Las Vegas Live: St. Thomas More shocks Sin City
Last weekend at Vegas Live, which is a Grassroots event in Las Vegas that is a prelude to what is happening this weekend, there were several quality AAU teams. Several quality AAU teams and….St. Thomas More High School. The Cavs were the story of the event. This is that story.
The event was the Big Foot Hoops Las Vegas Live. St. Thomas More was seeded number three in their pool and ended up winning it, which put them in the (top) Platinum bracket for the tournament. Their first round game was against an undefeated and #1 seeded (in their pool) team from Phoenix, and the Cavs beat them to move into the quarterfinals.
Saturday morning St. Thomas More were to face against the I-10 Celtics, which is made up of players from both Los Angeles and Phoenix. They won that game on a forfeit. I-10 Celtics had half their team go to the wrong gym by accident.
Next was the semifinal game against Paul Millsap’s (of the Atlanta Hawks) Louisiana Select of the Nike sponsored EYBL. The Select team has players up and down the recruiting rankings for Louisiana according to Prep Hoops Louisiana. In an interesting side note the two best Louisiana Select players go to high school at St Thomas More in Lafayette.
The Cavs also brought with them Rapid City Stevens 2017 point guard Mason Archambault (the only non-STM player) because they were without Preston Arity and needed a steady hand at point in tournaments like this playing a team like Louisiana Select.
The team had two of South Dakota’s best shooters on the floor with Jake Satter and Mason Archambault, and Tayt Maher can knock them down if he has time/space. Inside Isaac Kortemeyer had a strong tournament going against several future high major bigs.
St. Thomas More lost 47-40 in that semi-final after the game was tied at the half. The More kids suffered several turnovers because of the athletic Louisiana pressure but the game was close and the mistakes against the long athletes cost them.
Six-foot-5 Jake Satter had 17 points and Mason Archambault scored 15 to keep the game close. Isaac stands 6-foot-8 and about 215 pounds and was giving up 30 pounds to the Louisiana bigs. After beating St. Thomas More, Select then won the Las Vegas Live championship later that day.
The Cavs exceeded expectations. They were the “talk of the tournament” not just because they were from South Dakota, but a small school team playing against big time Grassroots programs from all over the US and a couple European teams. St. Thomas More went 4-2, losing in semis of top bracket play and that was outstanding experience for a team working to make another big March run.