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SoCalHoops Tournament News

adidas EBO/EA Fresno Hoops Summit
This Weekend--(May 24, 1999)

Many people have been asking us about the two big Memorial Day high school traveling team tournaments,  EBO's adidas Hoop Summit and the High Five Nike Tournament.  Well, we finally got the list of teams for the EBO tournament and a sort, kinda preliminary schedule from Darren "Mats" Matsubara for the annual (we think it's the 4th annual but we aren't certain) adidas EBO/EA Fresno Hoops Summit.   We're planning to be in Fresno for this one, and we have heard rumors that Mike Miller will be in San Diego, so we'll leave the latter event to him. 

EBO's adidas sponsored tournament will be played in Fresno, at five different locations: Fresno High, Edison High, Washington Union, Computech's basketball facility and McLane.  The first games are on Saturday, May 29, 1999, and play will continue day Sunday, May 30;  the playoffs and championship rounds will be held on Monday, May 31.

If you're planning to attend, you'll want to book a reservation somewhere because Memorial Day weekend, even without the hoops action, is pretty frantic in Fresno, as close as it is to Yosemite and the Sequoias.

We don't have the team rosters, but we do have a list of teams coming.  Here's who we know about, and who we speculate will be attending on some of those teams given past participation:

Again, we don't know all of these teams, but we're pretty familiar with quite a few.  Pump N Run's teams will now be called "Gold", "Silver" and "Bronze" and likewise Rockfish's teams other than the one which will be called "LA Rockfish" will be "Rockfish Navy"   "Rockfish Grey" and "Rockfish White".    We just hope that all the uniforms are color coordinated.:-)

The Pump N Run Gold team (if that's the one coached by Howard Avery) will feature Brandon Brooks, Salim Stoudamire, Heath Bailey, and Antoine Durrell (all from the Northwest. . . Portland and Seattle), Aerick Sanders (6'-10" Jr. F/C) from Serra, Branduinn Fullove (6'-5" Jr. SG/SF) from Simi, Lou Wright (6'-6" Jr. SG) from Westchester, Doyle Cole (6'-4" Jr. SG) from Serra, and maybe a couple of surprise guests.   The Pump Gold team will play IEBP's #2 team at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday at Edison High. 

The Pump N Run  "Silver" team  (or whichever one is being coached by Dave Goosen) will play Oakland Slam N Jam at 3:00 p.m. at McLane, and will have Baker Dunleavy (6'-2" So. SG) from Portland Jesuit, Craig Smith (6'-6" Fr. F/C) from Fairfax, Markee White (6'-4" So. SG/SF) and Jonathan Harper (6'-5" So. SG/SF) from Long Beach Poly, Adam Zahn (6'-5" Fr. SF) from Redondo, Steve Brown (6'-5" So. SG) from Venice, Errick and Derrick Craven (6'-2" So. SG/PG) from Bishop Montgomery, possibly Harrison Schaen (6'-8" Fr. F) who will enroll as a freshman this fall at Mater Dei, and David Gale (5'-11" Fr. PG) from Buckley.

Pump N Run Bronze (or the one coached by John Polin) will most likely have Cody Pearson (6'-3" So. SG/PG) from Notre Dame, Gregg Guenther (6'-9" Jr. PF/C) from Crespi, Kevin Brown (6'-2" Jr. SG) Westchester, Montel Duhon (6'-3" Jr. SG) Venice, Terrance Lawson (6'-4" Jr. G) from Westchester, Walter White (6'-4" Jr. PG/SG) from Redondo, and Kobe Karl (5'-10" Jr. PG) who we understand is George Karl's son.  Pump Bronze will play the Hustling Eagles (a team we've never heard of before) at 1:30 p.m. at Fresno High.

We've been told that the Rockfish guys have now completely shuffled the lineups of their teams around, splitting up what had been the No. 1 team at the Spiece tournament, and distributing those kids who have committed to travel with them this weekend to Fresno among four different teams, so who you'll see on any given team, is really a mystery at this point.  

The Rockfish No. 1 team will still be called simply "LA Rockfish" and on this team we'd expect to see Russell Lakey (5'-11" Jr. PG), Solomon Brown (6'-2" Jr. SG) from Savanna HS, Jacoby Atako (6'-1" Jr. PG) from Santa Monica HS, maybe Alex Graham  (6’-11 So. C) from Redlands HS, Dustin Villepigue (6’-9" So. F) from Simi Valley, probably  Rory O'Neil   (6'-10" So. C) from Burroughs Ridgecrest HS, Anthony Davis (6'-4"   So. SG) from LA Locke HS, and Timothy Drisdom (6'-3" Fr. PG) from Calvary Chapel Downey.  We know that Deverion Mackey (6'-4" Jr. SG/SF) from Pasadena Marshall won't be there (he's got a student government committment--apparently he's the student body vice-president in addition to being a standout basketball player), and we are also uncertain about  Rockfish's best player, the Carlos Boozer look-alike, Julian Sensley (6'-8" Jr. PF), from Kalaheo HS in Hawaii.

Other Rockfish of note who will probably be in attendance will be Jesse Foster (6’-7" Jr. F) from Campbell Hall, Ryan Stacey (6’-7" Jr. SF) from Santa Margarita HS, David Popoola (6’-3" Jr. SG) from Westchester HS,   Matt MacGinnis (6’-3" So. SG) from  Villa Park, Wes Wardrop (6’-3" So. SG) from Loara HS, Josh Dunaj (5’-11" So. PG) from Riverside Poly, Kenny D’Oyen (5’-9" So. PG) from  Bishop Montgomery, Kevin Stacey (6’-2" Fr. SG) from Santa Margarita HS,  Nick Curtis (6’-6" So. F) from Oxnard, Damon Jenkins (6’-3" So. SG) Dos Pueblos, James Jenkins (6’-6" So. SF) from Crescenta Valley HS, Jordan Rush (6’-4" Fr. SG/SF) from Westchester (who is transferring to Crossroads), Will Sheslow (5’-11" Fr. PG) from Montclair Prep HS and Jonathan Todd (6’-6" Fr. F) from Chaminade.  We understand that there will be approximately 12 players per team (48 total) for the Rockfish group, so this is, of course, only a partial list.

The Rockfish teams will play as follows:

Rockfish 1 v. Cal/New York #2--3:00 p.m. Fresno High
Rockfish "Navy" v. QBL Lakewood--3:00 p.m. Computech
Rockfish "Grey" v. ??--1:30 p.m. Edison (the schedule we received was only partially filled out, some games had not been set)
Rockfish "White" v. ??--1:30 p.m. McLane (ditto)

QBL will probably feature the same guys we've all come to know and love, including most of the Artesia HS squad:  Jack Martinez (6'-8" So. F), Amaury Fernandez (6'-8" So. PF), Ryan Reyes, Andre Hazel, Franklin Matos, Jon Steffanson.  Whether Charlie Rodriguez (6'-4" Fr. F) from Clovis West, and Chris Hernandez (6'-0" So. G) also from Clovis West will play with some home-grown team or with QBL is anyone's guess.  And QBL should also have the Samual Nadeau (6'-5" So. F) who played this past season at East Side H.S. in Newark, New Jersey, and they will have their own home-bred player Ryan Mueller (6'-7" So. PF), who contrary to popular belief, did not transfer to Artesia but has always attended schools in the district. According to Wayne Merino, these latter two are "really good" so you know they're pretty special players, and we'll try to get a look at them in that first game agaisnt Rockfish's Navy team.

Oakland Slam N Jam will probably see guys like Joe See (6'-0" So. G) De La Salle, Chris Schlatter (6'-7" Jr. F) De La Salle, Demarshay Johnson (6'-9" So. F/C) Oakland Tech, Termaine Fuqua (6'-9" So.F) Skyline, Dominic Ingerson (6'-3" So.SG/SF) McClymonds, Jamal Hill (6'-4" Jr. SG) El Cerrito, Jair Veldhuis (6'-10" Jr. C) Tamalpasis, Bryan Defares (6'-4" Jr. SG) Tamalpasis, Gary Hill-Thomas (6'-4" Jr. PG/SG) Bishop O'Dowd Damien Carter (5'-9" So.PG) Richmond, Geormel Benson (6'-6" So. F) Lincoln-SF,  and these guys will probably all be on the #1 team.  Since Oakland will also be bringing two other teams, we'd expect to see some of the better players from their spring league.

We're not certain whether Bay Area Ballers will come in disguise as one of the Slam N Jam teams, but if they're not in Fresno, they'll probably be down at the Nike encampment in San Diego.  Although a lot of guys played for other teams during their spring league, it's possible that  Nelson Washington Bay Area Ballers aren't playing elsewhere, and so you might see Cordell Butler from San Mateo, Patrick Denehey from St. Francis, Justin Logan-Bishop O’Dowd, and Chase Lyman-St Francis.

Charles Brown from De La Salle will probably be with the Soldiers II team, as will Ryan Davis from Lincoln, Alex Galloway from Lincoln, and several others.  Hopefully Calvin Andrews will send us reliable rosters, and then we won't have to guess (hint, hint).

Mats' EBO team will undoubtedly have DeShawn Stevenson (6'-5" Jr. SG/SF) from Fresno Washington Union, Luke Whitehead (6'-6" Jr. F) from St. Ignatius, Phillip Johnson (6'-11" So. C) from Arroyo Grande, Chris Lopez (6'-6" Jr. F) from Fresno Edison.  We'd also expect to see Cedric Barrow from Sacramento Grant, and Ronald Dosty also from Sacramento, who last month played for BWBA at the Pump Tournament, but since BWBA isn't playing this weekend, Mats says he'll have them.   Also look for Maurice Tyree, Marcel Cummings, and Deshawn Anderson for the EBO squad. And no, Carlos Boozer won't be playing :-).

IEBP will have the usual laundry list of players, and we never really have any idea who Keith Howard will put on which team until they show up.   But we'd expect to see just about all of these players: George Simpson (5’-5 Jr. PG) Centennial HS (Corona), Chris Smith (5’-8" Jr. PG) Pacific HS (San Bernardino), Jamar Ruffin (6’-0" Jr. PG/SG) from Murrieta Valley HS
Kenneth Mgbeke (6’-0" Fr. PG/SG) J.W. North, Mike Stevenson (6’-0" Jr. PG/SG) Fontana, Derick Andrew (6’-2" Jr. SG)
Rancho Cucamonga, Karim McDougal (6’-4" Jr. SF)Rancho Cucamonga HS, Lamar Ruffin (6’-5" Jr. SF) Murrieta Valley HS Demil Ware (6’-5" Jr. SG/SF) Riverside Arlington, David Joiner (6’-6" Jr. SF) Rialto HS, Brennan Martin (6’-6" Jr. SG/SF)
Trabuco Hills HS, Jordan Walker (6’-6" Jr. SF) Fontana HS, DeMarcus Williams (6’-8" Jr. F/C) from Upland, and a bunch of new young guys we've probably never seen.

Elvert "Kool-Aid" Perry is also bringing an Inland team, and we'd expect to see some of the usually talented young guys who played for Inland during the Rockfish league, but we also might get a glimpse, the first of the late spring-early summer period of Avery Queen (5'-7" Jr. PG), the blindingly quick talent who is on everyone's hot list, including UCLA's for a year from now.  We'd also anticipate that Inland will have Jemar Davis (5’-10" Fr. PG) from Pacific HS in San Bernardino, Leon Rosborough (6’-0" Fr. SG/PG) from Canyon Springs HS (Moreno Valley), Jason Burrell (6’-2" So. SG) from Etiwanda HS (Rancho Cucamonga), Antoine McGee (6’-2" Fr. SG) from Mercersburg Prep (PA),  Michael Hall (6’-3" Jr. SG/SF) from Pacific HS (San Bernardino), Richard Cobbs   (6’-5" 8th Grade SF) who will attend Canyon Springs HS next year. We'd also expect to see Lawrence Carrier (6’-7" Fr. F) from Redlands HS and Brandon Jones (6’-8" So. F/C) from
Canyon Springs HS (Moreno Valley). 

Inland will play the "805" Rim Rattlers, which is a second George Albanez team, and we don't really know who's on it, but we know that 805 features a lot of guys from the Agoura, Santa Barbara, Oxnard and Bakersfield areas.   We'll see if we can reach George to get his rosters before the weekend.

As for the rest, we can guess, but why spoil the suspense.

See you in Fresno.

 The Swish Award
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