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SoCalHoops Tournament News

Long Beach Fall Hoops Classic:
More Highlights & Profiles, Day 1--(Sept. 12, 1998)

We didn't get to the LBCC gym until this one was almost over, but we saw just enough to know that Dart Stamps' TPI team is one of the top teams in this tournament. Besides Houston Hoops, which may once again be the most athletic and talented team, QBL which is a local powerhouse, and maybe The Hood, featuring most of the Dominguez guys, TPI could very well take it all. The TPI team features:

Casey Jacobsen (6'-6" Sr. SG) Glendora
Joe Shipp (6'-5" Sr. SG) Fairfax
Chris Osborne (6'-9" Sr. PF/C) Westchester
James Wright (5'-11" Sr. PG) Manual Arts
Armand Thomas (6'-8" Sr. F) Crenshaw
Johnny Hardwick (6'-10" Sr. C) Manual Arts
Jason Morrissette (6'-4" Jr. SG) Fairfax
Gilbert Arenas (6'-3" Sr. SG) Grant--injured
Felipe Williams (6'-3" Jr. SG) Crossroads
Brandon Heath (6'-4" Fr. G/F) Westchester
Jason McKinney (5'-10" Fr. G) Westchester
Keith Everage (6'-4" Fr. G) Westchester

Casey was fresh off his committment to Stanford, and on his way to showing everyone that he is and will continue to be one of the best on the west coast and in all of Division I basketball. He scored 28 points, played great defense, and in general was superlative. Joe Shipp is back to full strength again and Johnny Hardwick looked 100% better than he did when we last saw him at the end of the summer in the Best of Summer tournament where he literally sleepwalked through most of the games. It was nice to see that the month off has helped him regain his edge, and he rebounded and shot very well.

Say No Classic, coached by Milton Gentry, was just hopelessly out-manned and out-played. Say No Classic is basically the entire Muir team:

Jonathan Williams (6'-1" Sr. G) Muir
Nate Johnson (6'-3" Sr. G) Muir
TJ (Chris) Johnson (6'-0" Sr. G) Muir
Darrelle Rowe (5'-10" Jr. G) Muir
Jeff Washington (6'-1" Sr. G) Muir
Jason Bonwell (6'-2" Sr. G) Muir
Nate Miller (6'-0" Sr. G) Muir
John Parker (6'-4" Sr. G/F) Muir

As you can see, this team was really playing out of its element, going against some of the top D-1 prospect talent in all of SoCal. They are not a bad group of athletes, and many of them would do quite well themselves at mid to low D-1, but collectively, they came in without much of a chance, and left with long faces. Oh well, tomorrow they'll hopefully pick it up against Orange County Future Stars, that is if the Future Stars show (they didn't tonight, and their 10:15 p.m. game against Inland at Long Beach Wilson was cancelled.

Some other random notes and highlights:

Team Upland:

Demarcus Williams (6'-8" Jr. F/C) from Upland High, is back and his right foot seems better. He played very well against Colorado, scoring and rebounding well. Demarcus is getting some attention from Stanford and USC; look for him to get a whole lot more high D-1 attention by the time he's a senior.

Matt Santos (5'-10 Sr. PG) from Upland High: This guy is a major talent, and he should be getting a lot more attention than he is getting, which is, in reality, considerable. He's had some interest from Oregon, Santa Clara, ASU and UCSB, and the latter is apparently trying hard to get involved with him. Tonight he had about 11 points and 11 assists.

Desmond Penigar (6'-6" Sr. F) from Upland: Tall, smooth, good defender, athletic and scored about 13 points tonight. Should be getting more interest from mid-major D-I's.

Bay Area Ballers:

Derek Lambeth (6'-5" Sr. F) from Oakland Bishop O'Dowd: Derek is a really solid player who stood out tremendously, handled the ball, and shot the lights out, scoring 16 points in the game against IEBP Ballers & Players.

Robert Sayle (6'-6" Sr F) from San Francisco St. Ignatius: Robert is a strong, physical post player who has gotten strong this summer. He runs the floor well, jumps and uses his skills and athletic talent well.

Standouts tonight for IEBP Ballers & Players:

Scott Anderson (6'-4" Sr. SG/F) from Fontana High: Scott had a team high 9 points. Ok, so the team didn't score a lot, but Anderson played very well, and he can run, defend and he has decent range.

Brandon Hulst (6'-5" Sr. SG/SF) Hughson High, Hughson, CA-- Played well, scored 8 points, and according to Mike Miller, appears to be a target of a recruiting effort at Cal Poly SLO.

Arizona Stars I:

The entire team. That's right, the entire team. Oh, did we say that Houston Hoops was the best team here? We forgot to mention that Arizona Stars might just kick their butts. This is a very athletic, quick, talented team, and every single member of the team is high D-I quality.

Donnell Knight (6'-8" Sr. F/C) from Corona Del Sol High, in Phoenix: Donnell is one of the best prospects in the senior class, and he showed why he will be one of ASU's best and biggest signings in at least a decade. Donnell jumped out of the gym, blocked the shots of DeAngelo Collins (6'-8" Fr. F/C) and Jamal Walls (6'-7" Fr. F) with ease, showing just how big a gulf there is between big freshmen and big seniors. Donnell could have been called for goal-tending at least a dozen times, but he wasn't and so it appeared that he had more blocks than he really would have had if the officiating had been better. But it didn't matter as Donnell pretty much did whatever he wanted on the court.

Here's the rest of the Arizona I squad:

Mike Walcott (6'-2" So. G) Shadow Mountain, Phoenix--a shooter, very athletic
Donnie Jackson (6'-4" Sr. G) Phoenix--didn't see him do much, but when he was on, was superlative
John Oden (6'-9" Sr. F) Carl Hayden-- a hugh defender, quick and brilliant player
Chris Craig (6'-1" Sr. G) from Horizon--a hard-nosed point, tough, moves the ball and pushes the break
Scott Smith (5'-9" Sr. G) from Mountain View-- great defender, good fundamentals, and plays tough
Kevin Woodley (6'-0" Sr. G) from Trevor Brown--blue-collar defender and on offense very unselfish
David Sandel (6'-2" Sr. G) from Shadow Mountain-- tenacious defender, nice j out to 15' range
Jamal Scott (6'-5" Jr. F)--didn't catch what school he's from but it doesn't matter. Played well, and he'll be back for a senior year.

Monsters of the Midway:

Adam Drell (6'-6" Jr. PF) from Chatsworth--the lone highlight on a rather bad team. Actually that's a bit harsh, there were a couple of other guys, including Richard Harrison (6'-6" Sr. F) from Chatsworth, Robert Warren (5'-10" Sr. PG) from El Camino Real in Woodland Hills, and Andrew Bloomfield (6'-2" Jr. G) from LA Baptist. Drell was, however, the single highest scorer on the team, and had at least 12 points, which as it turns out was roughly half the points accumulated by MoM. They are truly not a very good team, but they have some fine athletes, and at least a couple (Drell and Harrison) of players who are capable of playing D-I. Drell is getting some serious looks from OSU, Washington, UC Davis, Navy and Colgate. Bloomflied tells us he's got Washington, WSU and Oregon on his lists.

Houston Hoops:

Houston just hammered the Monsters, and we mean hammered. Telling you the half-time score would be a little bit like telling you about the details of Kenneth Starr's report of the details of the President's alleged affair with Monica Lewinsky: You might have some prurient, salacious interest in reading the lurid details, but after seeing it, you'd say "Now why did he have to go and spoil it by telling us that." Really, you don't want to know the score, and if we told you, you'd want to go take a shower, that's how dirty it would make you feel. Suffice it to say, MoM got destroyed.

Houston has all juniors and sophomores, and it's hard to believe that there's this much talent in Houston and Baton Rouge, LA at that young an age.

We were most impressed with Trayvean Scott (6'-2" Jr. PG/SG) from Southern Lab High in Baton Rouge, who "out-Gilbert'ed" Gilbert Arenas. Scott could have been his double physically, except his feet are a lot bigger. The best handle in the tournament. A tremendous defender, gets down low, drives his man, uses lightning quick hands for about 6 steals, and scored 25 points in 16 minutes of play. One of the quickest defenders we've seen, and a very smart player who communicated well with all of his teammates; had 9 assists too.

We'll have a lot more tomorrow, but for now exhaustion is setting in.

We'll be at the Fall Hoops Classic most of the day. See you there.