Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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After the four days of intense workouts and unending games that make up the Hoop Group’s Elite Camp, the style of play shifted on Friday with the switch to the Team Camp, featuring some of the top high school teams in the region.
The Team Camp was split into two divisions, National and American, in a triple-elimination format that guaranteed each program would play a number of games but also left this writer scrambling around town to try and take in as much of the city’s top talent.
Hit the jump for a running account of my day, complete with notes, quotes and stats from some area players and coachs.
3:45 PM (Albright College)
The main (National) bracket of the 2012 Team Camp was split into upper and lower halves, with the upper halves playing their first-and-second round games in the late morning/early afternoon while the bottom half was scheduled to begin their first-round play at 5:40pm. Imhotep Charter–minus star wing Brandon Austin–had already lost their first-round game; so had Pope John XXIII, playing without five-star prospect Jermaine Lawrence. While Imhotep had been “exiled” to Reading High School for their consolation game, Pope John XXIII was in action against Philadelphia’s own Germantown Academy in one of Albright’s two main gyms.
4:30 PM (Albright College)
Germantown Academy beats Pope John XXIII 67-64, getting clutch free-throws down the stretch by starting guards James Drury and Nick Linder in the victory. Linder, a 6-foot-tall guard entering his senior year, has already made a verbal commitment to Lafayette; a strong guard, he’s still working his way back from a minor meniscus injury he suffered after his junior year.
Drury got into the lane fairly easily but tended to dish out to his teammates rather then attempt a difficult shot; at times, it seemed like the Patriots were playing with two point guards on the court at the same time. He told me afterwards that he’s been working on his dribbling, and he looked just as confident as Linder in his ability to get into the lane in this one.
“I’ve always been able to shoot,” he said, “but ball handling’s always been an issue.”
Now, with that improved handle, he definitely could be seen as more of a combo guard with decent size for a D-II school. Drury’s biggest issue on his shot is his low, slow release–he takes his shots nearly from his shoulder, and that could leave him vulnerable at any level of Division I basketball. He said he’s been hearing from “Hobart College, Hamilton, Salisbury, Dickson, Brown, Penn, (and) Dartmouth,” with interest but no offers yet.
The other big name on Germantown Academy is Julian Moore, a 6-foot-10 center who’s a young 17 as he enters his senior season. Moore reportedly received a Penn State offer Saturday morning to go along with ones from La Salle and most of the Patriot League, and is hoping to get another offer or two from area schools before we’re told he’ll make his decision at the end of the July recruiting period.
4:50PM (Albright College)
Headed down to the Albright’s two-court main gym at the Bollman Center, which–unlike the four-court gym at the Scholl LifeSports Center–has air conditioning. Penn Wood (Pa.) was just tipping off against Point Pleasant Beach (N.J.), and I stuck around to check out Point Pleasant wing Dominique Uhl.
The skinny 6-8 forward started off the game in the post, but quickly drifted out to the perimeter to show that he was more than just another skinny shot-blocker in the post. Though he tended to stay down low, he did show a willingness to drive the ball as well as a better-than-expected crossover for someone who looked like he was mostly arms and legs.
For Penn Wood, the only player that really stuck out in the first half as a potential D-I prospect was rising sophomore guard Gemil Holbrook. Listed at 6-5, Holbrook showed off decent form on his two 3-point attempts, although neither of them went down. With the departure of leading scorer Malcolm Richardson (East Stroudsburg), Holbrook–who scored nine points in Penn Wood’s playoff elimination loss this season–has a chance to emerge in his sophomore season.
5:20 PM (Reading High School)
Made it over to the high school just in time to see Westtown and Amityville get to halftime, with Westtown leading 36-27 in an American Bracket consolation game between two teams who had already lost two games that day. Westtown, a Quaker school in West Chester, has to adjust to the loss of Villanova-bound center Daniel Ochefu; that transition will be much easier because of rising senior Yilret Yiljep.
Yiljep had the attention of a few D-I head coaches as a 6-7, 235-pound forward who showcased good hands and great passing ability out of the post. Already holding offers from “Quinnipiac, Brown, Robert Morris, Lafayette, Davidson, Temple, James Madison, New Hampshire and La Salle,” he said he’s going to make his decision in the fall.
“The thing about Yilret is he learns so quickly,” Westtown coach Seth Berger said, “so he played three minutes a game as a freshman and now he’s a Division I forward. The player he is today, you would not have recognized him from the player he was two years ago and he will be a completely unrecognziable player two years from now.”
Yiljep gave a lot of credit to the departed Ochefu for that improvement.
“Guarding someone like him in practice every day is a really tough job, and I really learned from him defensively,” he said. “So against other people I’m fine, because I’m used to guarding (Ochefu) in practice.”
6:10 PM (Reading High School)
Westtown beats Amityville 59-49, just in time for the tip-off between Neumann-Goretti and Bishop Ireton (Md.). Quite a few coaches at this game to check out Neumann-Goretti’s John Davis, one of a few D-I prospects on the team. Saints star guard Ja’Quan Newton is at one of the Nike camps, which opened a starting spot for rising sophomore Lamarr Kimble, one of the MVPs of this May’s All-City Classic freshman game.
7:20 PM (Reading High School)
After a rough first half in which they trailed by as many as four, Neumann-Goretti rebounded with strong defense in the second half and a 60-51 victory over Bishop Ireton in their opening game of the tournament.
“We played a lot of fake defense in the first half, pretended like we were playing,” Neumann-Goretti head coach Carl Arrigale told me afterward, “but I’ve been around long enough to know when they’re pretending and when it’s real.”
Davis (18 points) certainly showed while he’ll be a force to reckon with in his senior season, pulling in at least a dozen boards and fighting for every loose ball on the glass. Now 6-5 and 210 pounds after a junior year growth spurt, the former center projects to be a slightly undersized 3/4 at the next level.
“He’s a worker. He knows his shortcomings, but he knows where he’s bread’s buttered,” Arrigale said. “He’s a big-time rebounder and he scores around the basket but the fact that he’s able to dribble the ball a bit now…just makes him a little harder to guard.”
Davis said this week that coaches from “Delaware, UMass, La Salle, Rider, Towson, UMBC, Robert Morris (and) Binghamton” had been checking him out this week, and while he already has offers from those schools Davis said he’s waiting until the end of the July recruiting period to see where he stands before potentially reaching a decision at some point “after school starts back up.”
Kimble had a great game of his own, hitting two or three 3-pointers and a number of nice 15-foot pull-up jumpers as well as showing surprising rebounding abilities for a guard who’s a shade under six feet. Though he’ll have a tough time standing out in a backcourt that features the risings junior Newton and Tony Harper plus senior Hanif Sutton, he certainly has the talent to project to the D-I level.
“He just keeps getting better,” said Arrigale, who mentioned he could go with a four-guard lineup at times this upcoming season. “(Lamarr) understands a little more…I don’t think he last year he understood how hard it was to get on the floor. He was always a good offensive player.”
8:00 PM (Albright College)
Back at the college’s air-conditioned Bollman Center for two final games, with Chester taking on Bullis on Court One while Math, Civics & Sciences takes on Bishop O’Connell on Court Two. Unfortunately, neither Rondae Jefferson nor Darius Robinson are present for Chester, who are in the middle of a 63-36 loss to Bullis.
Crossing the gym doesn’t prove much better. Despite having future D-I forwards Jeremiah Worthem and Quadir Walton as well as talented guard Shafeek Taylor on the court, the Elephants fall 55-31.
“We haven’t been in the gym in a while, but there’s no excuse for the way we played,” MCS coach Dan Jackson said. “We had a very low intensity, lackadaisical attitude…they jumped out on us and we could never really find our rhythm.”
Chester beat Math, Civics and Science 57-45 in the consolation game, which was played later on that evening.
For the full brackets of the 2012 Hoop Group Team Camp, click here.