SoCalHoops Recruiting News

West Coast All Stars First Session:
Frosh Soph All Stars--(July 10, 1999)

We promise, really, we'll be posting up individual analyses of many more players from the first session of Double Pump West Coast All Stars Camp, but for now, we've got to get some sleep and eat a little.  We spent much of the day today watching all of the morning "Great 8" tournament games, which were followed by the various camp all-star games (Frosh-Soph, Juniors, 100% Game, Senior Game, and the Best of the Best Game).  First up was the Frosh-Soph game, and when we spoke with Charlie Myers, who headed up the selection committee, he told us that this year's crop of freshmen and sophomores (and even one 8th grader-to-be) were the best he remembered in a long, long time, which made the selection process especially difficult.   We can't say that we entirely agree with the committee's selections on all counts (we got together with Mike Miller before the committee met--no we weren't invited to submit our selections) and we had a few selections that were different than the ones which ultimately showed up on the rosters.  One notable difference was that the committee responsible for the selections chose to put Richard Cobbs (6'-5" Fr. SG/SF) in the Frosh-Soph game when we and Mike both agreed that Richard should have been in the "Best of the Best".  Really.  Richard outplayed most of the seniors he was called on to guard, shot unbelievably well, and had a great camp, averaging about 20 ppg.  Last night (Friday) his team went up against Phil Bryant's Iowa squad, one of the "loaded" teams, and Richard was guarding Jacob Chessman (6'-8" Sr. PF) from Provo Utah and Casey Cooke (6'-8" Sr. PF) from Sacramento, and doing a pretty good job on both of them while still managing to reel off 22 points.  

In any event, the Frosh-Soph roster was a pretty impressive group and includes many of the top players in SoCal and the West Coast:

While Mike Miller (the internet Miller, not the LACC Miller) chose to boycott the All-Star games (actually he told us he had a ton of screenwriting stuff to do instead, and was just too busy) he really missed quite a show,   and at least Louis Johnson of the Long Beach Press-Telegram was there to witness it all, as the Frosh Soph guys actually put on a better show than some of the upperclassmen games.

Among the standout players were Bobby Nash, who is just phenomenal for a 13 year old, a slender, athletic talent, who is the son of a big time college player himself,  and he is remarkably talented for someone just going into the 8th grade. We have absolutely no doubt that by the time four more years elapses and he's ready to be recruited, that he might just be one of the best players in the country; hopefully by then the NBA will have the age-limit imposed so the rest of the country gets to see this young man play in college.  One of the most fun aspects of the game was watching a great point guard battle between David Gale and Brandon Heath, as the two D'd it up and traded crossovers; David hit a very nice three after driving past Heath and pulling up just at the top of the key, and he managed to get a couple of steals, picking Heath and then picking one off from Montele Williams.

Keith "Cool Breeze" Everage   and Samir Hernandez both hit a couple of nice short jumpers in the lane, but the real MVP of the game had to be Franklin Matos, who sent home a couple of very nice slams, and he must have had a dozen rebounds in just the 10 minutes he played; the only knock on Franklin, and he would be well advised to take heed to this,  is that we had at least a dozen high school coaches complaining about his attitude on the court and that he should learn to play less selfishly.  At least a half dozen more college coaches told us that if they wanted to see one thing from Franlink it was to have him share the ball more, and not try to so obviously "dominate" other players, especially when it just wasn't necessary.  We think Matos has tons of  talent   and when and if he learns to play less like a "star" and just go out and do a workmanlike job, the better off he'll be as a  potential major D-I prospect   in about two years.   This is the same knock that a lot of coaches had about a number of players, and actually, if there's anything that's not so desireable about all of these "all-star" and camp games, it's that a lot of players are tempted to try to impress the coaches when they would be better serving their own causes by simply making the easy play, the good solid pass, the good screen and the well-executed back-cut.   Everyone knows that Franklin can dunk; we just don't need to see it every time down the floor.

We liked the play and pure power of Reginald   "Baby Shaq" Ross, who some said really should have been moved up to the junior or maybe even the rising seniors game (apparently he's got enough credits that if he was still at Redlands, he'd be going into his senior year), who will evidently not be attending Canyon Springs or Redlands, but will be enrolling instead next year at Salisbury, a prep school, so maybe he'll be doing his sophomore year next year. Regardless of what class he "should" be in, this guy is huge, and he threw down some really powerful slam dunks. He runs the floor very well, can jump.  Ryan Mueller also looked impressive both in this game and at the camp in general, and that's not very surprising considering he was on Phil Bryant's Iowa team so he was surrounded with good quick guards who were feeding him the ball and with several other big men (Casey Cook and Jake Chessman).

Richard Cobbs didn't do a lot in this game, at least it was a quiet 8 points, mostly on fast breaks which could have easily been dunks but which just ended as finger rolls over the front of the rim.   Richard is a very classy player, really smooth, almost graceful, and he's really a pleasure to watch.   Darius Sanders had a good camp too, but was surprisingly quiet in this game too.  Sure he grabbed his share of rebounds, but no flashy dunks, and in fact we don't remember him scoring.  That's ok, because we heard he just lit it up at the Servite Tournament with the rest of the Dominguez guys who snuck out of camp to make it over there to play in that tournament.

Teddy Boxberger has moved from Harvard-Westlake in California, specifically Studio City, to Austin-Westlake, a high school in Austin, Texas, which was supposedly a big secret, but someone down in Texas e-mailed us with the news, and we didn't know it was supposed to be a secret and when we saw Teddy at the camp, he was surprised that we'd heard about the move because he claimed not to have told even some of his closest friends in California.   Teddy also had a good camp, and he's gotten much bigger, stronger and even a bit thicker and now looks like a pretty imposing presence on the blocks. He likes to avoid contact though, and like a lot of the younger players, wants to step out on the wing more than bang in the middle.  Teddy will also be at the second session of  WC All-Stars, so we hope to see him do some more things to impress.

Brad Buckman is a very strong, but slender looking player, who likes to power into the basket, and he looked pretty good too this morning.  He'll supposedly (we say supposedly, because it's not confirmed yet) join the Pump N Run "Black" team (the II team) in Vegas at the Big Time next week immediately after the second session of camp ends, so we'll be able to see him there and get a better feel for his game in more competitive situations. 

Like the rest of the all-star games, and indeed just like every game at these camps, it really mattered very little what the score was, or who "won" because in reality, everyone who gets selected to play in these games is getting a great opportunity to showcase their talents in front of the assembled college coaches in a semi-captive environment, which is to say it's a lot different than the games during the camp.  In fact we had one college coach remark to us during one of the games that he thought the all-star games were just as important, if not more so, because unlike the camp games, games like this one represent a time when a coach can really concentrate because there's only one game instead of four going on simultaneously.

The Frosh-Soph game was followed by the junior game, and we'll post that one up separately.

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