The Good Mongrel Returns With Tricks and Treats!

Thank you for your patience as the Good Mongrel has spent time away from Hoops the last couple of weeks. The top 50 lists were a hoot and I'd love to do one for 2012 soon but I really feel underexposed to the younger kids in parts of Michigan and Ohio from that class so I wouldn't do it justice. Perhaps we can do an interactive one soon and I'll suggest some kids and have a few days for input from readers before we put it together. But it'll be even more interactive. The Mongrel sees a lot of hoops, but doesn't want to fall into the trap of pretending I see them all.

Lets take a state by state look at what's been going on in the last days before hoops gets going again.

Illinois:

Congrats to Levonte Dority who won't be cold for a long, long time after leaving high school. That is a kid understanding what is important about life, but don't forget to hit the books before the bikinis young man! Dority is joining Stan Heath's South Florida club, they are quickly building a very strong program and Dority should help. He's a dynamic scoring point guard who has a nice feel for the game as a point but can put up buckets in a hurry. We'll check in on Foreman and his other three D1 teammates as much as we can this year! Imagine playing in the best league in America but not living in the snow zone! http://ilprepbullseye.com/page9.html

Chicagohoops has been busy puting out some great previews. They put out a preview of their all CPL team which includes Ahmad Starks, Mike McCall, Wayne Blackshear, Brandon Spearman, and Jermaine Winfield. The only junior is Blackshear, the rest are seniors. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/earlyallcpl.html Chicagohoops also took a look recently at six of the top scoring seniors still unsigned for college and named Jay Harris, Hollis Hill (pictured above in a ST shot), Kyle Clevenger, Kashune McKinney, Gerald Dorsey, and Luke Labedzki. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/buckets.html

Depaul is in a major rebuilding mode after going 0-18 in the Big East last year, but they seem to be scaring UI and other area schools in recruiting. Jabari Parker, Mike Shaw, and Wayne Blackshear were just three of the several recruits who decided to spend the opening night of practice with Coach Wainright and his new dynamic coaching staff. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page39.html

Summer leagues are a great place to see how kids used that AAU time and summer to develop. The South Suburban Exposure League was a big success and several kids used it to show they have great years ahead of them. Rajhan Muhammad, Darius Draper, and Dominique Jackson were just a few of the stars who stepped forward. http://ilprepbullseye.com/page4.html

IllinoisHSBasketball.com is puting out some great stuff, here is a link to some updates from Week 6 of the Full Package Exposure League. Dig through their archives for some older stuff, its well worth it. http://illinoishsbasketball.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1054&Itemid=1

Michigan:

Coach Tom Izzo has outdone himself in recruiting, he already had one of the best guards in the country lined up for 2010 in Appleton and now he is adding one of the most talented power forwards in the country in Adreian Payne. Until the last couple of days it was hard to read where Payne would end up, but he's on his way to East Lansing. West Virginia and Kentucky seemed to have a lot of momentum with Payne, but he chose the program that has been to 5 final fours in 11 years. Wise young man!

Central Michigan has been on fire! Coach Zeigler's squad has landed several top kids for 2010 and the most recent additions were a couple of big kids. Coach Buscemi at Loyola HS is seeing his 6'8 big man go big time as Jevon Harden joined recent commit 6'10 Nate VanArendonk from Grand Haven HS. Both kids had several good offers and VanArendonk joins recent commit Colin Voss and Derek Jackson for Central Michigan.

The Styles 3 Elite Showcase was one of the many good internal events going on in Michigan the last few weeks. Dwann Anderson perhaps made the biggest splash as several reports had him continuing to play his way into one of the elite prospects in the 2011 class in the country as he showed his high major athleticism and kept hitting shots. Anderson has offers from Central Michigan, Utah, and Oakland and has strong interest from Wisconsin, Michigan State, Michigan, and more. He was a star for Parallel 45 over the summer. Tommie McCune and Matt Costello were two of the other standouts.

I'll take a look around Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio in an upcoming post and perhaps lay the groundwork for a collaborative effort with you the Good Mongrel's readers for a dynamic 2012 top 50 list as well. Don't let me just put all the kids I've seen on there, I'll be looking for people to convince me I have to put on somebody I have not seen a lot of yet because its a blog and lists are always a little arbitrary at least and I couldn't do it otherwise.

Thursday July 9 AAU and Camp roundup.

Cerroni and Patterson Dominate Hoosier Shootout is in the books. Spiece Indy Stars won the 15U game with big performances from Ron Patterson and point guard Kellon Thomas. Rhett Smith and Austin Burgette scored well and Wisconsin Playground Warriors super-star JP Tokoto was held in check with the Star's outstanding wings in Jeremy Hollowell and Drew. Drew is a 6'6 kid with a lot of the same length and versatility that gets coaches so excited about Hollowell but is a bit less farther along with his finishing at this point. He is an excellent athlete and will be a big time player one day in the not too distant future. Hollowell has been mentioned several times here and has offers on the table from Cincinnati and Iowa already and is in demand from Indiana, Ohio State, and other high majors. Tokoto and Popcorn Morris made the all tourney team for 2012 players for the Warriors squad.

Wisconsin Green Bay 2010 commitment Kameron Cerroni went hyper-nutso-ballistic in this tournament and set the tourney record for points scored in the event on the way to winning the title for the Wisconsin Playground Warriors. The Warriors are best known for their twin towers in Evan Anderson and Ben Mills and some of the younger players who play up sometimes such as Tokoto. But it was Cerroni who scored 48 points in a quarterfinal game and averaged 27.5 ppg in the tournament. He went for 18 this morning to beat the Shining Star Sports in the championship game.
http://www.wishoops.net/sports/hoopsb/blog/message.aspx?f=123&id=1042462
Here is a link to a HoosierNation.com story by John Decker on Burgette. http://indiana.scout.com/2/878026.html Burgette has a Cincinnati offer and strong interest from Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, and Xavier.

Another article from the Scout network, this time Redhawk Insider on Indianapolis (Manual) point guard Crishawn Hopkins who now has offers from Miami, Butler, and Wright State. He also has interest from Indiana, Virginia, and Arizona State. See earlier blog posts on Hopkins' game or do a youtube search on his dunks. You won't believe your eyes. He is under the radar because he missed some time in a couple of seasons for academics, but he is a bright kid and has turned it on and is taking summer school and making the grades now. http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=2&c=877991 Another article from their site updates Miami checking in on Covington Holmes star Ricardo Johnson who is my favorite unsigned senior in Kentucky. Johnson still only has the one offer from Bradley but he is being watched by several mid majors and some high majors.

Adidas It Takes Five was completed. The 17U champs was Triple Threat, the 16U champs were the Derek Smith All Stars, and the 15U champs was Indiana Elite/Team Indiana.

Here is a free recap from ESPN Scouts.inc writer John Stovall that gives good reviews to Indiana 2011 commitment Matt Carlino, Indianapoils North-Central 2012 combo guard Devontes Smith-Rivera, and 2013 Lansing Star Charles Tucker. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/basketball/mens/news/story?id=4316431

Here are some comments on some Indiana Elite kids we've covered and Ricardo Johnson from hoopsreport.com. http://www.hoopsreport.com/news/eventreports/morefromthequeencity

King City Classic is on its final day. I've been pushing the NBE Blog and still suggest going there for info on many of the higher profile events and they were all over King City Classic. See link on my sidebar. For now, here is a link to a great recruiting update from U Michigan hoops. It has great links from the blog to information on the King City Classic and many of the players. One interesting link to follow is the Detroit News link and a blurb on there about how talented Jordan Crawford is even when compared to the other college players there. Xavier should be a tough out with Crawford added to an already strong roster after sitting out a year for transfer.
http://www.umhoops.com/2009/07/09/thursday-recruiting-bullets/ There is a lot of stuff on Bloomington South (Indiana) sharp shooter Spencer Turner and UM commit Evan Smotrycz.

Reebok All-Star Camp is in its second day in Philadelphia. I can't find a lot other than the NBE blog on this one. Most of what I'm hearing from there has to do with coaches visiting or how cheap Reebok went this year as they stopped keeping stats other than scoring. If I run across anything else tonight I'll add it later.

NY2LA Invitational in Milwaukee is wrapping up. Here is a day 3 report. http://www.ny2lasports.com/NextLevelDay3recap.htm Former Wisconsin commit Vander Blue was the headliner yesterday. He has offers from Marquette, Indiana, and Wisconsin on the table and is ranked top 50 nationally by Scout and Rivals. Other players of note included Flavien Davis (Wisconsin Scholars 2010), Zach McCabe (Iowa Barnstormers 2010), Xavier Jones (SYF Players 2010), Jordan Myrick (Grand Rapids Storm 2011) and Meanstreets 2013 6'9 center Milos Kostic.

Going into today the 2013 group had All Iowa Attack Red (Todd Friedman and Peter Jok) against Wisconsin Force (Nick Fuller) in one semifinal and Martin Brothers Select (Nick Zellar) against Meanstreets (Alex Foster, Milos Kostic, Nick Davidson) in the other. The 2012 division had Martin Brothers Select (Adam Woodbury) against Playground Elite (Arroyo Edwards) in one semi-final and Rising Stars Gold (Conner Boehm and Akeem Springs) against All Iowa Attack Red in the other. The 16U division had Rising Stars Gold (Michael Henry) against Iowa Barnstormers (Seth Tuttle and Rashawn Suarez) in one semifinal and All Iowa Attack Red against Wisconsin Playmakers in the other. And finally the 2010 grouping had All Iowa Attack Red (Josh Oglesby and Zach McCabe and Trayvon Wright) against SYF Players (Jones, Mason, Kitchell) in one semi and Net Gain Sports (Chase Creekmur) against the Milwaukee Spartans (Vander Blue) in the other.


Kentucky Hoopfest is underway already. Several of the better teams from the tournaments just completed in Cincinnati and Indianapolis will be there. The Spiece Indy Stars 2012 squad had to forfeit their first pool match and will play at 7:15 this evening. Spiece is sending several squads including Select 2011. Here are some early links from day one action including big games for Jeffersonville freshman Daryl Baker fresh off his standout performance at Indiana's elite camp. http://www.hoosierhillshoops.com/2009/07/09/kentucky-hoopfest-baker-leads-tsi-16u-to-win/

Team Pride had a strong Adidas Take Five tournament with Kenny Kaminski (2012) having a good tournament and drawing quite a crowd including some Big Ten coaches. The 16U team made it to the quarter finals. They had a great opening day at the Kentucky Hoopfest going 5-0. The Mongrel did a feature on Kaminski a couple weeks back, he is worth taking a look at. According to Team Pride's Twitter page Kaminski and 6'9 Matt Costello played well at the 2012 level. http://twitter.com/TeamPride

Shining Star Sports has several teams in tourney and starts 12-4, here's the rundown they most likely beat the team you're looking for and here are the scores for each of their teams.
http://shiningstarsports.blogspot.com/2009/07/kentucky-hoopfest-update-day-one.html

InsidetheHall has a good rundown of Spiece Indy Stars after their 15U victory against Indiana Swish Orange 2012 on day 1. After winning the championship in the Hoosier Shootout this morning the Stars had to forfeit their early game so they have no room for error in their pool and pull even to 1-1 including the forfeit. ITH has updates on Burgette, Patterson, Hollowell, Kellon Thomas, Darwin Davis, Austin Etherington, and Jeremiah Davis. http://www.insidethehall.com/2009/07/09/kentucky-hoopfest-day-one/ I should get a firsthand look at some talent at the Ky Hoopfest on Friday and Saturday in between some prior commitments and will have some observations to share late.

The Louisville Courier-Journal's Jody Demling has a day one rundown hits on several Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky players including Spencer Turner, Ken Kaminski, Jeremiah Davis, Matt Carlino, Aaron Thomas, RJ Hunter, and Taylor Epley among others.
http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2009/07/kentucky-hoopfest-day-one.html

Chicago Summer Classic opened up today and I'm trying to round up some information on it. I read a report that 17U Mac Irvin Fire beat the Iowa Barnstormers in a close one. Alex Rossi had a big game but they lost in OT. Hearing some good twitters about Tavaras Heron and Travis Kellum as well as Michael Haynes.

I'll update later tonight if I find anything else from day one. All I can find so far is a premium article from Blackandgold.com who are doing a great job covering AAU events this summer. http://purdue.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=963733 They have reports on Nana Egwu, Chason Randle, and some 2013 prospects from Indiana and Michigan but nothing in depth on game action from the day.