What’s up bballspotlight, it’s your boy Champ with the highlights of my week. This was a good week for me. Report cards came out, we practiced a couple of times, and finally we participated in the Pitt Jam Fest in Pittsburgh.
Monday and Tuesday my dad and I worked out for a couple of hours as usual. Every year he and I focus on some areas of the game that I can improve on and work on that most of the time. Last year it was shooting and defense and amazingly on my evaluation from the Jr. Elite top 100 I received my highest scores in shooting range and defense. This year we decided that our work would be focused on finishing with the opposite hand, ball handling and decision making. Three areas of my game can stand improvement. We work hard at it and I am expecting great results.
Wednesday report cards came out and I finished as an honor roll student again. Getting good grades takes hard work and I am happy about the results. Being a scholar athlete is a challenge sometimes because to be a top athlete you have to stay focused on your grades. Lots of things can be distractions from keeping them grades up.
Friday we had a really tough practice. I think the practice was so intense because we were heading for Pittsburgh the next morning to play in the tournament and expectations are high for our team. But it was good as we ran up and down that court working on our secondary break getting our bigs to run the floor.
Saturday it was show time. Our first game was against Grassroots Canada. I had went on the website and pulled up their site and noticed that they had a video of the greatest 14 yr old. I came ready to play and showed my improvement in ball handling and decision making by dropping several dimes on the break to my bigs. It was a hard fought battle but in the end we outlasted them to the tune of 67-38. Our second game of the day was against the Millennium Fire out of Ohio. Those boys were srappy and tough as nails. Every time we thought we had a comfortable lead they would claw there way back into the game. This was a good victory for us 55-37 against a tough team. The victory gave us the advancement to the Gold Bracket playoffs as pool winners.
Sunday is championship day in AAU for me. Saturday you play so you can compete for the title and fortunately our team has always been in the hunt this year. Our first tournament the Spring Fling 14U we lost to New Heights in the semi’s in OT by a buzzer beater. Our second tournament Big Shots 15U we lost in the Quarters to VA Assault. We wanted the Gold this time. First up on Sunday was DC Team Takeover a team that we had scrimmaged before. We came in a bit confident as we handled them in the scrimmage game. We jumped on them early and took a 15 pt lead, but we slacked up and they came all the way back and took a 5 pt lead with 5 minutes to go. We had to dig deep as a unit to pull this one out, but we did it. My teammate Darian Anderson hit the game winner at the buzzer for a 57-55 victory. Next up was Ohio Basketball Club in the Championship game. They jumped on us early beating us at our own game getting out and running. They made shots and we didn’t in the first few minutes and we where down 17-3 before you could say DC Assault. Oh well needless to say we lost. I finished the game with some nice stats (15pts, 5 rebounds, 4 assts) but I would have preferred worst stats for the victory.
Those are the highlights of my week. Stay tuned next the Southern Invite May 7.
Champ Out !!!!
Mike Silverthorn the #1 prospect in the Garden State has decided to attend Blair Academy. Blair Academy is known as an excellent institution and has produced some top notch talent including NBA Players Charlie Villanueva and Loul Deng. Blair’s coach Joe Mantegna in his 11th year is excited about Silverthorn’s arrival. “I think Mike can help out program because he can shoot the rock, has a high basketball IQ and remains humble. Which means he wants to get better” said Joe. Mike currently travels the circuit with the Juice All Stars and has made his presence felt at events such as Grand Finale, Clash For The Cup and AAU Super Regionals in Hampton, Virginia.
Regardless of these praises and accolades Mantegna sees room for improvement in Silverthorn. “I feel he needs to work defense and his ability to put the rock on the floor. If he’s willing to work like I believe he does he can accomplish those goals with our program” Mantegna finished. Basketball Spotlight would like to congratulate Mike and his family for his acceptance to this elite institution. We wish him the best of luck in the future.
Stay tune as Basketball Spotlight will feature more high school choices by the Class of 2014.
I’ve seen just about ranking system for middle school players in the country and Lamar Kimble is nowhere in sight. This is hard to believe because Kimble has to be one of the top guards in the United States of America. The Team Final combo has dominated the competition in every event from the MIT to the Atlantic City Showcase. Freshy as he is called recently lead TF to the 13U Championship at the AGame Super Shootout. His coach and former NBA player Pervis Ellison agrees that Kimble’s props are due “Many services pay attention to my son (Malik) and our big man Trey but Lamar is the best guard I’ve seen this year. We have played some of the top teams in the country and I will have to say he’s the best” said Ellison.
Ellison is also determined to make sure that Kimble will continue to get better. “Our practices are set up with professional type drills so Fresh gets challenged every day. He’s a throwback Philly guard meaning hardnosed and physical with unlimited potential” Ellison finished. Team Final is on a quest to win the National Title once they head to Memphis. Hopefully, some of these recruiting experts that do rankings will be in attendance and finally give this kid the nod. I know if there was a national voting system my ballot would read Lamar Kimble.
Basketball Spotlight will continue to follow players like Lamar Kimble and others to keep you guys updated on the youth basketball world.
Hello Basketball World,
This weekend we were at the Hoop Group Pittsburgh Jam fest. This is a great tourney for exposure, there were so many schools out there looking at ball players. We all missed school Friday so we could get down there in time for our 6:15pm game. We ended up arriving in Pittsburgh around 6:00pm, which was not good. We were not mentally ready for the game and our preparation was poor. We opened up against Steel City out of PA and we came out flat. I especially had an off game. My shot wasn't dropping nor were floaters or my attempts to attack the cup. At the half we were down by 2. We didn't play well in the 2nd half either as my off game continued. Whenever I have an off game I try to do other things, rebound, play D, lead, etc. A lesson I once learned was that Jason Kidd is the one player in the NBA who is able to dominate a game scoring about 8 points. He does it by doing the other little things to help his team win so I tried to do that by passing and hustling. The game came down to a last play which was a layup by my teammate Kenny Cortes (welcome back, shout out to him for helping us this weekend after we lost our big due to selfish ego problems). We ended up winning by one and we stole that game.
Saturday morning we played Unique All Stars from NY. This was a better scoring game for me, I had about 8 or 9 points but I was still not myself. Like I said before the speed of the game at the 15U level is so much faster we lost this one. I think because they wanted it more, they out hustled us and we under estimated them. This loss put us in the silver bracket and we were very upset. We went on to the silver bracket semi final game on Sunday morning. We played a team from Ohio named Team Toledo. This team was draining threes right from the tip off and the scoring didn't stop they went up while we stood at 0. At the half we were down by over 15 and I had another off game. Our assistant coach, Barry Zeller told us at half that we had to chip away at their lead little by little. That's exactly what we did; we ended up cutting it to two points with a minute twenty left. We ended up losing by 4 points and were out the tourney.
All in all, this was not our best tournament, but we never gave up being down 19 to 1at the start of the game we played hard till the very end. It was cool to see the University of Pittsburgh which has unbelievable. I look forward to next weekend where we will be at another Hoop Group tourney down in Providence, Rhode Island. I get a small taste of what NBA players go through traveling all season long for 82 games. Hopefully next weekend we can win it all in Rhode Island we have done good in every tournament but still haven't took home the hardware in either of the last two, tourney I think we'll get this next one.
Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds. –Orison Swett Marden
Young One Out...
On June 5th and 6th Basketball Spotlight will be traveling to the Dover, Delaware for the Tri State Invitational. This event will be bringing together some of the top teams around. The tournament info is listed below.
Event: Tri State Invitational
Date: June 5th and 6th
Place: Dover, Delaware
Price: $300 Per Team (Multiple Team Discount)
Ages: 9U Thru 17U
DEADLINE MAY 28TH
Mail certified checks or money orders to D.B.L., P.O. Box 102 Smyrna, DE 19977
Questions?? Contact Anthony Mosley delawaresfinest@comcast.net (302)399-1127
Sometimes you can tell when a player has the tools to become something special in basketball. I saw such a player this weekend and his name is Horace Spencer. Spencer is a 6’7 forward that plays for Montgomery County AAU and has loads of potential. Introducing Horace “Big Ticket” Spencer and here’s our One on One.
One on One
BS: Who’s your favorite player?
HS: Kevin Garnett because I feel I play just like him.
BS: What’s the strongest part of your game?
HS: My passing or court vision.
BS: What part of the game do you think needs the most work?
HS: Probably my ball handling.
BS: What’s your dream college?
HS: North Carolina because I love the school.
BS: Who’s your favorite rapper?
HS: Either Drake or Lil Wayne.
BS: What else do you enjoy besides basketball?
HS: I love playing football with my friends.
BS: What’s your most memorable moment in basketball?
HS: When I had my first dunk at age 11.
