The 3rd Annual South Orange County Roundball Extravaganza will be held on Saturday, June 24, 2000, and it will feature 6 games in all, including one of the best lineups of the top talent in SoCal from among the incoming freshmen, to top developing class of 2003 freshmen (rising sophs), last seasons' class of 2002 sophs (rising juniors), and the best and brightest from the class of 2001, last year's juniors and the current "rising seniors," many of whom by this time next year will have signed with some of the top D-I programs, and there's at least one legitimate NBA prospect, in Dominguez' Tyson Chandler.  While this event takes place in "South Orange County," and it still manages a distinctly south-county flavor, don't let the name fool you because there are top players from all over Southern California who will be playing in the six games to be held at Santa Margarita.   

A single admission will get you in for the entire afternoon and evening, but for the sake of simplicity, we've decided to break our coverage up, at least for now, into afternoon and evening game rosters.   And somewhere in all of this will be a three-point contest and a slam dunk contest. 

This installment covers the afternoon games, starting with the rising boys frosh/9th graders, the girls' underclass all stars, and concluding with the freshman (rising soph) all-star game.

Beginning with the 9th Grade AAU Boys All-Star game at 2:15 p.m. a great chance to catch some of the current and rising freshmen in the region.   We just got the rosters, and here are the players confirmed for Game #1:

We don't know a lot about many of these players, but we recognize a few surnames which are familiar to us from seeing some older talented siblings over the last few years. There are even a couple of rising freshmen (current 8th graders), like Thomas Herring who we've seen a few times and we're looking forward to seeing him play with some of the Orange County area's best young players. 

The 9th grade AAU Boys' game will be followed by the first of two AAU Girls' High School All-Star games.  Here's the roster of confirmed players for the first Girls' HS All Star game:

As most people who follow SoCalHoops already know, we don't know a heck of a lot about most of the girls since we don't follow them as avidly nor as closely as we do the boys, but still there are some names we recognize,  more than a few from this past season and we're also looking forward to seeing more of them at the game. 

The third game of the afternoon session is the 4:45 p.m. game featuring another group of underclassmen, the current freshman, who by the time this game gets going will be "rising sophomores".

We're not sure how these teams will break down but this team features many of the top players from this past season's current freshman class.   There are some guys we haven't seen and we're looking forward to getting a look at them, but among this group are some of the most talented young players in SoCal, including guys like Freddie Washington who helped Bishop Montgomery win the State D-III Championship, the "Fab 3" of Travonte Nelson, Wesley Washington and Trevon Williams who appear to be confirmed as now transferring out of Fontana and back to Mater Dei (well "back" at least for two of the three).  We're especially looking forward to seeing Mark Bradford, one of only two freshmen from this year to be selected to the LA City Section All-CIF team (the only other freshman was Steve Smith from Taft).    Marcus Williams of Crenshaw, a quick and solid young point guard impressed us a lot during the season, and it will be interesting to see him play against/with guys like Drew Terry, "Ray-Ray" Reed, Kevin Bell of Fairfax, and Josh Childress' little brother Jeff. 

As you can see from the schedule above, the afternoon games will be followed by three evening games, a slam dunk and a 3-point contest. We'll post up the rosters for the other games separately.  And while we've broken our preliminary preview of the Roundball Extravaganza into two sessions, afternoon and evening, we again want to stress that unlike other "Extravaganza" events held during the regular high school season, there won't be any break, no clearing of the gym, and one admission is good for the whole thing, both afternoon and evening games.   Tickets are $10 for Adults, $6 for students, and $3 for children age 12 and under, and can be purchased at the door. 

For additional information about the event, call 949-206-2441, or be sure to visit the Plyo-City website, and look for the Roundball Extravaganza coverage there as well. . 

And just so no one complains that we've left them out, the event's main sponsors this year are the Orange County Register, Chick's Sporting Goods and Plyo-City Youth Development, along with participation from others such as XTRA Sports AM 690, WorldNet Computers, Branch West Basketball Academy, Rite Price Pharmacy, Sterling National Bank, Standard Pacific Homes, USA Trophy, and Orange National Bank.

We'll continue to have much more on this event the games get nearer.