cts basketball announcement & website

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SoCalHoops Recruiting News

California Team Select Nike:
Great Site, Great Players--(July 3, 2001)

We had a chance to speak this past week with Thaddeus McGrew of California Team Select. For those not familiar with CTS or Thaddeus, CTS is now considered the Nike select program in California (well, at least in Southern California) and if Thaddeus isn't the direct successor to Pat Barrett's legacy (and we don't mean to imply anything by that comment), he's the successor to Barrett's Nike sponsorship.

CTS has a great website, really very nice, and from the looks of things, not only will Thad have some great players with him as they make the Nike circuit this summer, but he's got a strong core of people around him who have been involved in the game for quite some time, including great guys like Ken Miller (who has been the driving force behind so many different all-star and exhibition games we've lost count, not to mention his great public announcing skills), Edmund Harris, and DeAnthony Langston, just to mention a few.

Several of the CTS players will be playing this week at Nike Camp at IUPUI (that's Indiana University at Purdue University at Indianapolis....hey we don't know why they call it that, but it's a mouthful), and then the team will be traveling to August for the Nike Peach Jam. Among the top players on this squad are Paul Meynen (7'-0" Sr. C) from Redondo, Adam Zahn (6'-9" Sr. F) also from Redondo Union, Daaron Brown (6-9 Sr. F) from LA Fremont HS, Bobby Jones (6'-7" Sr. G/F) from Compton Dominguez, Pete Decasas (6'-3" Sr. SG) from Capo Valley, Ekene Ibekwe (6'-9" Sr. F) from Carson, Sean Phaler (6'-9" Sr. F) from Villa Park, Dominic McGuire (6'-6" Sr. F/G) from Lincoln Prep in San Diego, Wendell White (6'-5" Sr. G) from Redondo Union, Darryl Strawberry Jr. (6'-3" So. G) who is now at Mater Dei, Shaun Davis (5'-10" Jr. PG) from Lincoln, Robert Swift (6'-10" So. C) from Bakersfield Garces, Thomas Herring (6'-6" So. F) from Monrovia, Marcel Jones (6'-6" So. F) who also recently transferred to Mater Dei from Chaminade, Curtis Allen (6'-4" So. G) from Rolling Hills Prep, Josh Shipp (6'-3" So. G) from Fairfax, Vincent Oliver (6'-2" So. PG) from Loyola, and Gabriel Pruitt (6'-1" So. PG) from Compton Centennial.

Thad told us that after the Peach Jam, CTS will not be headed for Orlando, and right now they have no plans either to play at the adidas Las Vegas Big Time, which this year will feature 334 teams, and will be the largest tournament of its kind ever assembled, so it's likely that you'll see most of these guys dispersed across a lot of other teams, because there's just no way a lot of these guys will miss the biggest recruiting tournament on the face of the planet. Thad told us that the decision to not play in the Big Time was not one which concerned any "war" between adidas and Nike, but instead largely was one of timing, logistics and financial considerations, in other words, he got started just a bit later than he had planned with summer tournaments, but California Team Select does plan to enlist Nike to sponsor a tournament during one of the four live weekends in the September fall NCAA "live" period here in SoCal, so you can expect to see some top players in that one.

If you haven't checked out the CTS website, do so, because it's really a first rate effort, with a very nice design and there's a ton of excellent information available on many of the best players in SoCal.