Comets Shootout: 17U Sunday Forward Standouts
The AAU season kicked off in style last weekend as the Comets Shootout took over the St. Cloud area. Things concluded Sunday after teams advanced into bracket play and with some of the top AAU teams in the state going head to head, a lot of players found a way to stand out.
Here are some of the forwards that stood out Sunday:
The first game I dedicated most of my attention to pitted Fury Antl with Powerhouse Black.
Cretin-Derham Hall’s Jacob Prince was a guy I saw a little bit Saturday with Powerhouse Black but he stood out in a big way when I got a chance to check them out more closely. Prince plays a lot bigger than his 6-foot-4 listing and he’s built like a tight end. He doesn’t require a lot of touches offensively but showed that he can make plays and score in the flow of the offense. A lot of his work came on the offensive glass where he’s physical and explosive in tight quarters.
Fury Antl’s got a nice collection of forwards and I detailed a few of them in the “Saturday Standouts” piece but a few other guys stepped up for them Sunday. New Life Academy’s Drew Wynia was one of those guys who was good in both of the team’s games Sunday. Wynia is a space-eater at 6-foot-7 and I’d venture to bet in the 230-pound range inside but he showed off excellent footwork on the post. He didn’t get a lot of scoring opportunities in the post and probably won’t ever be a guy they dump the ball into possession after possession, but he can score and he makes a lot of smart plays on both ends of the floor.
Select Ohnstad is stacked with quality hybrid wings so some of those guys can be found in my “standout guard” piece but a few guys I’d classify as forwards included St. Croix Lutheran’s Garrett Maag, DeLaSalle’s Christian Dickson and Robbinsdale Cooper’s Beijan Newbern.
Dickson is a terrific defender and showed the ability to guard 1-4 in most cases. He doesn’t require much maintenance offensively as he does a lot of his damage off cuts or on the glass. He knocked down his only 3-point attempt in the game I watched closely and if he can get that to a point where it’s reliable, his college stock goes up even further.
Newbern’s length really stands out up close as he’s a long, rangy kid who gave Select a shot-creator in the halfcourt and in transition. Newbern can obviously score — 20 per game at Cooper last season — but I liked that he didn’t hunt shots and disrupt offensive flow. He’s another guy who can guard multiple guys which is undoubtedly a strength of the team as a whole.
Maag didn’t have a great impact in the team’s win over Fury but I thought he played outstanding in the loss against Comets Lewis. At 6-foot-4, he was stuck battling inside against a bevy of bigs that include Joe Hedstrom and Brevyn Spann-Ford and he was solid. He’s more of a combo-forward at the next level and his ability to defend ball screens and get back to his man helped Select get an early lead and make Comets work a lot harder than they would’ve liked. He knocked down at least one 3-pointer but I’d like to see him get more assertive offensively. I think he’s a guy that can create offense for that team and as the summer goes along I think they’ll need him to.
It was something of a layup line when D1 Minnesota took on Heat Pratt, which makes evaluating anything from the game pretty difficult. D1 was supremely talented but a guy I came away impressed with from Heat Pratt was St. Anthony’s Aaron Smith.
Smith knocked down several 3-pointers and showed off a beautiful shooting stroke. He handled the ball well against a team that provided constant pressure and proved more than capable of creating a shot for himself against Division I and II caliber talent. He competed hard, which in a game like that where D1 Minnesota essentially did whatever it wanted on the floor, I was impressed with his unwillingness to give in.
A guy that probably won’t play college basketball but certainly stood out was Fury Wilde and Apple Valley big man Spencer Rolland. Rolland is a stud football player for the Eagles and apparently is drawing Ivy League interest on the gridiron — so he’s winning — but he was fun to watch Sunday. At 6-foot-7 and I’d bet about 250 pounds, Rolland plays exactly like he’s built. There isn’t finesse to his game, there isn’t “stretch” to his game. He’s just a bruiser and he pushed all the bigs from D1 Minnesota around inside when he got them in there. I enjoyed his physicality. I’m sure his teammates enjoy his physicality too because he set some mean screens.
Another star football player who stood out in a big way was Comets Lewis and St. Cloud Tech big man Brevyn Spann-Ford. Spann-Ford was one of the guys who brought consistent energy for Comets throughout the day and his size/strength presented a challenge few teams were equipped to deal with. What really impressed me was his ability to handle the ball and pass in close quarters. He fed Hedstrom several easy buckets throughout the day after a quick slip in a ball screen action and if he didn’t draw extra attention, he easily converts anything within 10 feet of the rim.
D1 Minnesota won the tournament and plenty of their guys will get plenty of recognition from people smarter and more plugged in than me but this was my first time watching Race Thompson live and I was impressed in particular with his unselfishness. He wasn’t particularly assertive looking for his own shot as much as I expected but with a team that has so many scorers, that might not be his role. But I’m always impressed when guys go to AAU teams and seem willing to fit into a certain role. There’s a lot of selfishness in nature on the AAU scene and Thompson doesn’t seem to have any of that. He sets hard picks, he makes the right passes and he takes shots when they present themselves. He was also solid as a team and individual defender. That team’s got plenty of alphas and Thompson might ultimately be one as the season goes on, but for now, he’s something of a super-role player.