dada announcement preliminary

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SoCalHoops High School News

3rd Annual Dada All-Star
Classic Coming In April--(Feb. 23, 1999)

This one used to be called the "Eddie Jones Snapple All-Star Game," at least it was last year when it was played at the Great Western Forum.

This year, it's called the "3rd Annual Dada All-Star Classic" and it will be played on Sunday, April 18, 1999, at Pauley Pavilion instead of the Forum. There will again be two games: An "all Southern California" game, featuring the best of players from SoCal and a "National" All-American game, featuring players from all over the country.

In the first game last year, it actually developed into a lot of SoCal players against a lot of NorCal guys, so we'll see how this thing develops in the next few weeks, as more and more players clamor to get in to this event and to the DoublePump California All-Star Classic which will occur around the same time period. Since NCAA rules prohibit players from participating in any more than two post season "all-star" games, the competition to get the best players for events like the Derby Classic, the Dada All-Star game, and other events will be stiff, especially considering that the top 20 players in the country (with the exception of Casey Jacobsen who was inexcusably left off the McDonald's team) will committed to playing in the McDonald's game, and thus will only have one more game to play in. For many high school stars, it will be that one last chance to play in a "high school" level game before closing out their careers, and last year's event was really special, with two great games and a pretty respectable crowd too.

We understand that Brian Wethers has already committed to play in this event, and we wouldn't be surprised to hear that Tito Maddox will also be there, notwithstanding his eligibility problems, and we'd also look forward to seeing Jacobsen too, although we have no real idea which all star events he'll be playing in now that McDonald's didn't select him. We'll be getting a list of prospective players shortly and as the committments start to roll in, we'll let everyone know about them.

Past participants have included players such as Korleone Young (Detroit Pistons), Stephen Jackson (Phoenix Suns draft pick), Earl Watson (UCLA) Kaspers Kambala (UNLV), Tayshaun Prince (Kentucky), Richard Jefferson (Arizona), Jerome Moiso (UCLA), Sam Clancy (USC), David Hamilton (Auburn), Schea Cotton (Long Beach City College), Matt Barnes (UCLA), Senque Carey (Washington), Lonnie Baxter (Maryland), Anthony Grundy (NC State), Doug Wrenn (UConn committment), Rasual Butler (LaSalle), Fred Jones (Oregon), Jeff Trepagnier (USC), Chris Owens (Texas), Erron Maxey (Providence), Travis Reed (UCLA), Solomon Hughes (Cal), Billy Knight (UCLA), Larry Abney (Fresno State), Tony Bland (Syracuse), David Bluthenthal (USC), Altron Jackson (South Florida), Alex Wesby (Temple), Ricky Anderson (Arizona), Luke Walton (Arizona), and many, many others.

Again, as this year's participants become known, we'll have more details. For now, if you need further information, be sure to contact Dinos Trigonis at (310) 669-2307.

See you there.