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SoCalHoops Recruiting News

OC Register's "Fab 15":
Bryant & Others --(Nov. 2, 1999)

More shameless plugs: The OC Register's print version of the 1999-2000 Fab 15 is very complete, much more complete this year than last, and it has some really nice bios of each of the players selected from all over the West Coast, and it also has more feature articles than we can ever remember Frank doing previously, even when he was doing "The Best in the West" at the Long Beach Press-Telegram (a paper which seems sadly, at least as far as it's internet presence is concerned, to be fading into oblivion. But that's another story.) This year's Fab 15 is great.

In order to get the full flavor of the selections and see all the great photos, you really need to buy the paper. It's available all over Los Angeles, in addition to Orange County, so you should be able to find a copy. Really. Spend the quarter because it's well worth it. You can also visit the OC Register's online version if you want the "Readers' Digest Condensed Version" (which actually this year is greatly expanded from what it was in the first year), but that's really not the best way to get the selections and find out about the players. For that you'll have to buy the paper, spend the quarter, and help feed Frank and his buddies so that we can continue to get great stuff like this in the future. Really, for just 25 cents a day, you too can sponsor a needy sports writer. . . .

In addition to the great piece on DeShawn Stevenson, Frank also did some nice stories on Travon Bryant, and a small column on some of the other guys, including those not on the list (either because they moved, or because, in the case of Omar Weaver, eligibility issues).

Here's Frank's story on Travon Bryant and some of the others, including Wesley Stokes, Jonathan Sanders, Luke Whitehead, and others.

Bryant is thankful for wait

November 2, 1999

Travon Bryant, of Jordan High in Long Beach, finished second in the balloting for The Register's Fab 15 basketball team. At a shade under 6-foot-8, Bryant is rated by many recruiting services as one of the top 25 seniors in the country for this coming season. And that's despite being at least a year younger than the majority of other members of the Class of 2000.

Bryant won't 17 until Feb. 5, two months before the No. 1 player on the Fab 15 first team, DeShawn Stevenson (Washington Union in Easton), celebrates his 19th birthday. "My mother started me in kindergarten when I was 4," Bryant said. Bryant, who visited Missouri this past weekend and plans to go to Kentucky on Friday, was "just a chubby little kid when I was in the seventh and eighth grades," he said. "A lot of people were telling me that I should repeat the eighth grade so that I would have a better chance of playing on the varsity when I was a freshman."

Instead, Bryant — whose brother, D'Cean Bryant, is a senior forward at Long Beach State — enrolled at Jordan, where Coach Ron Massey kept the 6-5 13-year-old on the junior varsity. "It was the best thing I could have done," Bryant said. "Coach Massey never let up on me and forced me to start working hard. But it was then that I realized I had a chance to be pretty good. I still thank him for that."

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Two players almost certainly would have been Fab 15 first-team selections if they hadn't moved from California over the summer. Lou Wright (6-5), twice an All-L.A. City choice at Westchester High, moved to Memphis in July, just before his brother, Lorenzen Wright, left the Clippers to sign with the Atlanta Hawks. He's playing his senior season for Raleigh-Egypt High.

Luke Whitehead (6-6) departed St. Ignatius High in San Francisco to spend his senior year at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va. Whitehead, who committed to Louisville last week, will be in Southern California when Oak Hill faces Dominguez of Compton in the Nike Extravaganza at Long Beach State on Feb. 5.

Two of the Fab 15 first-team selections, guards Luke Ridnour (Blaine in Washington) and Blake Steep (South of Eugene, Ore.), are coached on their high school teams by their fathers. A third, Jonathan Sanders (Belleview Christian in Westminster, Colo.), is coached by his stepfather. So it's nonstop hoops discussions over the dinner table, right? That's not necessarily the case. "We kind of stay away from talking basketball at home," Sanders
said of his relationship with his stepdad and coach, Mark Sharpley, away from the court.

Wesley Stokes, No. 4 in the Fab 15 voting, is just the latest outstanding point guard to play for Coach Ron Palmer at Long Beach Poly High. Among them: Morlon Wiley, who played at Long Beach State and spent six years in the NBA; LeRoy Washington (now an assistant coach at Oregon State); Tyus Edney (yes, UCLA fans remember him well); and Michael McDonald, a junior expected to start for Stanford this season. Oh, yes. Palmer's point guard on the 1976-77 Poly teams? Tony Gwynn, who will be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame five years after he retires from the sport.

Who is the best player in Southern California not on the Fab 15? That would be 6-6 Omar Weaver, who is awaiting his eligibility go-ahead at Centennial in Compton after transferring from Coolidge in Washington, D.C., over the summer.