WCE High School Invitational: Four Takeaways
Garden Grove, Ca. — The West Coast Elite High School Invitational was one of the biggest fall hoops events in SoCal, featuring more than 60 teams competing over the course of three days.
The event included many of Southern California’s top high school basketball programs and players, including Santa Ana Mater Dei, Harvard-Westlake, Santa Margarita, St. John Bosco, Riverside Notre Dame and Riverside Poly, among others.
Here are four takeaways from Saturday’s action:
Ziaire Williams continues his impressive climb
The 6-foot-7 swingman burst onto the national recruiting scene over the summer with his versatile game and massive upside as a prospect, and Saturday’s performances showed that nothing has changed, except maybe his aggressiveness to the basket. There were times over the summer that Williams settled for too many 3-point shots, but in his second game against a good Riverside Notre Dame team, the junior got to the basket at-will and finished with both power and finesse. Oh, and his deep ball was still dropping.
Trabuco Hills is a sleeper type of team in Orange County
As far as execution goes, Mustangs’ coach Sean Sullens is one of the best at getting his guys to buy in to and run his system. Six-foot-7 center Trevor Hotmer will be the focal point of the offense with his solid footwork and good touch around the basket, but a deep group of guards will factor in plenty for Trabuco, led by Kelvin Cabrera and Daniel Prendergast.
Santa Clarita Christian can shoot the three ball with the best of ‘em
The 3-point tracker will be working overdrive up there on the grapevine. The Cardinals have a plethora of deep shooting threats on its roster in Caden Starr, Noah Veluzat, Kaleb Lowery, and Ty and Jaden Penberthy. Starr serves as the team’s main ball handler at 6-feet-7 and Santa Clarita Christian plays a five-out style, driving and kicking to open shooters with a light as green as it gets.
Washington Prep toughness, senior leadership makes it an intriguing City Section team
The Generals return three starters from its CIF Los Angeles City Section Division I championship team last season in Noel Scott, Hassan Hughey and Bilal Mike, and add De’Shawn Johnson, a 6-foot-7 forward who was a crucial piece to View Park’s CIF State Division IV state championship team.