Illinois Wolves, All Ohio Red End Strong

* The 16U Illinois Wolves won the 17U division at the End of Summer Classic in Merrillville. Nana Egwu and Chasson Randle were co-MVP's. The Wolves had to pull a rabit out of their hat to defeat a strong Terone Johnson game for Eric Gordon All Stars 17U team and were down six with a minute left but some Jacob Williams and Chasson Randle heroics clinched it for them. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/endseason10.html


* The 16U title was won by the Queen City Prophets featuring Xavier, Indiana, Ohio State, and Cincinnati target Aaron Thomas, seen here in a Courier Journal picture. The Prophets were coming off a tournament win in Mississippi last week according to the link. 15U was won by Prymetime as Rockville's Jacob Van Vleet was impressive. They beat the Eric Gordon Central Stars 15U in the semi-finals and then beat the Meanstreets 14U playing up a year (Alex Foster). The 14U tournament was won by another Meanstreets 14U team, the Wilbur squad who defeated Mac Irvin Fire. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/endseason11.html

* All Ohio Red won the 15U, 16U, and 17U division at the Orlando Nationals. http://www.hoopsreport.com/news/eventreports/allohioredwin16unationals Elijah Macon, Traevon Jackson, Trey Burke, and Raphael Carter had excellent performances for the 16U squad according to the link. 17U defeated New York Gauchos for the championship sweep.

* The 17U All Ohio Red did beat an impressive Old Gold squad from Illinois in the round of 16 at nationals. This Illinois Prep Bullseye story discusses the Old Gold, RisingStars, and Illinois Kings squads who had a nice showing in Orlando. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page26.html

* The MVP of the state tournament in Kentucky has received an offer from Central Michigan. 2010 athletic 6'5 wing Ricardo Johnson has offers from Central Michigan, Bradley, Ohio, and Marshall along with interest from several high major schools. http://www.hoopsreport.com/news/eventreports/ricardojohnsonpickingupoffers

* Michigan and Kentucky made the final seven for Casey Prather of the Nashville Celtics. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2009/08/uk-on-prathers-final-list.html

* Courtside blog has updates on a few Wisconsin kids who are being recruited by schools of note. Buzz Williams and a Wisconsin assistant took in a Wisconsin Playground Warrior game with JP Tokoto. Wisconsin and Iowa also had an assistant on hand for a Paul Jesperson game. Valparaiso is among the schools involved with Wisconsin Force 6'8 forward Robert Gilchrist. Josh Cameron is being recruited by UIC, SIU-Edwardsville, and Ball State.
http://www.wissports.net/sports/hoopsb/blog/blog.aspx?f=123

New Offers, Interest, Happenings in AAU world

* Northstar Blog has done some great work getting word out on several tournaments this July as well as talking to several kids and getting quotes on their interest and offers. This link has breakdown for several kids from Ohio and Kentucky as well as several kids claiming offers and interest from area schools. Its from AAU Nationals Day Three: http://blog.northstarbball.com/2009/07/29/aau-super-showcase-day-three--u17-action-gets-underway-nyarsuk--reese-stand-out.aspx Some of the updates include:

* Northland, Ohio's JD Weatherspoon has offers from Xavier, Ohio State, and Maryland and seems to favor Xavier right now. You may recall he decommitted from Xavier after Miller left.

* Ball State has offered Devonte White from Centenial, Georgia.

* Indiana has offered 2011 Team Takeover's Michael Gbinijie.

* Xavier has offered Dezmine Wells of Word of God Academy.

* Westerville South and All-Ohio Red's 2011 Travaeon Jackson has offers from Ohio, Akron, Cleveland State, and Miami. He is Jimmy Jackson's son.

* Teays Valley and All Ohio Red 2011 player Nate Anderson has offers from Ohio and Penn State.

* And here's the day four http://blog.northstarbball.com/2009/07/31/aau-super-showcase-day-four-rundown-the-miracle-of-st-patricks.aspx with offers from Notre Dame to Jerrian Grant, from Wright State to Jordan Downing, Purdue, Illinois, and Minnesota offers out to Bradley Beal as well as Beal plans to go to Purdue and Illinois camps, some praise for Indiana, Kentucky, and Louisville target Stacey Poole's defense.

* Demling has been doing a great job as well, his latest update includes Scott County's Chad Jackson getting a James Madison offer, Princeton, Indiana point guard Jalen Packer getting offers from Tennessee Chattenooga and Southern Illinois. Demling is also looking for Austin Rivers to get Indiana involved in his re-recruitment. Hoopsreport's Coach Blevins spoke with Rivers and said he's going to visit "at least" Duke and North Carolina. http://www.hoopsreport.com/news/eventreports/austinriverstovisitdukeandnorthcarolina

* Another link on some Orlando Nationals tournament success for Illinois Old Gold and Rising Stars from Illinois Prep Bullseye has updates on several players recruitment including Dekalb 6'10 senior Jordan Threloff who wants to decide soon and might favor Illinois State according to the link. Brehm Prep 6'6 athlete James Siakhem has drawn Southern Illinois, Purdue, Illinois, Indiana, Northwestern, Dayton, and Vanderbilt coaches recently. His Illinois Titans teammate Bruce Barron has interest from Vanderbilt as well. Barron impressed me earlier this month at the Hoosier Shootout, few college level point guards play with the kind of strength and athleticism he commands at a young age. Purdue, Northern Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, and Notre Dame are also very interested in Barron. The photo above is Barron from an Endtoendscouts.com article discussing his cousin Justin Dentmon among other things. Finally, Jay Harris from Illinois Old School received an offer from Duquesne. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page33.html

* According to Demling the Derek Smith All-Stars made it to the semi-finals (final four) of the Double Pump tournament in Los Angeles and had to leave for travel arrangements. Indiana Elite (Fox) without Ge-lawn Guyn made it to the elite eight of that tournament.

* All Ohio Red beat Nike Team Florida to win the AAU National tournament in Orlando. Bowling Green's Elijah Macon had 16 points. All Ohio Red 17U are in the quarter finals in Orlando as well.

* Coach Weber, Illinois State assistant Paris Parham, and Purdue assistant Jack Ray were the only coaches present for the championship victory Mac Irvin Fire 15U team which had Jabari Parker and Travis Hamilton playing up on it. http://blogs.suntimes.com/hoopsreport/2009/07/a_whole_lot_more_from_las_vega.html

* The Illinois Wolves beat the Mac Irvin Fire 17U team yesterday in Merrillville. Chicagohoops listed the following head coaches as being in Merrillville on Thursday; Weber, Painter, Beilein, Brey, Craig Robinson, Todd Lickliter, Greg McDurmott, Travis Ford, Jim Les, Rick Majerus, Jim Molinari (W Ill), Billy Taylor (Ball St), and Kevin McKenna (In St). http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/endseason5.html The playoff teams are listed in the link but it doesn't say who is in the gold, silver, and bronze brackets. I'll update later in the day.

* GoldandBlack.com twittered that North Central shooting guard Terone Johnson had a huge game in Merrillville today finishing with 45 points! I'd be pretty surprised if Terone doesn't end up ranked in the top 50 with an expert or two after this summer.

* Mark Miller of Wishoops.net says Paul Jesperson has received an offer from Loyola and UW Green Bay and Port Wahington's John Gasser has added Maryland and Airzona State offers to his Northwestern, St Louis, Bradley, Butler, and several other existing offers.

* ESPN has a great review on Xavier Jones from Gary, Indiana from the Desert Duel.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/basketball/mens/news/story?id=4365943

* Another ESPN link, former Majerus assistant Paul Biancardi really likes the Rising Stars team from Illinois and gets the dirt, all four Rising Star senior to be studs have great academics. Ohio State bound Lenzelle Smith, Iowa bound Ben Brust, Cal bound Alex Rossi, and William and Mary bound Fred Heldring all have 3.0 or higher and the link also a review of Trey Lewis from Garfield, Ohio. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/basketball/mens/news/story?id=4363230

Ken Kaminski 2012 Ohio Star in the Making

One of the best players I've seen in the 2012 class is without a doubt Ken Kaminski. This is a kid who is so good he's not going to be able to be referred to as overlooked or underrated for very long so the Hoops Mongrel wants to strike while the iron is hot.

The Mongrel watched Kaminski for the first time this spring playing for Team Pride. He's about 6'5 or 6'6 and extremely athletic. He not only can leap, he also has a little grace to it and some hang time which stands out at this age. And wow, the kid just throws up nice looking 3's with a quick release and Kaminski can flush the ball with authority. He plays with intensity and is really smart. Its hard to be more impressed with a kid in this age group the first time you see him play.

The forthcoming Mongrel is far from the only one noticing, however. The good gentleman the Mongrel sat next to during one of Kaminski's hoops explosions would interrupt stories about his top-secret inside information on Butler basketball's coming ascendency with secret recruits already locked up like Ben Brust and Austin Etherington with several compound words that began with "holy" but ended in ways best not described in such a friendly environment. Kaminski belongs in the same class as other elite 2012 players nationally that the good Mongrel has been fortunate to see such as D'vonte Smith-Rivera, Ron Patterson, Jaylen Beckham, Raphael Davis, Elijah Macon, and AJ Hammons.

Kaminski is from Medina, Ohio and plays AAU ball for an impressive Michigan AAU program by the name of Team Pride. The resourceful Mongrel found google very kind when looking for ooh's and aah's describing Kaminski's game. Saginaw area hoops guru Lou Dawkins is one of the sharpest knives in the drawer when it comes to Michigan hoops. Tubby Smith fans might remember Dawkins as a star for Tubby's Tulsa squads. He has a blog at http://www.botbscouting.blogspot.com/ that does some great event recaps and scouting and the grateful Mongrel will return to this well a time or two at least when doing our Michigan hoops homework. Look for Dawkins' event recaps in the May archive and you'll find an entry from the IPS Border Battle in which he refers to Kaminski as a "potential McDonalds All-American" and comfortably suggests he might be the best player in Ohio's 2012 class including Macon and (at that time) Behanon. Take a look at Kaminski and you'll be a fan. Quickness, skill, intangibles, range, hops, this kid has it all.