-9 than 6-6 at some point in what has a chance to be a spectacular high school career.

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