abcd camp day one

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SoCalHoops Recruiting News

adidas ABCD Camp: Day One,
A Very Brief Report--(July 2, 2002)

	What:	17th Annual ABCD Camp
	When:	July 8-11, 2002
	Where:	Fairleigh-Dickinson University Teaneck/Hackensack, New Jersey
	Who:	200 Top Prep Players

Day One: Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, Sunday, July 7.

Today was check-in day at ABCD, and the lobby of the Hasbrouck Heights Hilton, camp headquarters for the camp players, counselors and coaches, was jumping with talent. From SoCal, we saw quite a few players, including Nick Stiggers, Dwain Williams, Ray-Ray Reed (who showed up late on Sunday, but made it), Sean Marshall, Kalief Ford, Robert Swift, Sylvester Seay (who has been at a prep school for the past two years, but he may be returning to San Bernardino HS from what we hear), Curtis Allen (who has definitely NOT transferred from Rolling Hills Prep to Bishop Montgomery as erroneously rumored on our message forum), David Gale, Andre McGee, Scott Cutley, Alex Bausley, Omar Wilkes, Bryce Taylor, Ekene Ibekwe, Trevor Ariza, and a slew of others. David Padgett (not from SoCal, but he's been a SoCal fixture for the past two years on the Pump N Run team), is definitely not coming, and will instead rest up and work out at home pending his second-round tryout for the U.S. National team. There are a lot of quality big men at this camp (Charlie Villanueva, etc), but David Padgett would definitely have been among the best this year. David's high school coach (Mike "Nutty" McNulty) is still working the camp and he and Rockfish's Mark Berokoff are roommates for the week. Mark has Kalief Ford and Robert Swift on his team and it's a pretty good roster from what we saw of it tonight, with Dwain Williams slated to run the point in the second group rotation.

Actually, we're not quite sure about the overall count for SoCal guys. We've seen the "lists" which have been published on other websites, and they are, for the most part, accurate, but there have been some glaring omissions. We'll have the full team rosters later tomorrow, so check back then.

And speaking of "second" groups, many who are not familiar with this camp don't understand that the teams are broken down into two groups of fives, and each group is guaranteed (or at least that's the theory) to play a full half of the game. The ABCD camp used to also feature a 5th quarter which was a "coaches' choice" but they did away with that concept a couple of years ago.

Leon Powe and John Winston from NorCal are here too: Leon is still not playing, but is recuperating from a torn ACL. He's well ahead of schedule and should be playing by the end of the summer according to his Soldiers coaches (who rode with us tonight over to the FDU gym for the first round of practice sessions).

Some big names nationally are here: Charlie Villanueva, Glenn Miles, Lawrence Carrier (oops, we also forgot to mention him as a SoCal guy), Darius Washington, Jamarcus Ellis, Brandon Bass, Jackie Butler, Travis Outlaw, Aaron Brooks, and on and on. We haven't seen Ayinde Ubaka or Demarcus Nelson, and we've heard that one of them (can't remember which) stayed home for summer school, which if true wouldn't surprise us for either of them (Demarcus has already committed to Duke, so other than getting in the workout with the competition, he doesn't need this for exposure, and likewise, Ayinde has all the scholarship offers he'll need for this lifetime too). We also haven't seen hide-nor-hair of Lebron James, and while we didn't expect to see him play, we thought he might come just for the heck of it to see who will try to claim the title of "second best" player in the class of 2003..... And the best guard in the class of 2004, Sebastian Telfair is here as well, and he looked to be in great shape and very active tonight during the scrimmage runs. Also, if you checked out the Nike rosters, then you know that the Stewart twins are not here either.

Some other good friends are here, including sportswriters Michael Kruse from Basketball America and CBS Sportsline, Russ Blake from RivalsHoops.com (and also JUCO Junction), and Allen Rubin from HoopScoopOnline.com who is doing the advance work for Clark Francis who is at Nike Camp and who arrives later in the week with the rest of the media guys who split time between here and Nike (e.g., Frank Burlison, Dave Telep, etc).

Things today were just sort of administrative, and there was no basketball played until 7:30 tonight when the teams were first announced. By the way, if anyone has any complaints about who is on a team, go see Tom Konchalski, since he was the guy who helped for the most part balance out the rosters, forming the teams from the 200+ players in attendance. Each team practiced for an hour and there was a short scrimmage at the end of each practice.

Games really get started tomorrow afternoon, when all the college coaches will arrive. This year, the NCAA enforcement staff was much more visible, sending two representatives whose job it was to simply hang around and look official in the hotel lobby, and evidently they did their job well, because not a single college coach could be spotted anywhere within 10 miles of the Hasbrouck Heights Hilton. These guys were better than garlic and vampires. Seriously, it looks like the NCAA this year is going to maintain a more visible presence to insure that their member coaches only "evaluate" players, insuring that there is no "contact" and as few "bumps" as possible. July has always been that way (i.e., just evaluation, no contact), but that's a rule that has sometimes been more honored in the breach than in the observance, thus giving rise to a boatload of really lousy NCAA legislation.

Anyway, things in New Jersey were humming along, and the bottom line is that teams were formed, players are here and all is well. Coaches come in tomorrow at about 3:15 p.m. when the first games start, running in shifts of three on the four courts which sit side-by-side at FDU. We'll be there tomorrow when all the fun starts. We'll also have some early pictures to post later tonight if we get the urge.

Later. . . .