summer

It's never too early to plan ahead, right? Looking for somewhere to be on Sunday June 28, 1998?

Then why not head over to Santa Ana College for the 6th Annual Summer All-Star Classic, featuring the National Sports Grill Halftime Slam Dunk Extravaganza (with NBA folks participating as well as the players in the game).

There will be two games (guess that's why it's called a double-header). The first game will feature the "Orange County All-Stars" vs. "San Diego County All-Stars" and will get underway at 5 p.m.. The second game will feature the "L.A. County All-Stars" vs. "Team California", i.e., everyone not from LA, OC or San Diego, but not enough NorCal guys to make up a whole team, so they threw in some LA guys (we're pretty certain Pomona is in LA County, since that's where the "LA County Fair" has been held for the last 70 or so years. But who are we to quibble). All the players in the first game are headed to Division I schools except Jimmy Miggins and he will be in two years. The second game features a great list of players too, but just not as many D-I signees.

Last year's game was pretty good, and featured Baron Davis, Chris Burgess, Eric Chenowith, Jason Collins, Jarron Collins, Kenny Brunner and Billy Knight among the more noted players. This year's game should be just as exciting. Here are the tentative rosters supplied to us by the event organizers:

LA County All-Stars	vs.	Team California All-Stars
*Tayshaun Prince (Dominguez Kentucky)**		*Matt Barnes (Del Campo UCLA)**
*Tony Bland (Westchester Syracuse)**		*Ray Young (Alameda St. Joe's UCLA)**
*Ricky Anderson (Long Beach Poly Arizona)**		*Schea Cotton (St.T.More Prep N.C. State)**
*Ruben Douglas (Bell-Jeff Arizona)**		*Caleb Gervin (Cathedral City Louisville)**
*David Hamilton (Compton Auburn)**		*Gary Colbert (Etiwanda Utah)**
*DeAndre Moore (Compton Vanderbilt)**		*Daniel Bobik (Newbury Park BYU)**
*David Bluthenthal (Westchester USC)**		*Matt Donahue (Etiwanda CS Fullerton)**
*Brandon Granville (Westchester USC)**		*Jerry Green (Pomona UC Irvine)**
TBA		*Jimmy Miggins (Arlington Golden West JC)**

Orange County All-Stars	vs	San Diego County All-Stars
*Andrew Gaulden (Anaheim Canyon New Mexico**		*Luke Walton (USDHS Arizona)**
*Jeffrey Berokoff (Sonora SD St.)**		*David Abramowitz (USDHS SD St.)**
*Chris McMillian (Brea-Olinda Wyoming)**		*Vincent Okotie (Grossmont SD St.)**
*Dekkar McKeever (Santa Margarita Holy Cross)**		*Joe Mann (Poway SD St.)**
*Devin Hanson (Ocean View San Diego)**		*Blake Jensen (Horizon TBA)**
*Josh Fisher (La Habra CS Fullerton)**		*Ron Johnson (Helix TBA)**
*Zamiro Bennem (Magnolia UC Irvine)**		*Rei Rivera (Rancho Bernardo TBA)**
*T.J. Williams (Santa Margarita Pomona)**		*Ron McMillan (USDHS TBA)**
*Ryan Forehan0Kelly (Santa Margarita TBA)**		*Charlie Mercado (Vista TBA)**
TBA		*Anthony Watts (Lincoln TBA)**

Both game clearly field tremendous talent, and while the first group features more "blue-chip" players, the second group certainly has some of the area's best too, including some unsigned and underrecruited prospects who could (and should) be signed somewhere by the time this thing rolls around.

We don't have any word on ticket prices or whether this game will be televised locally on cable, but we wouldn't bet on that. So if you want to see these guys for one last time during the summer before they all pack off to their respective colleges, this is it. Don't miss either game. For more information on the 6th Annual Summer All-Star Classic, you can call (818) 952-9000.