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SoCalHoops High School & Prep Report

Early News From the 13-U AAU Nationals In Memphis--(July 3, 1998)

The AAU Nationals have been going since Monday, June 29 in Memphis, Tennessee, but the news travels slowly. Actually, the only solid results we've been able to get have been from the early games. The tournament opened Monday, and will continue through Sunday, July 5th. The Championship game is set for 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Wooddale High in Memphis, Tennessee, and the early rounds are being played at various sites throughout Memphis, including Wooddale, Bishop Byrne, Catholic, Harding Academy, Briarcrest, Shelby State Community College, Second Presbyterian Church and Bellevue Baptist Church. The 13-U tournament features 113 teams, most notably the Southern California All-Stars coached by Pat Barrett. They are the No. 1 Seed in the tournament, and have been the defending national AAU champions for the last five years in a row. Other top teams in the tourney included fifth-seeded Memphis Bellevue War Eagles, the defending state champions, the No. 2 Charlotte Nets, the Indiana IEB Panthers, and the Capleville Magics, who are considered the Memphis area's darkhorse contenders for the title. SCA was the tourney's top seed and the defending 12-and-under national champions.

With 113 teams, not everyone plays every day. For example, even though SCA and Second Presbyterian opened play last Monday, the Capleville Magics, a top seeded team from Memphis, didn't open first round play until Wednesday night. So if the news is slow coming out of Memphis, you'll understand why. And they don't have a website nor is there any easy way to get information. Whether the AAU 13-U folks are just not media saavy, or they don't care, they were a little slow in getting us some of this information by fax, and then we were forced to piece a lot of it together from conventional newspaper sources. But we did manage to get quite a bit of information.

In the first round games, played this last Monday night, SCA drew Second Presbyterian, one of the local Memphis teams. Only thing about that draw was that Second Presbyterian was last year's defending Tennesseee state 12-U champions, and it was the same team that SCA had to beat last year in Salt Lake City for the national semifinals in the 12-U Championship tournament. And this time they were going to have to play them on their own court, in Memphis, in front of hundreds of their own fans.

And never mind that Second Presbyterian was seeded 112th (next-to-last) in the tournament. The reason for that was that in the Tennessee "sub-state" qualifying rounds, Second Presbyterian had been beaten. The Black Hawks had won the Tennessee Amateur Athletic Union state title and had placed in the top nine at the national championships each of the last three years. But before they could even make the tournament this year, they were beaten by the Capleville (Memphis) Magics in an upset on a last-second shot. But Second Presbyterian coach Dennis Smith found out about a "new rule" (and there is perhaps a reason that this tourney is in Memphis, after all) that allowed the top 12 finishers from the previous year to receive automatic bids.

On Monday night, they played the No. 112 seed Second Presbyterian. And again, Barrett was concerned about drawing them, given what happened last year and how strong they were. But he didn't have to be as SCA won its game 73-58. SCA didn't have too difficult a time of it Monday night. The game was punctuated by an authoritative two-hand dunk by Trayvon Williams (6'-2" 8th grade F) and at times, SCA led by as many as 25. They are dominating, and they are strong. Also having a great game was Harrison Schaen (6'-5" 8th grade F/C).

In the game before the SCA-Second Presbyterian game, the Charlotte Nets, the No. 2 seed in the tournament, lost 61-59 to Indiana's No. 5 team, the IBE Panthers Blue, whose Terrance Jordan hit a layup with only two seconds left to seal the win. Watching the game between Charlotte and Indiana which took place in pool play just prior to SCA's opening game, Barrett commented to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, a local paper, "We could see that we were about to play the team that came in third overall last year. I was like, `Whoa.' ''

After SCA's victory, Trayvon Williams was interviewed by the Memphis Commercial Appeal, a local paper, and he said: "I thought we were supposed to have an easy team,'' said Williams, who scored a game-high 19 points. "The whole gym was rooting for the other team. But I like those kind of games, when everybody is after us. A lot of people expect us to win every game.''

SCA hasn't lost a game this year. While the team has changed uniforms, in that this team was essentially the same 4D All-Stars that beat Second Presbyterian in the 12-and-under AAU national semifinals last year, they are without question one of the best teams, if not the best team in the country. SCA has been criticized because they have players that commute from all over the SoCal region. Apparently there was a new rule instituted by the AAU which bans "all-american" teams, i.e., the types of teams that you see at some tournaments like the Slam 'n Jam NIT or the EBO tourneys in Fresno, or the adidas Big Time or Nike Peach Jam tourneys, where teams are made up of players from all over the country.

For those of you who forgot about them, SCA and Barrett were featured on 60 Minutes last year in a feature entitled "Shoe Wars," an episode which focused on Tyson Chandler (7'-0" So. C) who played last season at Compton Dominguez as a freshman, and who was part of SCA last year. We've still got the transcript of the show in our article archives for those of you who want to read about the show, and the broadcast will be repeated on July 26 for those who want to see it again. Along with New York Riverside Church, SCA is one of the nation's top Nike-sponsored AAU teams, and SCA has produced dozens of college players, including former national player of the year Ed O'Bannon. It was Barrett who created a controversy for Jim Harrick when Harrick gave him a national championship ring when the Bruins won the national title in 1195. Second Presbyterian's claim to fame is that 10 of 11 players on the top-ranked Memphis University School team played in its program.