ZG Home For Easter 9th Grade Standouts: Part 1

On Saturday, April 19th, I attended the Zero Gravity Home For Easter one-day tournament. I spent the entire day at Dana Barros Basketball Club, watching the 9th grade division in the morning and the varsity division at night.   Below are part one of my standouts from the 9th grade division. Part two will be coming tonight.    Smith is a super sturdy combo guard who plays hard on both ends of the floor. Defensively, he slides his feet well and consistently beats offensive players to the spot – he's tough and wants to compete on that end. Offensively, the lefty is a talented finisher with his southpaw and also knows how to find teammates on the perimeter after he gets into the lane; Smith really likes the Nash dribble and does a good job keeping his handle alive so that he can make decisions at the last second. Tough kid who can definitely play a role on a high school team.     Borges is a confident lefty guard who understands how to get into the paint and make decisions for himself and others. He showed off a solid three-point shot, a nice floater game in the lane off of both feet, and the ability to finish at the rim on the break. He was also willing and able to find teammates once the help came. He uses his stop-and-go dribble moves to get by his defender and then makes decisive plays in the paint – he's also sturdy and hard to move off his spot. Developing his quickness and shooting touch would help Borges have a really nice high school career.     Greenleaf has good size and athleticism for his age. He's 6-foot-2 with really solid length, but he's skilled like a guard offensively. He can handle it and shoot it well, and he gets to the cup for finishes pretty easily. He also did a great job making quick decisions out of closeouts and ball reversals, which makes me think he can be a really nice role player. Curious to see whether Greenleaf continues to grow, because some more inches would make the Cambridge Rindge and Latin freshman a nice college prospect.     Quirk does a good job getting downhill and attacking the cup with aggressiveness and force. He's fairly quick for his size — pretty bulky kid — and has a good enough handle and misdirection bag to get by defenders. Once he gets into the paint, he can hit the pull up and also find teammates for easy looks. He can take some bad shots at times, but such is the case in AAU for many. More importantly, he has the vision necessary to make the passes, he just needs to get more accustomed to making the right play all the time vs. trying to do it all himself. Quirk plays for a good Newton South team and should have a solid HS career.     Nuriel is a compact guard who's comfortable handling the ball against all types of pressure. He uses his tight handle to get by defenses and his strength to hold his line against bigger defenders. He can also shoot it from the outside, hit some floaters in the lane, and finish with english at the cup. Nuriel is also a great passer who will make the right play again and again, even if it doesn't show up in the stat sheet – super unselfish. The Newton South freshman has a nice HS career ahead of him. Fun to watch and play with I'm sure.

On Saturday, April 19th, I attended the Zero Gravity Home For Easter one-day tournament. I spent the entire day at Dana Barros Basketball Club, watching the 9th grade division in the morning and the varsity division at night.