ESPN helped put together the National High School Invitational, which is being billed as a sort of an eight-team "national championship tournament" for high school squads.
Sunday's championship game, which will be televised live on ESPN, will feature Oak Hill Academy and Findlay Prep, the consensus Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the country.
Both teams played at Marshall County's Hoop Fest in December and were clearly the top two outfits in Draffenville — Oak Hill beat Duncanville (Texas) and Chicago Simeon and Findlay was very impressive in disposing of Florida-based Monteverde Academy.
Oak Hill is 39-0 and Findlay is 31-0, and both teams are actually a little more talented now than when they played at Hoop Fest. Oak Hill center Keith Gallon missed most of the event with a knee injury and Findlay has since picked up a talented transfer in Texas-bound junior Tristian Thompson, who played at St. Benedict's (N.J.) at Hoop Fest before having a falling out with coach Danny Hurley and transferring to Findlay, which is based in Las Vegas.
St. Benedict reached the semifinals, losing to Oak Hill. Findlay hammered Montrose Christian of Maryland to reach the title game.
Oak Hill has its usual assortment of Division I signees, including Oklahoma-bound Gallon and guard Lamont "Mo-Mo" Jones, a Virginia Tech signee, and several highly-rated juniors.
Findlay has a star-studded backcourt in Avery Bradley (Texas), D.J. Richardson (Illinois) and junior Cory Joseph, who is one of Louisville's top recruiting targets for next season. They complement Thompson and UNLV-bound big man Carlos Lopez.
The tournament is being played at Georgetown Prep in suburban Washington, D.C. Marshall County was contacted as a potential host two years ago, but ESPN opted to take the event somewhere else.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment