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SoCalHoops High School & Prep News

Double Pump West Coast All Star Camp
Session 2: Second Day Report--(July 13, 1998)

Today was the second day of West Coast All-Star Camp and there were some big doings as the games between the preassigned teams got going in earnest with an afternoon session and an evening session. Carlos Boozer (6'-9" Sr. C) was having some big fun, as was Jason Kapono (6'-8" Sr. G/F/C), Aaron Abrams (6'-4" Sr. G), Gilbert Arenas (6'-4" Sr. G) and Mike Dunleavy (6'-6" Sr. C) all of whom were doing some big shooting and dunking. The slam dunk champion has DeShawn Stevenson (6'-5" Sr. G), who was just dunking all over the place. And the nice thing was that most of these guys actually played some defense too.

Lots of coaches showed up today: Steve Lavin came around and was drooling over Carlos Boozer, and he also told us some very nice things about what he thought of some of the other kids at the camp, but he did say that Boozer was his prime suspect at the West Coast Camp.

We had about a half hour chat with Portland Trailblazer coach Mike Dunleavy about his son, Mike Dunleavy who plays for Portland Jesuit and the Pump N' Run 1 team which was holding a small practice after the evening games to get ready for Vegas starting on Wednesday.

Mike (the younger) is a lean, quick and smooth predominantly outside shooter who has a great stroke and can knock down the three with great regularity. When we saw him today, he was playing great defense too, and on occasion driving to the hole, but the "camp" style of play doesn't really suit him, since he likes to get everyone involved and also be involved in most plays by swinging the ball, but that doesn't happen too often at these all star camps. Coach Aubrey McCreary, who also runs Mac Hoop Clinics from his home in Minden, Nevada (just down the hill from Tahoe), had a remedy for that solution: He describes it as the little monkeys, big gorilla trick. You see, there are all these little monkeys and their job is to get the ball to the big gorrilla inside. So rather than have the little monkeys simply run around in circles or pound the ball up and down, he prefers that the monkeys, get the ball to the gorilla. After giving this speech to his team several times, the idea seemed to sink in, and the guards started actually trying to feed the ball inside to the big men or push the ball up the floor to the outside shooters who were spotting up, guys like Mike Dunleavy. Once the other guys, who included Jason Morrisette, Branduinn Fullove, Chris Hernandez, and freshman Charlie Kranzdorf from Montclair Prep.

Mike Dunleavy the elder told us that Mike the son is looking primarily for a school based on academics, and that the schools that are likely at this point include Washington, Stanford, Cal, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Arizona, but that Cal and Stanford are pretty high on the list at this point. Mike has probably ruled out USC, even though it's a pretty sure bet that Bibby would be glad to have him.

Coach Dunleavy was headed over to the Pyramid to check out which of his players was participating in the Fila Summer Pro League, and so he had to miss both of his sons games at the West Coast All-Stars (he's got another, Baker Dunleavy, who's a kind of minature version of Mike). But he'll be back tomorrow for all the games.

Also on hand were coaches and recruiters from just about every school up and down the west coast, about 20 from the east coast and midwest, schools such as UCLA, Utah's Rick Majerus, Lorenzo Romar from Pepperdine, Jason Levy from Portland, the Oregons, ASU, and more. All in all, we counted about 100 different coaches throught the day, which is not bad considering that only about 1/5th of those were not D-I.

Jason Kapono showed up and had a couple of interesting games. Wearing his new face mask to protect his broken nose, he looks like a smaller and leaner version of Bill Lambier. He was dunking, dishing and driving as usual, but the format of the game was also not to his liking (or to his folks, who were concerned that he might re-injure himself even with the face mask, and they were probably right to be concerned because things were a bit rough today), and he does far better in a more structured setting. We were told that USC is a distinct possibility, UCLA is probably not even in the running, but Arizona, Cal and some others are looking good, but with Jason having a good ABCD camp, there are some others schools that will open up for him.

Bo Segeberg (6'-9" Sr. C) from Serrano in Wrightwood and also on the Pump N' Run teams (we don't know whether it's PNR I or II, the latter of which is actually going to be called Pump N' Run IV, because the Hilltoppers have struck up an alliance with the Pumps and now their teams will carry the banner of "Pump N' Run", so they will be PNR II ( and presumably also PNR III, but we're not sure if there will even be a III), had a tough day, but showed that he has tremendous heart and can play through even some of the toughest adversity. Bo was hurting last night, and he discovered why this morning when he found out he had torn a ligament in his left hand, requiring him to play with a brace. Nevertheless, even though he wasn't doing too much scoring, he was rebounding and playing amazing defense. He told us he's wide open, and we heard from several schools, including Portland, UC Riverside, Sacramento, Long Beach, and others that they were all interested in him.

Rafael Berumen also finally showed, and he had an average game, after also having, we hear, an average or so-so experience at ABCD. Contrary to popular belief, he did not get dunked on, but he did get injured which prevented him from being as strong inside as he wanted to be, and as a result, he was forced to take his game outside, which made him look a bit weak for such a big guy. Hey, sometimes things happen to a player and they just have to play through it, and Rafael did just that.

We saw some great fresham and sophomores at the camp today, and since there weren't that many in all, it was kind of an interesting mission for us to find them all. So we made it our goal today to really just focus on the Freshman and Sophomores on each of the teams. Here's what we saw:

Domammanic Ingerson (6'-1" So. G) from Oakland McClymonds, who is playing for Coach Dave Goosen on the Alabama squad is definitely a big time performer, and he's got size, speed, and quickness, and can hit from long range. David Gale (5'-10" Fr. PG) from Buckley hit three three's and played very nice defense against Zach Zanoli (6'-0" So. PG) from Aliso Niguel of the Wyoming team. Marques Crane (6'-3" So. G) showed very nice form inside and outside and tremendous quickness. Chris Hernandez (6'-1" So. PG) from Clovis West showed that he can defend, shoot and play the point well and he ran the floor for Coach Aubrey's Utah squad. Skyler Wilson (5'-10" So. PG) was one of the best on the floor in any class, and he just could be one of the best sophomore guards on the west coast this year. Noah Davis (5'-8" So. G) from Seattle O'Dea was a tough little player, not afraid to drive and he can shoot from inside and out. Torin Beeler (6'-5" So. G/F) from Oceanview continued with his fine form from last season when he averaged close to 20 points per game; he's gotten stronger and is a smart, saavy player with good fundamentals. Jason Parker (6'-6" So. F/C) showed nice poise in the post and on the wings, and he's got a decent enough handle that with a little bit of work, he might just function as a sort of "point-forward" as he matures. John Steffanson (6'-4" Fr. PG) from Artesia also showed why Artesia is consistently among the top programs, and he pushed the ball and controlled the pace in both of his team's wins today. Charlie Kranzdorf (6'-0" Fr. G/F) from Montclair also got another initiation by fire: After being dunked on by Gilbert Arenas yesterday, today he was dunked on by Carlos Boozer, DeShawn Stevenson and Jason Kapono, all in one day, something he can tell his own kids about someday. Must be some kind of record for getting dunked on in two days of play.

Anyway, tomorrow (which is now today by the time you read this) we'll be looking at some more sophomores, a ton of juniors and seniors, and we will also focus on the balance of the top teams thus forming part 2 of yesterday's report on the first day, which was broken down by team but in which we covered only one half of the teams.

Hopefully, we'll be able to get back to our computer later today and put up the rest of the reports. If we can't, then bear with us, because there's just a ton of basketball to see, including the games at WC All Stars this afternoon and evening, and then we might sneak out over to Rim Rattler to see the championship games there.