bay area ballers 0412

Since we can't possibly hope to cover every player who participated this past weekend at the adidas Double pump Spring Tournament at Cal State Dominguez Hills, we decided to do the next best thing: Provide you with all of the rosters, and some selected player highlights, and, where possible, a team recap.

The Bay Area Ballers, Nelson Washington's team, has for years been a powerhouse team from the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area, and this team, while not as successful or loaded as some previous BAB teams, still had plenty of talent to go around.

Hakeem Gilliard	5'-7" So. PG	St. Francis
Lawrence Metz	6'-0" Jr. G	St. Ignatius
David Chiotti	6'-8" Jr. F	St. Francis
Rickey Lampkins	5'-5" Fr. PG	St. Francis
Gary Smith	6'-3" Jr. G/F	Tennyson
Ryan Fabio	6'-1" Jr. G	St. Joseph
Patrick Galos	6'-7" Jr F/C	Wilcox
Jermel Gilliard	5'-10" Jr. G	St. Francis
Jordan Couch	6'-1" Jr. G
Matt Short	7'-0" Jr. C	Yreka
Aaron Hines	6'-6" Jr. G	St. Ignatius
Patrick Dennehy	6'-10" Sr. F/C	St. Francis

We came out to watch the Bay Area Ballers for just one game, and really with the intention of watching only Patrick Dennehy, but then we got involved in watching a few others, including one other player of note on the Bay Area Ballers:

Hakeem Gilliard is nice point guard with a good handle and excellent quickness. Protects the ball very well and didn't make many mistakes that we spotted. An excellent playmaker, he really helped his team stay in the game against the Next Level team, which was an interesting battle. It seems that Nelson has been after Brandon Worthy (6'-2" So. SG) from Archbishop Mitty to play for BAB and so the first game of the weekend, a Friday night contest between Bay Area Ballers and Worthy's Next Level team was just what the doctor ordered. . . .except that BAB lost in overtime by a single point, 47-46. In any event, Gilliard was impressive in that game, hitting the open shot and scoring well on 8-12 footers.

Patrick Dennehy also played well this weekend, rebounding, scoring inside on the low block and in general cleaning the glass. Because the Ballers dropped their first game, they fell into the losers' bracket immediately. Their second game of the tournament, on Saturday morning was one we didn't get a chance to see, but they didn't have much trouble with the "Bruins" a team of mostly juniors, and BAB won 48-25 to advance to a game against IEBP Players (the younger IEBP team) which they also beat, 61-58 on Saturday evening. Finally, they played late Sunday afternoon in the consolation semifinals, losing to Modesto Slam N Jam 51-41.