SoCalHoops Recruiting News

Where's Dada: Notes On The 3rd
Annual Dada Classic--(April 19, 1999)

We went over to UCLA yesterday expecting large crowds for the 3rd Annual Dada Classic, and we probably weren't as disappointed as the event organizers who put up the money to stage this game, who were looking at an attendance that can best be described as allowing for plush seating, and plenty of legroom for those who chose to brave elements and fight their way through the 85 degree weather to make it out to Pauly.  You know, it's awfully tough to drive in LA when it's not raining and there is nothing but sunshine, warm breezes and cloudless blue skies.

Actually it probably was the weather that kept the fans away in droves yesterday.  Or maybe it was the rap group that "played" at the halftime of the second game.  Whatever. We actually missed the half-time show between halves in the second game, but from everything we heard about it we're not sorry we did.  But the basketball action was a ton of fun.  There was more defense played in the first game, the All-Southern California game between the White and Blue teams, to the extent there was any real defense played at all than there was in the second, "All-American" game.  Both games featured a lot of great point guard play, and the second game featured great inside big man play too.  In both games at times various times there were three, maybe four really great quality point guards out on the floor at the same time, and all this guard play really seemed a bit redundant.  Exciting, but redundant.  Hey,  even Glen McGowan (6'-7" Sr. SF/SG) from Venice in the first game thought he'd show off his point guard skills, and in our view, Glen is clearly a better wing forward than he is a point. But it's all good, and everyone had a lot of fun. Well, except the guys who had to pay for everything, and our hat is really off to Dinos on this one, because this game probably wasn't cheap to produce.

The first game, as we mentioned was the All-Southern California game. Here's who showed:

No shows were Nate Hair (6'-5" Sr. SG) from Capo Valley who is recovering from a knee operation, Willie Johnson (6'-4" Sr. SG/SF) from Fresno Edison, Osa Esene (6'-6" Sr. SF) from Inglewood, Noel Felix (6'-8" Sr. F) from Inglewood, Dalron Johnson (6'-8" Sr. PF) from Verbum Dei, Brandon Moorer (6'-7" Sr. F) from Manual Arts, Johnny Hardwick (6'-10" Sr. F) from Manual Arts, and Joe Skiffer (6'-2" Sr. SG) from St. Ignatius in San Francisco.  Also, for those who looked at prior versions of the rosters for this game, Shantay Legans was playing up in the Bay Area at the Slam N Jam All-Star game.  Guess he's getting used to the NorCal climate.

The first game was a game that as we said featured some pretty decent defense, at least in the first half, but with a final score where the White team won,  157-126, you might think that there was no defense at all. Well, there wasn't a lot, but there were some fun moments, like Kyle Dodd, who has incredible leaping ability, managing to block Glen McGowan's shot. But for the most part this was a series of either fast-breaking layup drills, alley-oops off the transition, or watching James Wright, Ronald Jackson and Kyle Dodd do what they do best, which is get their men in isolation one-on-one and break them down.  James did perhaps the best job of all,   getting open with his incredibly quick cross-over, using his lightning fast first step and shooting very well from outside, and finishing with at least 23 points. Dodd tried to dunk a couple of times, but he couldn't finish, which was surprising because he's got some of the best hops for a smaller guard type that we've seen anywhere. Major pickup for ASU. 

One of the best standouts of the day in the first game was Jerry Dupree, who had 23 points, and more slams and alley-oop plays than we could count.   It's too bad that Jerry probably won't have the grades to qualify, because this Riverside Player of the Year and All-CIF selection two years in a row, was clearly the most dominant player on the floor. Very agile, thin, and quick with great body control. We talked to him before the game and he told us that he's going to go to prep school for a year and then will consider his options. 

Armand Thomas didn't really do much, but he did have 10 points that we counted and a couple of very nicely executed slam dunks, including one incredible tomahawk dunk where he swept in across the court from the sidelines, kind of like a stealth bomber.  Very athletic and strong, he's probably going to play for LACC next year, at least that's what Mike Miller (the other Mike Miller) is hoping for.  And on the subject of no-shows, Armand's presence in this game leads to the fairly obvious question of where the heck was his Crenshaw teammate Ryan Sims?   Ryan might be just the most under-recruited big man in all of Southern California, and we would have expected to see him in this game, maybe even ahead of Armand.

This was also the first time this year that we had gotten to see several of the players, including Chris Ferguson of Irvine HS who will attend the University of San Diego is a smooth shooter, who really didn't get to do all that much with the flashier guard play going on around him.  We also finally managed to see Spencer Gloger this year and he seems to have bulked up a bit, and he also had a solid shot out to three range, and if he sticks with his committment to Princeton, he'll probably have a better time than anywhere else he might choose; reportedly he was still looking at Pepperdine, but that was several weeks ago, before Romar got the St. Louis job, and we didn't get a chance to talk with him so we really have no idea what he's going to do school-wise.  This was also just the second or third time we got a look at Mike Malloy, and while he looks to be pretty strong, with good fundamentals and decent size, he seemed just a bit out of his element in this game. He and Ferguson will be teammates at San Diego next year.

BJ Ward didn't look nearly as creative as he usually did during the season but then Nick Jones wasn't in this game (why wasn't he?) to help him get all those assists.  BJ is a very smooth and fundamentally sound point, more of a pure pass-first guy, and that doesn't make for standout play in an all-star game, but it will next year at UCSB.  We counted 10 points for BJ in the game, including a couple of outside shots. 

Eric Knight did what he usually does, pick up a very quiet 14 points, try to play the point, but really excelled at the shooting guard spot, which is probably where he really belongs. Several other players also played well, but not in any different fashion than we've seen them during the course of the year:  Ronald Johnson had 12 points we counted, and Tony Freeman, who told us that he's probably going to prep school rebounded very well as usual.

Craig Calloway scored a lot, and even passed the ball more than we've seen him do during the season, and we thought we saw Travon Bryant, who was helping Ellis Myles keep the score at the scorers table smiling secretly to himself ("See, he really can pass the ball . . . ") to a big man.  Of course there weren't really very many "big" guys on the Blue team, but then Jerry Dupree is a pretty good target to have. 

Marquis Poole got open looks several times, and shot well from the perimeter, but he was largely overshadowed by the flashier and quicker point guards on the floor.  Marquis did run very well, and passed more unselfishly than many do at all-star events such as this. A very smart player, even showed some flashes of great defense.  Chris Clark did what he was supposed to do, and what he's been doing all year for his team, which is rebound, set picks, and get the ball to the open man. Chris' game really isn't suited to a very unstructured environment but he had some very good plays and even gave up several wide open looks to get the ball to another player with a better shot. Absolutely the most unselfish guy out there.  Jack May had an ok game, rebounded well, in fact he got 11 that we counted,  but didn't score a lot. Mike Malloy looked a bit lost on the floor, but had a couple of baskets and Spencer Gloger had his shot working and he really can run the floor very well.

In the second game, we didn't stick around until the finish because we had a prior committment across town, but by now, everyone has read most of what the other guys are saying about the players in this one.  We heard that the end of the game was pretty exciting, and we're just glad that we also missed the halftime specatacle. . . or was it "debacle."  Well, we weren't there for that so we just don't know.

The All-American Team game rosters included the following players:

Curtis Borchardt (6'-11" Sr. C) from Eastlake Redmond, Washington who has committed to Stanford, was a no-show, as was Travis Watson (6'-8" Sr. F) who has committed to Virginia. John Cox also didn't play, and we didn't see him there, and we heard on Saturday that he had injured his hip and decided not to play. We also heard on Saturday at the luncheon that Cox might have played in another all-star game back in Philly and thus might not have actually been able to play in this one (only two domestic games allowed) but we couldn't confirm that. Whatever the case with Cox, he wisely didn't play either way.

If the first game had something that resembled defense, this one had none.  Granted the game featured 25 minute halves, and so 50 minutes is a really long time to play the game, especially a stop-clock game, but the score should tell you something about the level of defensive intensity:  U.S. 156, West 154.   Gotta be some kind of record somewhere.

As we said, we didn't get to see the entire game, but what we did see was great fun.  Play of the day, at least in our view:  Big 7'-1" Josh Moore, who finally has slimmed down a bit, and can run pretty well even in what looked to be about size 25 shoes, went up for a slam dunk early in the game, jumped just enough to get over the top of the rim, stuffed the ball in, and hung, just for a few seconds on the rim as he landed. . . Well, he really didn't land, or even need to, because to everyone's amazement, Josh never really left the ground, and he was standing flat-footed, with his right arm up and over the rim, and just pulling it down.  This guy has looooonnngggg arms.  A couple years in college and he could be the next Shaq.

And the question everyone is dying to know:  Is Leon Smith good enough to go pro? Well, we sure don't know, and there was mixed reaction from the crowd we talked to on that question, and we've heard that Leon really wants to play for a couple of years in college to further his education, but if he for some reason decides to play in the NBA, we know a couple of NBA scouts who said to us that they think he's worth taking a chance on in the draft. Smith must have been exhausted, and hopefully he slept on the plane because he got to Pauley about one hour before the game started since there was some foulup on his initial ticketing out of Chicago.   And what we saw of him, we really liked. He's a very strong player, has tremendous quickness for someone with his bulk and height and was about the closest thing to an NBA body in the room.  We understand that he finished with 28 points and a substantial number of rebounds.

Gilbert Arenas had some really spectacular passes in the first half, and it was a good thing, because half the audience on the press-row side seemed to be from the Gilbert Arenas Fan Club. Gil had some very nice alley-oops, and some good scoring looks, and finished with 10 points, several assists and a couple of steals. Marlon Parmer, who told us that he'll make his college selection on April 29 at the WSS All-Star Hoops Jam (or whatever they're calling it) managed 10 points in the second half, and he mostly relied on his signature drive-to-the-middle-and-spin move which was very effective.  

We also loved the way Jamal Crawford played, quick, smart and he hit for about 19 points, if what we were told about the scoring totals is accurate.   Jason Parker from North Carolina, who recently signed with the Tar Heels, had a huge game, and he was just about everywhere, hitting for 29 points, most of which were picked up down low.    Demetrius Hunter, who we've seen a couple of times over the years in Vegas, reminded us once again of his tremendous hops and leaping ability, and he also showed he can scored, getting 17 points.

This was also the first time we saw Kirk Hinrich play.   He looks kind of unassuming, but he managed to get a lot done, finishing with 10 points, including a couple of very nice defensive plays in the first half.  This was also the first time in two years that we got to see Kareem Rush.  He does play a lot like JaRon, mostly out on the wing or the perimeter, slashing to the middle,  but he also took an inordinate amount of threes which also didn't drop.  He surprised us a bit because he gave up the ball a lot when he wasn't shooting threes or driving for the dunk, which is something you don't see everyday in these All-Star things.  He ended up with 14 points and we should all find out sometime next week about where he's going to go to school. Frankly, we're not making any predictions on this one, but we wouldn't be surprised either way whether it's Missouri or UCLA. 

Chris Ogden, who we spoke with on Saturday, can run the floor well, and even dunks it, although to look at him, he doesn't appear to be a great athlete.  Another unassuming player with good size, quickness and agility who hit for 12 points and who will probably end up playing the three at Texas next year. We were very impressed with Marshall Williams, and we'd probably agree that he was one of the two best players for the U.S. team, even if his shot wasn't working.

Chris Osborne from Westchester was given the unenviable task of trying to defend Leon Smith in the first half, and we'd have to say that he did a creidble job.  In fact, at moments during the first half, we were moved to wonder whether this was the same Chris Osborne who'd been playing all year for the Comets, sometimes drifting in and out of games.  All we know is that if the same guy who showed up yesterday shows up at ASU, the folks at Arizona State will be very happy next year and for three years thereafter.

Tito Maddox finished with 13 and a huge number of assists, and unlike his play in the RSL games we saw, he really stepped up his finish, and if he's not academically qualified (and we suspect not given his ineligibility problems in the last few weeks of the season) Tito will probably go to DePaul or Fresno and prop. 48 or go to prep school, but that's old news.  We sure hope that he is qualified by June, because it would be a shame to miss out on seeing him with some D-I program next year (and for the next three after that) because he's just a huge talent, great handle, excellent spin moves and great body control.

As we said at the outset, we didn't get to see the whole game, and we know that we're overlooking a whole bunch of guys who played very well, but you can get the complete story from WestCoastHoops' Rich Meyer, or from Mike Miller at PacWestHoops.  But what we saw was a lot of fun, especially the Josh Moore dunk, and if there was an award for the guy having the most fun on the floor, it would have to go to Moore, who passed up several schools and who is going to really put on a heck of a show for Rutgers next year.  Great game, big time fun. 

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