As the AAU season reaches full-tilt, the Class of ‘09ers have stepped into the spotlight given that their predecessors now have one foot out the door on their way towards graduation and college campuses. This short window from mid-April through June gives the current high school juniors a taste of what life will be next year when they’re the big man on campus. But these guys won’t have to go it alone next year. Though many of these kids won’t have a platoon of superstars behind them like we saw in SoCal this past year - Jrue Holiday, DeMar DeRozan, Larry Drew, even Brandon Jennings (despite playing across the country at Oak Hill Academy) - they all share the spotlight in one way or another. Well, everybody but Lance.
Renardo Sidney (Fairfax; Los Angeles, Calif.) - The impossibly versatile big man is definitely big enough to occupy the stage on his own, but he’s part of a one-two punch in SoCal with Dominguez’s Jordan Hamilton. While Sidney is known for his ability to step out and knock down a jumper - things that normally cause a high school big man to trip over his own feet - he’s not as versatile as his regional partner. Hamilton is a 6-7, 210 lbs. point forward built in the mold of (dare we say it…) Magic Johnson. Hamilton posted 24.2 points per game and pulled down 11.0 rebounds despite bombing away from behind the arc often. While Sidney’s Fairfax team lost in the city championships to Larry Drew’s Taft (Woodland Hills, Calif.), Hamilton led his Dons to the State Division I title game. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been a huge spring for some of New Jersey’s finest.
Coming off of an undefeated 32-0 championship season at St. Anthony’s, PG Mike Rosario is headlining a new era of Rutgers basketball. Rosario showed that he’s an elite guard at the McDonald’s All-American game, posting 18 points (8-13 FG) to go with 5 steals. And he’s got to be smiling ear-to-ear since his future coach Freddie Hill has locked up the No. 4 ranked ‘09 recruiting class: 6-9 Greg Echenique, 6-6 Dane Miller, and 6-7 Austin Johnson are three legit prizes.
On the court, Rosario’s teammate Dominic Cheek is separating himself from the pack of ‘09 shooting guards at each and every AAU tournament he enters. In mid-April, Cheek and the Playaz Club Juniors bowled over the Harlem Pride at the Nike iS8 106-86 on the heels of 33 points from Cheek. The kid can flat out shoot. A couple of weeks later, he impressed again at the King James Classic, being compared to a young Kerry Kittles, stroking six triples
- only one of which actually touched the rim.
Cheek has to get ready for the biggest event of his summer, the Reebok All-American Camp (July 6-10) when he can expect to face off with the likes of Renardo Sidney and Kenny Boynton.
The third member of St. Anthony’s trio, Tyshawn Taylor decommitted from Marquette after news dropped that Tom Crean left the Golden Eagles for Indiana. Taylor followed in the footsteps of fellow Jersey-ite, big man Quintrell Thomas to Kansas. Taylor can now say that he’s the only player in the nation who is going from a high school championship team to a DI championship team.
It seems there has been a mass exodus from the Indiana hoops program ever since ex-coach Kelvin Sampson lost his job amidst scandal: in addition to the expected departures of seniors D.J. White (a possible first-round NBA Draft pick) and Lance Stemler, freshman superstar Eric Gordon declared for the Draft and quickly signed with an agent (Gordon wasn’t a fan of the school’s decision to let Sampson go), and since then a handful of players have been either cut from the program or have decided to transfer.
Fortunately for the Hoosiers, new coach Tom Crean has been filling the vacancies quickly. He already has a Letter-of-Intent from Class of ‘08 forward Tom Pritchard, who gained mainstream attention a few months ago when he stole the show in what was supposed to be a nationally-televised showcase for St. Edward (Ohio) High School teammate Delvon Roe and UCLA-bound Jrue Holiday. Shooting guard Matt Roth (Illinois) is also part of the new freshman class, and Crean is also bringing in Nick Williams, an Alabama-bred big guard who originally signed with Crean at Marquette, and JC transfer Devon Dumes, a point guard from junior-college powerhouse Vincennes.
Just recently, the Hoosiers landed a late signee in Verdell Jones, a 6-4 point guard from Central H.S. in Champaign, Ill. Jones is one of the Top 25-30 point guards in the country, a slick ball-handler and passer who has good height for the position but could stand to add a few pounds. Jones chose IU over Minnesota and Kentucky.
And looking ahead, Indiana got a recent commitment from Maurice Creek, a highly-rated shooting guard in the Class of ‘09, who plays at famed South Kent Prep in Connecticut. Four-star recruit Derek Elston, a 6-8 rising senior forward from the Hoosier State, has also verballed to IU.
This could be the biggest recruiting news all year. Frankly, it could be the biggest recruiting news since the modern era.
Lance Stephenson and Renardo Sidney want to go to school together.
This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard someone’s name attached to Lance Stephenson’s. Earlier this year, the Lincoln phenom was rumored to enjoy playing with St. Patrick’s (Elizabeth, N.J.) Dexter Strickland so much that the two were planning to tear up the ACC at North Carolina. But Strickland’s commitment to the Heels came and went without word from Stephenson on his possible destination.
After visiting UCLA’s campus this weekend, the rumors have gone full-tilt that Ben Howland could land the two top prospects in the Class of ‘09. Nothing makes the memory of Kevin Love’s outlet passing fade away like the possibility of nabbing two unparalleled talents. Read the rest of this entry »
Notes from Saturday’s Jordan Brand All-American Classic…
PRE-GAME
Blame the Spurs vs. Suns game for my not getting to MSG before tip-off. If Mike Finley and Tim Duncan hadn’t conspired to send that game into double-overtime, I would have gotten an earlier start on my laundry and would have left the house earlier. Oh well … As I’m getting my press pass at the VIP/media entrance, Jadakiss and crew show up. “What’s up with those Styles P floor seats?” Jada wants to know. One of the MSG employees informs ‘Kiss he’s got nine tickets for him and his boys. Of course, he wants 11. Before they get it worked out, I’m in the elevator …
FIRST HALF
Just as I get out to the court, 6-11 Tony Woods (Wake Forest) gets a vicious dunk over everybody. Yep, this is a high school all-star game alright … All of the players are wearing Jordan 23’s designed to match the Blue and White team unis. I’d take the blue/black/white kicks, but both are actually pretty sick … Read the rest of this entry »
Some kids you can tell from the beginning. From the time they tear up the high school scene as freshmen - sometimes even as eighth graders - you might as well book their flight to the nationally televised prep all-star games for their senior year. At last Saturday’s Jordan Brand All-American Classic some of those types of kids, now young men, were on display: ones like Tyreke Evans, Brandon Jennings, Samardo Samuels and B.J. Mullens.
Iman Shumpert wasn’t one of those guys. As recently as his junior year, the Oak Park-River Forest H.S. (Illinois) guard wasn’t considered a five-star recruit or a Top-100 type of player in his class. But one breakout summer and a senior season that saw him average 18 points, 6 boards, 3 assists and 3 steals per game launched him to All-America status; the Georgia Tech signee played in both the McDonald’s game and the JBAAC this year, putting up 7 points, 5 assists and 3 steals for the White team.
I got up with Iman in the tunnel at Madison Square Garden a few minutes after the Jordan game, where he talked about the week that was his All-American experience.
Dime: What has this week been like? Iman Shumpert: I got here Wednesday morning, and we’ve done everything — walking around seeing stuff, going to help little kids work on their basketball skills, talking to a bunch of kids and signing autographs at a Foot Locker, going to “106 & Park” on BET. Everything we’ve done has all been fun. I like New York; I’d never been here before. Read the rest of this entry »
In 2006, Rick Barnes found a gem in Sugar Land, Texas - a 5-11 point guard ranked toward the bottom of the Top 50 by the name D.J. Augustin. Two years later and about two hours east of Sugar Land in Port Arthur, Texas, the Longhorns’ chief has landed another stud. J’Covan Brown slipped under some high-majors’ radars, but this 6-2 prospect is going to be the real deal. He plays the game with the kind of pop that will make him a fan-favorite: he’s a live wire who delivers passes into his teammates hands while looking away and zooms past defenders with one swift move.
For high school fans who want to align themselves with a flashy, exciting youngster, J’Covan is the underdog choice. And with Augustin close to deciding that he’s going to the League, Brown will surely see time alongside A.J. Abrams in one of the Big 12’s best backcourts.
Check out THIS CLIP of J’Covan slicing and dicing thanks to High School Hopefuls…
With the announcement of Tyreke Evans‘ college choice at 3 PM tomorrow, news has leaked through sources close to Tyreke that he’s made the call to play for John Calipari at Memphis.
Even though Jay Wright recently guaranteed him that he wouldn’t play point guard at Villanova, given their platoon of Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher, word is that Evans was always going to be a Tiger.
“Coach Wright talks to Tyreke and Tyreke is happy to get his calls,” said the source, “but I think the people at Villanova feel he’s going to Memphis. They would love to have Tyreke, and Jay would be willing to maybe go with four guards. You have to go after a local star, that’s what a top-25 program like Villanova is supposed to do. But the feeling is that Tyreke was always going to wind up at Memphis.”
In Dime #40 (on newsstands now), we profiled Class of ‘08 stars Marcus and Markieff Morris, who are headed to the national champion Kansas Jayhawks.
WORDS. ANDREW KATZ
In retrospect it seems impossible. As 6-4 and 6-5 eighth graders, North Philadelphia natives Marcus and Markieff Morris were almost totally overlooked as future hoops stars. Sure, they were destined to fill their respective 6-8 and 6-9 frames someday, but back then the twins really had no idea what they were doing on the hardwood.
That didn’t last long. Today the twins are one of the most dominant one-two punches in high school hoops, starring as fifth-year post-graduates at Apex Academies (Pennsauken, N.J.), where on some nights they account for as many points between them as the entire opposing team. Marcus and ’Kieff are headed to Kansas after de-committing from Memphis twice within the last year.
“It’s day and night,” notes Chris Martin, a teammate at Apex who has known the twins since their freshman year of high school. “When they were young bulls, they weren’t really coordinated like that. I mean they could play a little bit, but they wasn’t half as good as they are now.” Read the rest of this entry »
Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl just lost All-SEC senior Chris Lofton, and his #2-seed Volunteers didn’t go as far in the NCAA Tournament as most people thought they would. But Pearl couldn’t have been too upset for too long — he just landed a commitment from one of the high school Class of ’08’s best previously-undecided players: Scotty Hopson, who ripped it up at University Heights Academy in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
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