This past Wednesday afternoon, twenty-four of America’s brightest prep talents arrived in New York City for the third annual Boost Mobile Elite 24 game at Rucker Park (Bronx, NY). The week’s festivities were set to culminate Friday night on the famous outdoor playground, but mother-nature had other plans.
As my crew and I headed toward the Bronx in a Yellow Cab, it was painfully obvious that Hurricane Bill was planning on attending the Elite 24 game. Still three hours before the expected tip-off, brief but heavy showers dumped water on the outdoor court but leaving enough time to potentially stick to the original plan. Event organizers said that there was a pre-arranged backup plan at a local gym, but the decision to move the game was delayed for over three hours while volunteers tried drying off the court with leaf blowers and one rolling heater.
For the first time in my life, I got to witness players warm up with towels coating the entire area inside the three-point line. With the crowd, players and organizers getting antsy, the game was minutes from starting when drops of rain began trickling from the sky. Despite their efforts to cover the court with a plastic tarp, the decision was finally made to move the game to the New York Gauchos gym. Running through the city streets and across traffic to track down a city bus, we made our way over to the new location. After fight thru crowds and a near riot, we made our way into the gym.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE GAME
Josh Selby brought down the house early in the second quarter with an electrifying dunk on UNC commit Kendall Marshall. Pushing the ball in the open court on a break, Selby came down the court step for step with Marshall. As he entered the lane, Selby faked the ball in two different directions and rose for a tomahawk slam over the top of Marshall’s outstretched arms. The crowd went nuts and the announcers actually stopped the game for a few minutes.
Doron Lamb, who was playing on his home AAU court (Gauchos), was the unanimous crowd favorite. Anytime he touched the ball, the hometown fans called for Lamb to take his defender off the dribble. Displaying a sweet shooting stroke from deep, Lamb was name one of the games four MVPs.
CJ Leslie looks very good in transition and word at the game is that Kentucky is in very good shape to land Leslie. With his ability to get into the open court and effectively put the ball on the floor, Leslie would be a nice piece to John Calipari’s Dribble Drive Motion Offense.
As expected, the game’s big men had little to no impact on the game. In spite of this, 2012 big man Perry Ellis slowly but surely worked his way into a very solid and comfortable second half. Tallying double digit rebounds, Ellis showed why he is so highly thought of. Hustling for loose balls and taking the limited touches he got right at his defender, Ellis was the most effective big in the game.
Harrison Barnes is really good. The crazy thing about Barnes is he does things so quietly. After thinking that he had done very little, the box score proved otherwise. Barnes made his mark on almost every column of the stat sheet. Also of note, he gets to the free-throw line at an extremely high rate.
Kendall Marshall is ridiculous at the point. He was by far the best pure point guard in this game. Marshall is deceptively quick in the open court, is willing to push the ball in traffic and can see passing options one, two and three before they even become available. One area that Marshall can improve upon is his ability to change speeds. For most of the game, Marshall was set on cruise control in fifth gear at 130 miles-per-hour. Adding a change of pace with gears one through four would make Marshall the complete point guard for this class.
