National High School Hoops Festival recap

Went to the National High School Hoops Festival on Sunday to watch a few games, specifically St. Frances with Maryland commit Sean Mosley, and the American Christian/Patterson matchup of the nation's #2 and #3 prep teams. The tourney was held in the boonies of PG County, at Wise HS, which had easily the best gym I've ever seen at a high school. The gym, which holds 5,000 people, was easily better than the Smith Center at GWU or the gyms at American Universtiy or Towson or Catholic U.


The first game pitted St. Frances (Baltimore) against Paul VI (Northern VA). The game itself was pretty worthless, with the refs calling it really tight and Mosley picking up his 4th foul in the third quarter. He ended up with 14 pts on some assorted mid range jumpers, threes, and free throws. It doesn't help that the rest of the team is pretty terrible, with the exception of their freshman point guard Ronald Williams. The guy is only about 5'7", rail thin with floppy dreads, but he was everywhere, finishing in the lane, grabbing boards in side, blocking shots, throwing his body around. If he grows he could be a big time recruit, but even if he doesn't the worse case scenario would be a guy who ends up tearing up the A-10 or the MAC.

Other than that, there wasn't much interesting about the game. Mark Karcher is now an assistant for SFA. Terps assistants Chuck Driesell and Joe Harrington were there watching Mosley. Someone needs to tell Harrington the old man jeans, rumpled golf hat, and windbreaker look isn't impressing any 16 and 17 year old brothers. If you're going to recruit look the part. Not to mention, he looked dazed as hell walking around the gym, like he needed help finding the bathroom.


Sean Mosley

Second game between American Christian and Patterson was equally terribly reffed. At one point there were four 5-second dribbling violations in 8 possesions, which was too bad because both squads were stacked. American Christian had Tyreke Evans, a 6'7" small forward and the #6 overall player in the nation according to Rivals.


Tyreke Evans

I actually was underwhelmed by his overall game. His handle is sick, and he can finish like swimwear but his shot is pretty much garbage, or at least it was against the Patterson zone. His left hand is high up on the ball, and he falls away in a Vince Carter routine on every shot. Having said that, he had a couple sick drives, and ended up with 33. The backcourt was made up of Jeremiah Kelly (DePaul commit) and Lamont "Mo-Mo" Jones (Louisville commit). Jones banged a three of the bat and proceed to begin talking shit to the Patterson bench non-stop. The game also featured the always classic move of two different AC players taking instructions from random brothers in the stands, during the middle of a play. Most impressive player on the floor was probably Courtney Fortson from Patterson, point guard, about 5'11" with long dreads, who I believe ended up with 30 points. He is headed to Arkansas next year, and was putting down reverses and throws off the backboard in warmups like it was his job. Patterson won 99-95 in overtime.