The Top Spot: Still Rolling!
The Pulley Panthers and D1 Minnesota 17U squads remain two of the elite teams in the nation. In fact the Panthers are ranked number one in the nation as the only consistently playing Grassroots Minnesota team in America that is undefeated after six events.
Previous Weeks. D1 Minnesota took two weeks off but no the Panthers. They have been going strong for five straight weeks. They won five games in the Jayhawk Invitational and six at the Pulley Invitational. The top wins in that 11 game run were over Team Nebraska Express, Team Rush, KC Run GMC, and Powerhouse Minnesota. Pulley won gold in both of those tournaments.
EYBL. This weekend I would think many expected the Panthers to drop a game at some point. Even the greatest Grassroots teams in recent memory lost a game or two. But not the Panthers. They beat the Georgia Stars by eight, Southern Stampede by three, King James by six, and Cali Supreme by one. And in the later games Isaac Johnson was out with a broken nose, Tre Jones hurt his thumb and had surgery today, DJ Hunter has a fracture, and Gary Trent had a sore ankle. But the Panthers played Sunday with two bench players, one bench player, and at times no subs and still got by without a loss.
Gary Trent Jr had 20 points on 22 shots with nine boards in the win over the Stars while Brad Davison had 11 points, seven assists, and six boards. In game two Gary Trent exploded. Made 15 of 31 shots, six treys, and scored 46 points with nine boards in what has to be the biggest scoring game of the EYBL year. Brad and Gabe were in double figures but that win was Gary Trent Jr carrying a club with a crazy shooting day.
Saturday night was the game that Brad Davison hit the three free throws to win it and got a late charge call. Brad made five treys and 13 of 21 shots overall for 37 points, eight boards, and nine assists. Theo John had a dozen points and eight boards in that contest which the Panthers played without Tre Jones. On Sunday the Panthers suited seven but had just five to use at the end of the game. Theo John stepped up with 14 points and eight boards missing only one shot while Brad had 25 points on ten shots.
Battle at the Lakes. After losing to D1 Minnesota on Saturday morning Under Armour team Young Legends waved the white flag opting to not play in the title game last night instead wanting to get home quicker. D1 Minnesota won the event with a 5-0 record beating Young Legends and fellow UAA team 1Nation as well as Adidas program the Iowa Barnstormers. Of the five games D1 Minnesota played all of them were blowouts by between 24 to 28 points and these teams were full squad. Only the Young Legends came within ten.
D1 Minnesota first started a huge line-up of McKinley Wright, Goanar Mar, Matthew Hurt, Nathan Reuvers, and Jericho Sims but later subbed a guard (Jack Sorenson I believe) into the line-up for Reuvers who then gave the squad their leading scorer coming off the bench to do damage. There weren’t any official stats produced but the shuffling in and out of the line-ups during 20 plus point differentials showed that all had a good showing.
The Final Say. The Panthers are 29-0, D1 Minnesota is 19-1, they are separated by the Panthers playing a couple more events and D1 Minnesota losing by a score in overtime. The bigger picture is that Minnesota is getting more respect nationwide. Not enough though. I still don’t believe that the local teams are quite believed to be as strong as they really are nationally which is why come early July at the Peach Jam and Adidas Championships (both in South Carolina) our teams have a chance to bring home not just wins and trophies, but respect for the basketball in this state.
Both take this weekend off and then prepare for Memorial Day weekend (they then get June off as far as playing as a team in grassroots play goes). Pulley is in Atlanta while D1 Minnesota will be playing in the Adidas Regional in Chicago.