roundball recap

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SoCalHoops High School News

Burlison: South Orange County Roundball
Extravaganza Recap--(June 9, 1999)

We weren't able to make it out to the South Orange County Roundball Extravaganza at Laguna Hills High School this past Sunday, so we didn't get to see some of the younger players strut their stuff, but evidently Frank Burlison did, and he sounds like he's finally become a believer. We've been telling him for a while about the abilities and skills of some of the up-and-coming, rising freshmen who have been playing in and around SoCal for the past several years, and I guess he had to see it for himself. Players like Harrison Schaen (6'-8" Fr. G/F) a big, young man, who is only now 14 years of age, and still growing, who played last summer on the Orange County Maccabi Team which won a gold medal in Detroit, and on the SCA team which won a national AAU title in Nashville. Here's what Frank said about Harrison, who actually occupied the lead position in his column (even if Frank did slightly underestimate his height by about two inches):

Things started behind schedule and most of the crowd had departed by the time the final game ended at about 10:45 Sunday night at Laguna Hills High. But the second South Orange County Roundball Extravaganza was a nice little tidbit to tide over the hard-core hoops junkies until summer competition gets under way, full tilt, in a couple of weeks. Many of Southern California's better eighth-graders were on display in the first game, and it wouldn't be surprising if at least four of them are key members of their high school teams as freshmen.

Harrison Schaen (6-foot-6) will be joining one of the state's most talented programs at Mater Dei but, even with an abundance of gifted upperclassmen around him, he will be playing a lot right away for the Monarchs.

Harrison is in fact a bit taller than Frank indicated, and he's pretty remarkable for someone so young, because he's very skilled for someone so tall and so young. Harrison has the ball-handling skills of a guard, in fact better than some of the skills that others rave about when they talk about Jonathan Sanders (6'-6" Jr. PG/SG) from Colorado, who is as much in the "point-forward" mode as any other player nationally this year in the junior class. We think Harrison has even better skills, can pass, shoot, dunks and runs the court extremely well. Just keep in mind, that while we think Harrison is a great player with tons of potential, he's also very young (in fact he was held back a year because he skipped a grade when he was very young, and would have been, in his parents view, too immature for high school last season). We're really looking forward to seeing him this summer with Mater Dei, and if you happen to get a chance to see him don't miss it. Harrison will also be playing this summer in Cherry Hill, New Jersey with this year's Orange County Maccabi team a few weeks after the AAU Nationals.

Frank's article also noted that two other rising freshmen teammates of Harrison's from his SCA team (who will again compete at the AAU Nationals, this time in the 14U division in Orlando, Florida), are also very promising: Frank literally gushed about Ray "Ray-Ray" Reed, a strong, solid young player, whom he described as "the next All-American at Inglewood High, which has turned out the likes of Reggie Theus, Ralph Jackson, Jay Humphries and Paul Pierce." Pretty impressive company to list a rising young player. Frank also had high praise for Harrison's other SCA teammate, Trevon Williams, who according to Frank," could be the leading scorer among all Southern California ninth-graders next season at Fontana." Time will tell, and we think that those in the Inland Empire shouldn't forget the other rising freshmen, who has been consistently playing against tough competition all spring, Richard Cobbs (6'-4" Fr. SG/F) who is one of the best pure shooters and defenders among the younger players we saw at the Fresno EBO/EA Hoop Summit two weekends ago (has it already been that long?).

Frank also had high praise for Drew Terry (6'-3" ) who presumably will be a freshman at Northwood High in Irvine when the school opens for the first time in the fall, describing him as the school's first "All-CFI player" and the son of Chuck Terry, who played at Long Beach State under Tark and in the old ABA. We haven't had the chance to see Drew play, so we're looking forward to catching him sometime this summer. Frank also noted that in the upperclassmen game, there were some excellent standout performances: Steve Scoggin of Mater Dei apparently impressed with his good three-point shooting, as did Brennen Martin (6'-6" Jr. SG) from Trabuco Hills. Frank also paid special compliments to Travis Hanour (6'-6" Jr. SG/SF), whom we haven't seen play yet, and we're going to have to catch him soon. Burlison described Hanour as "the next Spencer Gloger".

On the humor side, Frank noted that "lanky centers Tyson Chandler (Dominguez of Compton) and Jamal Sampson (Mater Dei) were matched against one another but, after Chandler threw in a jump hook over Sampson to start the game, both spent a lot of time pretending they were guards and jacking up 18-footers." Of course, Frank was probably right on in telling them, "Hope you enjoyed them, guys, because your high school coaches won't find them amusing. "

The one thing that becomes clear in reading the descriptions of the players being highlighted in Frank's article is that there's a common thread among almost all the players: At one time or another all or most of the players highlighted have played for Pat Barrett's Southern California All-Star teams. In addition to the three SCA younger players who will be high school freshmen next year, Frank also mentioned Tyson Chandler, Wesley Stokes, Keith Brooks, Josh Childress and a few others who seemingly have nothing whatsoever to do with Orange County, much less Southern Orange County, other than that they have played for Barrett's teams which are based in and around Huntington Beach. Tyson and the rest of the Dominguez guys play for a school in Compton, which is pretty far from Southern Orange County, and Childress too doesn't live or attend school there, but is at Mayfair in Lakewood. Oh, and Wesley Stokes (who also seemingly has no connection to OC, and attends Long Beach Poly), who Frank described as "a strong challenger for the title of 'best point guard in Southern California'" also played for SCA in the Nike Bluegrass Tournament instead of with his regular Belmont Shore Team, so perhaps we're correct that the one consistent theme is that most of the players who played are either Nike or SCA affiliated players. No matter, because regardless of what shoes or uniforms these guys wear in the summer or on weekends, they are in fact some of the best players in SoCal. We just wish we could've been there to see them. Oh well, at least everyone will get plenty of opportunity to see most of these players in the next few weeks as Mater Dei's summer tournaments get underway and as Dominguez plays in the LA Watts Summer Festival games.