Las Vegas was the place this past weekend for high school aged basketball players. The city was home to four basketball tournaments, the Adidas Super 64, the Main Event, the Reebok Summer Championship and the Center stage tournament as club teams from all over the country as well as thousands of college coaches flocked to sin city to watch the various basketball players play.
There were over 30 teams from Northern California at the tournaments. But four teams from the San Francisco Bay Area fared very well in Las Vegas this past weekend. In the Main Event Platinum Championship, the peninsula based Bay Area Ballers club team, were on an eight game winning streak in the tournament, before losing in the finals by 8 points to Nike Team Florida in a tough hard fought game.
The Ballers were paced by the St. Francis High of Mountain View backcourt of Tyler Johnson, a 6-foot-2 guard and Spencer Britschgi, a 6-foot guard. These two played well together as various colleges from USC, Boise State, Pacific, Riverside, San Diego and other schools tracked them throughout the tournament. This should bode well for St. Francis during the high school basketball regular season.
In the Adidas Super 64 tournament, the strongest of the four tournaments, the East bay based Lake Show 1club team made it to the quarterfinals of the second place Gold Bracket, before losing 69-62 to the Minnesota Comets-Hanson team. Lake Show players who stood out included San Ramon Valley’s Chris McNealy, an athletic 6-foot-5 combo guard and Jordan Barton, a tough 6-foot-7 combo forward from Bishop O’Dowd in Oakland. Both of these players improved there stock with strong tournaments showcasing there skills.
The San Francisco Rebels 17’s one upped the Lake Show as they defeated the Minnesota Comets-Hanson team in the semi-finals 80-65. They got to the championship of the Gold Division before tiring out, as the Rebels lost to the Arizona Stars-Team Jefferson. The Rebels got strong play from Deend Parker, Angelo Gully and Jamal Ford.
Parker attended Lincoln High School this past year, as he was the MVP of the San Francisco Public schools league. He is deciding between going to San Francisco City College to play or attending a prep school. Gulley is a 6-2 Mission High rising senior guard, who turned heads with his play and Ford is a 6-5 athletic wing at Sacred Heart Cathedral, who has various mid major schools recruiting him.
The last San Francisco Area club team to do well was Athletes Committed to Academics (ACA), coached by legendary San Francisco High School Carl Jacobs. ACA won the B Division bracket play beating a traditionally strong Team Inland 95-75. ACA was supposed to then play the Salt Lake Metro Prospects in the B Division Finals, but Salt Lake Metro, left the tournament early to catch a plane to another tournament.
They played an extra game and defeated the C Division Champions, the Colorado Chaos 88-86 in a triple overtime game, as they were led by Rue Critchfield, a 6-foot-4 shooter who graduated from International High School. One wonders why Jacobs, who was out of coaching this past year, doesn’t have several job offers at the high school or the collegiate level in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a good x and o coach who can really motivate his players.
The Las Vegas tournaments showed that Bay Area players can compete and excel on a national level with the other players from various other regions of the country.
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