NEW HAVEN, Conn. – In between college coverage on the busy weekend that was, I had a chance to check out some of the National Prep Showcase at Albertus Magnus College. The event brought a number of prep schools from around the country to a region full of such schools.
Here are some notes from some early games on Friday and Saturday before the college games took over.
- Ian Sistare (6′2” Jr. SG, Dublin (NH) Northfield Mount Hermon) was the best player on the floor for a lot of Saturday’s win over Hargrave Military Academy. He’s become this team’s hustle player, and it showed on Saturday.
- Chris Baldwin (6’8″ Jr. PF, Springfield (MA) Notre Dame Prep) is one of the stock risers from the event. It’s really simple: he competed, and over the years he has had an inconsistent motor at best. Friday, the result was 22 points on 9-11 shooting, eight rebounds and three blocked shots. He attacked, scored with contact and made himself a factor.
- Baldwin’s teammate, Winston Morgan (5’10” Sr. PG, Manchester (CT)) was also a big stock riser on the weekend, mainly because he shot the ball very well from long range. His size dictates that he play the point, and he didn’t show much in the way of playmaking here and isn’t jet-quick, but a team might take a chance on him as a shot-maker if he continues to shoot like he did here.
- Another of the Crusaders, Jared Wilson-Frame (6’4″ Sr. SG, Windsor (CT) Notre Dame Prep) has resurfaced in New England. While he’s always been able to score and still can, it looks like the range on his jumper is better and he’s a little more of a threat from long range.
- Auburn-bound Daniel Purifoy (6’7″ Sr. SF, Centreville (AL) Hargrave Military Academy) looked good shooting from long range, and he’s also athetic and seems adept at drawing fouls.
- Fishburne Academy was led by the duo of Chris Shields (6’8″ Sr. SF-PF, Martinsburg (WV)) and Jeremy Harris (6’7″ Sr. SF, Greensboro (NC)). Both were in a lot of plays for them. Shields is a well-built forward who didn’t seem to do one thing better than anything else he does. Harris is long and athletic and made his share of three-point shots, and he had 32 points (12-18 shooting) and seven rebounds in Friday’s loss to South Kent.
- Perhaps no player raised his stock, at least among those in the games I was able to see, as much as Kamau Stokes (5’11” Sr. PG, Baltimore (MD) Fork Union Military Academy). Stokes’ line from long range (9-12 in two games) will stand out, as will his 61 points in the two games, but what’s noteworthy is that he started out scoring on drives before he heated up from deep. He’s slight and athletic, but making shots like this will open up eyes, and he did that in all ways as he was 17-26 from the field and got to the foul line.
- Stokes’ fellow point guard, Elijah Gore (5’10” Sr. PG, Mount Holly (NC) Fork Union Military Academy), had a good first half on Friday before Stokes took over. He’s a well-built point guard who hit a couple of nice shots, but was quiet on Saturday.
- Khyri Thomas (6’3″ Sr. SG, Omaha (NE) Fork Union Military Academy) is an athletic guard and not a baby physically. He was very active and finished some chances in close, including a drive and dunk right on a defender.
- St. Thomas More at times went with two point guards in Sean Hoehn (6’1″ Sr. PG, Morristown (NJ)) and Sterling Taplan (6’1″ Sr. PG, East Amherst (NY)). Hoehn really competes and draws a lot of contact (and fouls), and willingly guards at the other end, while the Tulsa-bound Taplan has a good body and looked good when he drove to the basket.
- Travis Atson (6’5″ Jr. SF, Brooklyn (NY)) got a lot of attention here, and rightly so. I wasn’t there for his big game on Sunday, but he showed here, as he has elsewhere, that he has a great motor and has a few ways to score, though he seems to drive more than shoot.
