beach cities roster--pump

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.

We really didn't get to see much of the Beach Cities team and while Adam Zahn (6'-6" So. PF) of Redondo Union also played in one game, he didn't show up for the rest of the weekend, electing to play with his Rockfish Spring League team instead. The team featured a combination of players from Redondo Union and Loyola HS of Los Angeles, which is an interesting connection. . . remember Ryan Mollins (6'-5" Sr. SG/SF) attended Loyola and transferred to Redondo for his senior season. . . . coincidence? Maybe not. In any event, here's the roster for the Beach Cities team:

Brendan Behan	5'-9" So. PG	Redondo Union
Josh Flynn-Brown	6'-0" Fr. G/F	Loyola
Davis Cantor	5'-10" Fr. G	Loyola
Trent Turner	6'-2" Jr. G/F	Redondo Union
Eddie Topps	5'-10" So. G	Redondo Union
Andre McNeil	6'-6" Jr. C	Redondo Union
Sean Crosner	6'-6" Jr. F	Loyola
Paul Meynen	6'-10" So. C	Redondo Union

We don't know who listed the heights for this team in the official coaches packet, but there's no way, at least not in our humble opinion that some of the players were as tall as advertised. For example, the roster in the book had Paul Meynen listed at 7'-0" and while we didn't get our tape measure out, we're pretty well convinced he's not that big, at least not yet. . . more like the 6'-10" we have him at, and that's probably on a good day. Likewise, Josh Flynn-Brown is not 6'-3". . . But enough of that, how did they play? Well, so-so. . . Some decent athletes, but they got absolutely creamed in their first game of the weekend against Friends of Hoop Black (the team with Scott Skjei, Aubrey Shelton, Adam Hudson and Terrell Armstrong on it), losing 53-21. Brendan Behan is a nice point guard, but is limited by his size. Sean Crosner played well, and Paul Meynen also seems to have improved over the season, and he'll only benefit more by playing with a team this summer where he'll have a chance to play a lot rather than sitting on the bench as he did for most of the high school season behind Andrew Zahn, Dijon Thompson and some of the other older players at Redondo. Meynen has some nice skills, including decent footwork and he boxes out well, but will need to improve his overall athleticism, something which we think he can do if he works hard this summer and the remainder of the spring. Clearly, whether he's 6'-10 or 7'-0" is largely not important. . .it's how well he develops his skills that will determine how highly he'll be recruited.

The loss for Beach Cities in the first game meant that the team got to play at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, and while some others may have been there to see that game, we weren't. . . Beach Cities did manage to pull off a 75-70 win against Esperanza High/Aztecs (which had suffered an equally ignominious defeat at the hands of the Michigan Mustangs, 89-20 in their first game on Friday evening), which gave them another game on Saturday at 4:45 p.m. That game had them matched up against Modesto Slam N Jam, a game we likewise didn't get to see and which Beach Cities lost by just a single point, 69-70. Unfortunately for them, this tournament had only a three game guarantee, and the second loss dropped them out of the tournament, which was a shame, because by 6:00 p.m. on Saturday evening they were done and we didn't really get a chance to see them on Sunday. Oh well. Perhaps they'll be playing together again during the summer or at some other spring touranaments, and while this is not a high-level travel team of the sort that you'd expect to see in Missouri at Dinos' upcoming "Show Me Shootout" or at the Spiece Run N' Slam Tournament at Purdue, we might expect to see them at events like Mats' Madness up in Fresno over Memorial Day or at the University HS Springtime Jamboree #5 which will be held May 5th-7th.