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LONG BEACH, Ca. – Tounde Yessoufou continued to use his metaphorical – but powerful – hammer to pound away at the various “Best in the West and National” Class of 2025 ratings Saturday night during Day 1 of the two-day Pangos All-West Frosh/Soph Camp at McBride High.

The 6-foot-6 Santa Maria (CA) St. Joseph sophomore, a late arrival along with St. Joseph teammate, 6-3 freshman Julius Price, smashed rims and defenders’ egos with equal aplomb on the final (of 10) rounds of games Saturday night.

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REDONDO BEACH, Ca. – The sixth annual Ryse-Up Fall Classic boys’ basketball event will be played Saturday and Sunday at Redondo Union High – the alma mater of the late basketball standout whose memory it’s held in honor of.

Ryse Williams, a four-year varsity player and twice all-CIF selection at Redondo, died from the effects of a rare form of cancer – renal medullary carcinoma (which affects the kidneys) – on June 22, 2017, just a day before he was scheduled to take part in Redondo’s graduation ceremony.

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LONG BEACH – Sunday’s Pangos Best of the SoCal Fall Showcase proved another ideal “evaluation” event for a look at some of the better high school players in the region – and using it to gauge how some of the teams will look, too, in the 2022-23 season.

Five games – across the classes of 2027 (current eighth grader), ’26 (freshmen), ’25 (sophomores), ’24 (juniors) and ’25 (seniors) – were played at McBride High, which will also play host to the Pangos All-Frosh/Soph West Camp next Saturday and Sunday.

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DOWNEY, Ca. — The Southern California junior and senior classes were represented by just 21 players at the Beach City Hoops (aka, videographer-extraordinaire Alex Carmon) SoCal Clash Saturday night at Apollo Park.

But the three-game event was exhibit A in the “it’s quality over quantity” basketball evaluation perspective.

Six-foot-nine Zyier Beverly (Washington Prep/he moved back to SoCal, from Florida, earlier in the summer) and 6-8 Marcus Adams (back at Narbonne after a year at a prep school in Corona) shared Most Outstanding Player honors.

Beverly (who might have smashed a dozen dunks in his two games) and Adams (pictured/with a nifty combination of skill and power) demonstrated why they’ve joined junior Tyler Hunt of Venice as front-runners for the 2023 L.A.

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LONG BEACH – The championship game of the Challenge of Champions bracket may have been a tad anti-climatic Sunday afternoon at McBride High.

But, overall, the two-day, Ron Massey Memorial Hall Fall Hoops Classic was nothing short of entertaining and instructive for those looking for insight as to what the 2022-23 boys’ basketball season could entail.

Corona Centennial Coach Josh Giles’ team nearly was knocked off in a championship semifinal Sunday afternoon, when St. John Bosco sophomore forward Kade Bonam’s 16-footer rolled off the rim just before the buzzer to give the Huskies a 56-55 victory over the Braves.

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