Bruce’s Notebook: Saturday Standouts

Technically McKinley didn’t play on Saturday but he destroyed the competition when I saw him on Friday night. When he caught the ball off direct post ups, it was automatic, as the banger 4 man easily turned over his left shoulder to dislodge opponents and score the ball. On the defensive end, he showed good power and timing, putting together a couple of monster blocks. When he wasn’t dominating like that, he controlled the glass using strong mits to snag nearly every missed shot. Overall, he was one of the better talents I saw.

Brown has really caught my eye. He’s put together some pretty solid performances that last few times I’ve watched him play. It was no different on this day, however it wasn’t just that he scored, but the ease at which he did. He showed the ability to knock down threes in catch and shoot, got to the lane, and did a good job of creating offense from his defense, jumping lanes for steals.

It’s not unusual for point guards to dominate middle school play, but the level was really high on this day, highlighted by the play of Wallwork. He controlled the entire pace of the game dictating who got shots and where. He was more QB than PG as he had a knack for throwing on time and on target passes to get teammates wide open looks. Reminds me of a right handed version of UNLV comitt DJ Thomas.

Wooten played a terrific game, leading his Cal Elite team to one of the best victories of the day, a hard fought battle against a game Club Utah team . Wooten controlled the glass, on both ends. When his team’s perimeter offense stalled, he igniting it by facing up and slashing, or grabing the defensive rebound and pushing the break. His bread and butter was scoring down low, as he punished defenders with physical offensive finishes.

Not sure what’s in the water in the Behive state, but Hudson is one of several really good middle school PG’s. He had the best combination of handle and wiggle that I saw on the day. Time and time again Hudson was able to get into the paint and then decide what he wanted to do. When the defense collapsed, he dished to teammates. When they stayed attached he would get all the way to the rim and finish. As a smaller player, you can’t always go over the big, and the 5’7 PG used the rim brilliantly to shield the ball from defenders before completing the layup.

To be honest the Stars had a lot of players that were standouts in their Friday night game. I thought Schoepke did the best job of tying all their talents together. He was able to drive to the lane for layups, he made his open shots, and did a good job of spraying the ball out to teammates after touching the paint. Helping his squad to a decisive victory.