SoCalHoops Tournament News
SoCalHoops Tournament News
Team California Shines At
"East-West,
Be The Best" In Vegas--(June 2, 2001)
Why is a Los Angeles-based charity hosting a series of prep all-star games in Las Vegas, Nevada? We don't know. But we do know it's happening this weekend, with games played at Durango HS in Las Vegas, affectionately known as the "Blazerdome" (which is also one of two host sites for the Las Vegas Holiday Prep Classic in December, as well as one of two main sites for the adidas Big Time Tournament in July). We've been hearing about this event for a couple of months but only recently picked up the full info. Unfortunately we didn't have time to post anything on it prior to today. But Las Vegas Prep Sports, a website which we just recently stumbled across, has a lot of news about it the event. The first was a story written by Dan Cabrera detailing what the event is all about. Here's the story:
Charity basketball event to be showcased this weekend
By Dan Cabrera
Las Vegas Prep SportsThe Nancy M. Johnson Memorial Foundation, a non-profit organization in Los Angeles, will host the East-West "Be The Best" Classic, beginning today, June 1, through Sunday, June 3.
The event, being held at Durango High School, will feature four area teams squaring off against four out-of-state all-star squads. Durango and Cheyenne High Schools will have their own teams, while the Las Vegas AAC All-Stars and the Las Vegas Top Prospects All-Stars round out the local competitors in the event. The local all-star teams will feature athletes from Bishop Gorman, Foothill, Cimarron-Memorial, Green Valley, and more, just to name a few.
Team California will have eight players from Los Angeles city champion Westchester High, as well as one player from each Dominguez High (Compton) and Mater Dei High (Santa Ana). All three schools represented by this team finished in the Top 25 rankings in the country this season.
Team North Carolina will feature two players from the top ranked team in the nation, Oak Hill Academy, of Mouth of Wilson, Virginia. Team Texas and Team New York round out the teams from out-of-state.
North Carolina and the AAC All-Stars tip off the event today at 4:30 p.m. at Durango. Durango will defend its home court against California following the previous matchup. Saturday's action will begin at 2:30 p.m., while the championship game is set for Sunday at 5:30 p.m.
Cost for admission is $8 per day, and students with a valid I.D. can purchase a 3-day pass for just $12.
Ok, so that's good for starters. The games started yesterday (Friday) and will continue through today and Sunday. Here's the Las Vegas Prep Sports' story by Dan Cabrera about the Friday games. . .and while the headline refers to "Westchester" it's really not intended to imply that the high school itself has any official affiliation with the event (it really can't right now under CIF rules; Nevada schools are under no such restrictions, and their coaches can coach players at any time of the year). Rather, this is a travel team put together for the event, called "Team California" and while as noted above, it was supposed to have a couple of players from other high schools, it actually doesn't (see the notes below), and it really does consist of all Westchester HS players, traveling as a club team. So keep that in mind as you read this:
Westchester shoots the lights out on Durango
Cheyenne survives scare from Green Valley
By Dan Cabrera
Las Vegas Prep Sports
Play got under way as scheduled on Friday afternoon to kick off the 2001 Athletic Edge Sports East-West "Be The Best" Classic, being held through Sunday at Durango High School.But no one who attended Friday night's final game--Durango and Westchester (Calif.)--could have imagined how many points these teams were going to sink right in front of them.
This year's Los Angeles City Champions, Westchester proved why they took their title in L.A., as they scored a whopping 130 points to defeat host Durango, 130-92.
Hassan Adams got things done for the visitors, leading everyone in scoring with 33 points. Brandon Heath scored 21 points, and Trevor Ariza added 20 to lead Westchester to victory.
A 68-50 halftime deficit was too much for Durango to overcome. Though they came back to within nine with about 13 minutes remaining in the second half, Westchester pulled away for good on easy baskets given up by the Trailblazer defense.
Josh Wood led Durango with 22 points. Brian Young sunk in 17 points for Durango, while Martrel Johnson added 15 for good measure.
Cheyenne 79, Green Valley 75 -- Kevin Richardson scored a game-high 24 points, including a 15-for-21 performance at the free throw line, to lead the Desert Shields over the Gators.
Cheyenne led 43-35 at the break, and built a lead as big as 14 midway through the second half, but Green Valley crawled their way back into the game, cutting the lead to one, 69-68, with just under three minutes remaining. That was as close as the Gators got, and Cheyenne was able to hold off Green Valley and advance.
Johnny Wheeler scored 19 points, Eric Ashley 16, and Keith Richardson 11 for the victors. Mitch Platt led Green Valley with 16 points, while Trumaine Ross added 14 of his own.
Texas All-Stars 76, Las Vegas Top Prospects 58 -- Bracey Wright, said to be one of the top five prospects in the country in the class of 2002, scored a game-high 26 points to lead the Texas All-Stars to victory over the Las Vegas Top Prospects.
Texas took an early lead to begin the game, and the Top Prospects never were able to recover. A 41-29 Texas lead at halftime turned into as big as a 20-point deficit for the locals before slightly climbing back into the game toward the end.
Deron Williams scored 13 points for the Texas All-Stars, while teammate Stephen Briggs tallied up 11 for the visitors. Ron Dunlap, who is on both Green Valley and the Top Prospects team, played a straight doubleheader, but still managed to have a good game, scoring 10 points for the Top Prospects. Lorenzo Wade led the Top Prospects with 11 points.
As an effort to save on hotel costs, UNLV has allowed the tournament to house all of its visiting teams in the dormitories at the college campus. ... Team New York, who was scheduled to be in the tournament, backed out of the event at the last minute, and did not make the trip to Las Vegas. Another local team, the Las Vegas Stars, replaced New York in the schedule. ... As for Team North Carolina, they are still scheduled to play today against Green Valley to begin Day 2 of the tourney. However, they hadn't arrived in town to play the replacement team for New York, the Las Vegas Stars, to kick off the tournament on Friday. Instead, Durango played an exhibition game against the Stars, losing that contest as well by a final score of 89-83. ... Team California is being referred to as Westchester High of Los Angeles, since all of its players are from Westchester, rather than the eight of ten that was mentioned in the tournament's press release. ...NOTES -- As mentioned, Dunlap played twice on Friday in back-to-back contests. He scored 12 points in the Gators' 79-75 loss to Cheyenne. ...
Tournament play continues today [Saturday], with Green Valley scheduled to take on North Carolina at 2:30 p.m., followed by the Las Vegas Top Prospects and Durango at 4 p.m. In the winner's bracket, Cheyenne will face the Las Vegas AAC All-Stars at 5:30 p.m., and Westchester will take on the Texas All-Stars at 7 p.m. in what promises to be a "Gorman-Durango showdown in the Blazerdome" type of game, only without the rivalry thing. ...
Proceeds for the event will go to benefit the Nancy M. Johnson Memorial Foundation, a non-profit organization in Los Angeles, and a portion of the total proceeds will benefit a Las Vegas-area Boys and Girls Club. ...Admission prices were changed, and is now $6 for adults, and $4 for students with proper identification.
Apparently the Mater Dei players (and we're not sure exactly who was supposed to play) didn't. We know that Harrison Schaen was not the intended player (although he might have been prior to the cancellation of Dinos Trigonis' "Coca Cola All-American Game" which was actually supposed to be the headliner event), but Harrison and his dad are up in Palo Alto taking an unofficial visit at Stanford, bidding the Cardinal a fond farewell for their European trip which departs today.
One other side note on the Vegas event: While Bishop Gorman is shown above in the article as scheduled to play Durango in the Blazerdome (at Durango) on Saturday at 7:00 p.m., Durango's biggest potential recruit this year isn't likely to be there, at least not unless he flies home for the evening from Reno: C.J. Watson (6'-2" Jr. PG) who plays on the Pump N Run team will instead be up in the Reno area, attending a "Super 60" type workout being run by Pump N Run team coach Aubrey McCreary. The entire Pump N Run team was invited to attend the workout (which will also feature other local Reno-area and NorCal players), but not all of the team was able to attend due to other commitments (including academic commitments): Nik Caner-Medley (6'-8" Jr. F/G) is staying home in Maine to study, Brad Buckman (6'-10" Jr. F) is supposed to be home in Texas; David Gale (6'-1" Jr. PG) is staying home in LA to take the SAT II on Saturday and then will play in the Roundball Extravaganza on Sunday, and Brandon Rohe (6'-4" Jr. SG) is also slated to be in the Roundball Extravaganza as well. We know that Matt McKinney (6'-8" Jr. F) from Santa Ynez is in Reno rooming with C.J., and we heard that Lance Soderberg (6'-8" Jr. F) was going to attend but don't have confirmation on that yet.
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