wcfirst session report, last day

SoCalHoops High School & Prep News

Double Pump West Coast All Star Camp
Last Day, First Session Report--(July 10, 1998)

Today was the big day at the Double Pump West Coast All Star Camp, first session. It was the final day for those in attendance to show their stuff, and quite a few college coaches were in attendance, including Dave Bollwinkle from St. Mary's, the coaches from UCI, Lorenzo Romar and assistant Darwin Cook (Cayce's dad) from Pepperdine, Jim Dixon from Portland, a bunch of guys from Montana, USF, Utah, Harvard, Columbia (the Ivy League was out in force), UCLA, USC, and some other Pac-10 schools, about 75 coaches in all at today's session.

The first group of games played this morning consisted of the "Great 8" tournament, where each of the teams competes in a single elimination format to see which team is the best at the camp. It's called the "Great 8" because each game is only 8 minutes long, and a called foul results only in a change of possession, so the games are always moving. Each team's players see action for about half the game, i.e., about 4 minutes, so everyone is really trying to show off their stuff, mostly for each other, but (secretly) for the college coaches. The teams are all coached by either high school or college coaches, or in many instances, by college players. Richard Jeffries (6'-9" Fr. F) who will be attending the University of Arkansas from Washington Union in Fresno did a great job of coaching the junior all-star team (but then we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit). By the way, his foot is doing fine, and he says he's leaving for Arkansas next month. Ah, to be a Razorback fan.

The Great 8 tourney was quick, and it was hard to get a long look at anyone, but we did get to see a lot of the "Virginia" team because they made it to the final four. Coached by Pedrag Savovic (6'-6" So. G) who we understand will be at Hawaii next year, the Virginia squad was pretty impressive, running E.J. Harris (6'-3" Jr. PG) and Wesley Stokes (5'-10" Jr. PG) at the same time alternating at the point spot. E.J. was definitely the better outside shooter but there are few who can take a man off the dribble or push the ball up the court as well as Wesley, although he had some trouble shooting from outside (the same concern that Lute Olson expressed about him last December in Vegas). Very exciting guard play, complemented by Matthew Logie (6'-4" Sr. G) from Mercer Island in Washington, and two Harvard-Westlake guys, Charles Gillig (6'-5" Sr. F) and Spencer Torgan (6'-3" Jr. F). They ultimately lost to the Nevada team, led by Wesley's Long Beach Poly teammate Keyon Cooley (6'-7" Sr. F), Brian Taylor (5'-11" Jr. G) from Inglewood, and Gregg Smith (6'-10" Sr. C) from Cottage Grove, who's a bit heavy footed, but still managed to get up and down the court ok. David Hamilton (5'-8" Sr. G) from South Grand Prairie, Texas, is a little, intriguing player, who also pushes the ball well and played pretty good defense.

The Washington guys were all very impressive, and Seattle Prep and Mercer Island are going to be some pretty impressive teams. Duke Biggers (5'-11" Fr. G) was quick, and played very well with Stokes and Co., and he also portends well for the future of basketball in the Northwest. We also like Shea Robinson (5'-10 Jr. PG) from Seattle Prep, a very tenacious defender, with a great handle who rarely makes a bad decision with the ball.

Another kid we really liked was another "little" guard, Alex Cabagnot who was at Eagle Rock last year but who's transferred to Bell-Jeff. He may not be Ruben Douglas, but Alex, a senior at 6'-0" and lightning quick with a good handle, will help fill some of the void left by the departure of Douglas and Mike West for Eli Essa's squad. Alex is a strong defender, uses his feet very well both on offense and defense. Bell-Jeff also made it's presence known with Mike Yildiz (6'-1" So. G) who has very long arms and great quickness, and showed it during the early rounds of the Great 8.

Shea Anderson (6'-6" Sr. F) from Long Beach Poly was also in great form, as was Johnny Hardwick (6'-9" Sr. F/C) from Manual Arts, who rewarded everyone in the senior all-star game with a couple of thunderous dunks.

Actually we've been reading some of the messages here and over at WestCoastHoops about how this year's first session was a "short" camp, in the sense that it didn't feature a lot of "big" men. Well, first, consider the fact that most of the truly top "big" men were either at Nike or ABCD this week and will not show up until tomorrow's second session of the West Coast All Star Camp. But also consider that this "short" claim is just a bad rap; there were actually lots of tall guys in attendance, many of whom played really well, including Aerick Sanders (6'-8 So. F/C) from Serra, Johhny Hardwick at 6'-9", J.J. Todd (6'-10" Sr. C) who surprisingly is developing great form and much improved footwork and defensive skills. Looks like he's finally grown into those size 20 feet (Hey Mike, there's another size 20 on the way via mail :-).) Jerry Dupree's name was on the list of add-ons at the camp, but we didn't see his 6'-7" frame today, but then with more than 300 guys walking around, we obviously didn't get to see everyone.

Lots of Bishop Montgomery guys also showed at the last minute. Garrett Lee (6'-4" Sr. G), Tony Booker (6'-5" Sr. G/F)--who was on the early lists, but who had a jersey number change, and Gabriel Hughes (6'-9" Sr. C/F), as well as Tony Booker.

And speaking of tall guys, Eric Rohwer (6'-9" Sr. F/C) from Burbank High was in great form. He's finally developed a set of hands, can play defense, and has obviously been working on the weights. His footwork is vastly improved, and all around he looks like he'll be a fine prospect. The "other" Casey Cook, the one from Sacramento (6'-6" Jr. F) from El Camino also plays a lot taller than he really is, and he was named, along with E.J. Harris as the co-MVP of the Junior All-Star Game.

There were other "big men" in attendance as well, including Chris Bennett (6'-9" Sr. F) from Marshall, Nate Bloom (7'-0" Sr. C) from Mt. View, Mike Zepeda (6'-9" Sr. C/F) from Century High in Orange County and Bo Segeberg (6'-8" Sr. F) from Serano in Wrightwood. All of these guys were named to the "Best of the Best" team.

The atmosphere of this last day was a little frantic with the staff and players spread out everywhere, and the impending sense that in a couple of hours this session would be over and a new crop of players would be coming in. To the untrained eye it might look like mass confusion, but to a basketball junkie, it was all you could ask for in a couple of hours crammed full of great action.

We'll be in attendance at the Second Session of West Coast All-Stars, and we will be posting the schedules, team rosters and more shortly, as soon as Jan and Phil Bryant (who really make everything happen) can get the rosters completed. They've got a monumental task of preparing the coaches packets, assigning jersey numbers, covering staff, housing and food assignments, and we sure don't envy them the job they do. Yeah, this is a shameless plug, and if David or Dana read this, we've got one thing to say: Give them a raise! They deserve whatever they want.

We'll post up the "All-Star" teams shortly. It was a terrific session and we're looking forward to more starting tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. when registration opens and it all starts all over again. See you there.