qblvegas big time report

The adidas Big Time Tournament is now over, so we're going to be doing several reports focusing on the SoCal-based teams that participated in the event. First up is QBL Lakewood, aka, Artesia High School + two from Clovis West. Here's who QBL brought to the tournament:

Armond Ivory (6'-3" Jr. SG)
Tony Roberts (6'-4" Jr. SG/SF)
Franklin Matos (6'-4" So. PG)
Amaury Fernandez (6'-9" Jr. PF)
Chris Hernandez (6'-0" Jr. PG)
Ryan Reyes (6'-3" Jr. SG/PG)
Andre Hazel (6'-0" Sr. PG)
Jack Martinez (6'-8" Jr. SF/PF)
Malcohm Heron (6'-5" Jr. F)
Sam Nadeau (6'-7" Jr. F)
Jon Steffanson (6'-5" So. SG)
Ryan Meiuller (6'-7" So. F)
Charlie Rodriguez (6'-8" So. F

QBL Lakewood (CA) 75, Team Texas Blue (TX) 33
QBL Lakewood (CA) 79, DC Assault 17’s (MD) 77
QBL Lakewood (CA) 59, Dakota Schoolers (SD) 46

First Round: Bye
Second Round: QBL Lakewood 86, Martin Bros Select 72
Third Round: QBL 92, Squires Rich Mack 76
Fourth Round: Pump N Run Gold 80, QBL 68

QBL had a very easy first round pool play game in the morning on Thursday to start the tournament and then faced a much stiffer game from the DC Assault I team on Thursday afternoon. DC Assault had some nationally regarded and highly-recruited players, and the second game was probably a better indication of how QBL would stack up against some of the better teams at the tournament that they'd see later. DC was mostly players from Dunbar in DC, with a few players from other schools thrown in, like Cliff Hawkins (6'-2" Sr. G) from Oak Hill, VA, just as QBL features two players who aren't on Artesia's roster (Charlie Rodriguez and Chris Hernandez, who attend Clovis West), and if you've never seen them, they are truly phenomenal. Rodriguez is a big, powerful presence in the paint, with a great drop-step to the basket, an effective rebounder, while Hernandez is one of our favorite point guards in the junior class: He's smart, quick, aggressive and plays to win. Defensively he's rarely out of position and almost never gets beat in a one on one situation. He's not a tremendous scoring point, although he can slash to the basket from the wings and finish in transition. In short we really think a lot of Hernandez and think he'll be one of the top point guards in next summer's crop of rising seniors.

Once the bracket play stared things were going smoothly until QBL ran into the Pump N Run Gold team, and this game probably marked a low in the career of Jack Martinez, who was ejected from the game for fighting with Pump's smallish point guard Brandon Brooks. Brooks is a tough-nosed player who is known , whose continual taunting of Jack finally provoked him to try to toss Brooks across the floor, and resulted in a bench clearing not-quite brawl. While no punches were thrown and no one else was ejected from the game besides Martinez, who left with Wayne Merino prior to the end of the game, the latter complaining about horrible officiating, and yes, it was pretty bad refereeing, the game was pretty much locked up by Pump N Run even before the incident. Amaury Fernandez only played spotty minutes in this game, having re-injured his right shoulder again, aggravating an injury he sustained in May at the Fresno EBO Hoop Summit. Actually, the Pump N Run game was a rematch of the two teams from Fresno, and it turned out just about the same, with Pump N Run winning decisively behind great performances from Lou Wright, Salim Stoudamire, Brandon Brooks, Aerick Sanders and Branduinn Fullove. QBL's Jack Martinez was obviously troubled in this game, and he was not getting rebounds, not getting back on defense, and having difficulty scoring, and we hope that he works out the problems before long.

QBL did get great play from the rest of the squad, including recent transfer Sam Nadeau who was effective rebounding and shooting from about 15', Jon Steffanson, who continues to play very strong and impressed a lot of people with his quickness and good decision-making on the court. Ryan Mieuller (or however you spell his name) also showed some nice moves around the basket and a decent drop step. We watched the QBL v. Squires game with Jim Downs, UCLA coach Steve Lavin, Alabama's Mark Gottfried, Mike Miller and Clark Francis of HoopScoop, and the Gottfried was making a case that the best player at the tournament in the rising-senior class was Amaury Fernandez. So at least we know that Alabama will try to recruit him. . . UCLA was watching point guards and big men, and to say that they were looking at Martinez and Fernandez would be to state the obvious since it's becoming clearer and clearer that Gadzuric and Moiso probably won't be around beyond next year. Was UCLA looking at Andre Hazel? Who knows, but there's no doubt that the Bruins are seriously looking at a number of top point guard prospects, most notably Andre Barrett. Hazel is probably not on their radar yet, but he should be, because he's a good scoring point who also runs the offense and distributes the ball, which is just what the Bruins need. We would also doubt that UCLA will offer Wesley Stokes a scholarship, at least not until all the other potential candidates are offered and turn it down (that would be Barrett, Chris Duhon, who is probably a real long shot for UCLA and a potential lock for Duke--yes, coach K was watching all the N.O. Jazz games-- and a couple of other top prospects), but we'd be surprised if Stokes isn't also offered a spot by USC, which would be a very interesting thing to consider.

But back to QBL: Our overall impression of the team when all was said and done is that they are and will be one of the top high school programs in the country, with tons of talent that seems at times to work at cross-purposes to each other, at least during these types of tournaments. With better officiating and a more structured setting with less reason to showboat for the college coaches in attendance, we have no doubt that QBL is one of the top two or three teams in the State. Are they tough enough to compete successfully for a title against national all-star teams, i.e., could they have beaten the New Orleans Jazz, the Michigan Mustangs, and some of the other upper-elite teams? Maybe. . . but they had a bad night against the Pump N Run Gold team, and never got the chance to find out. We'll have to wait to see how they perform against some of the better teams at the Best of Summer, and if we know Wayne Merino and his guys, they'll be ready to play this week.