Fresno State Team Camp: Pool Play Standout Guards (Part 1)

Fresno, CA - Last weekend, Friday, June 5th through Sunday, June 7th, Fresno State hosted its Second Annual Team Camp, which featured teams from Bakersfield to Fresno, as well as few teams from NorCal. The event featured a pool play format for the first two days and wrapped up with bracket play on Sunday. I was in attendance for Pool Play on Friday and Saturday, and was focused on games in the North Gym only, but there were also games at the Valley Athletics Facility. This article takes a look at 7 standout guards from the classes of 2027 and 2028 (rising seniors and juniors), which is Part 1 of a two-part article on standout guards from the Team Camp. In this article you will find the following information: players name, height, position, school, and their skill sets. The players are listed in alphabetical order, not ranked order, and we begin with Elijah Banuelos.   2028 Elijah Banuelos (6'1 | PG) - Clovis East (CA)   The 6-foot-1 lead guard plays with relentless effort and energy, makes plays to get others involved, and is a high-level perimeter defender. Banuelos has had a strong Spring and early Summer of hoops and has led the T-Wolves at the helm throughout the early parts of June, displaying poise, good decision making, and precision passing to set his teammates up for open looks. Banuelos has tight handles, keeps the ball on a string and head up at all times to survey the defense, uses the crossover, spin-move, hesitation, and between-cross to get his defender off balance, has a good burst off the dribble to get paint touches, with great footwork and use of the pivot to find open teammates cutting off the ball, as well as off the drive and kick and up the court off the glass to advance the ball in transition. Banuelos has the strength to score through contact when attacking the basket, has touch on the floater, can finish with the reverse or up-and-under lay-ups, and is effective with the jumper off the bounce with good body control. Banuelos has active hands, good instincts, and the lateral footwork to stay in front of his opponent, get into his dribbling space to force bad decisions, and looks to poke the ball out or jump passing lanes, turning defense to offense.    2028 Jayden Bergman (6' | PG) - Central Valley Christian (Visalia CA)   The 6-foot lead guard does a great job of knowing when to get his own buckets or make plays to get others involved, plays with good pace and control with the ball in his hands, has range on the deep ball beyond the arc, and had a strong showing against Clovis East on Day 1 of Pool Play. Bergman has dynamic handles, keeps his dribble alive to probe the defense, uses the crossover, spin-move, between-cross, hesitation, and behind-cross to create space from his defender, has a good burst off the bounce, changes pace and direction to get to the open spot, has good body control and accuracy on the jumper from the mid-range to the 3-point line off the dribble, and is a crafty scorer around the basket, using the Euro-step, floater, reverse, and spin-move to evade rim protectors in the paint. Bergman moves well off the ball, gets to his shot spots, is accurate with the 3-ball off the catch with range from deep, and the court vision to make reads off the drive and kick pass, to the diver out of the pick and roll action, or up the court to advance the ball.    2027 Jabari Jackson (5'10 | PG) - Atwater (CA)   The 5-foot-10 lead guard has dynamic handles, shifty moves to get open looks, and plays with great pace and feel for the flow of the game. Jackson was one of the surprise players I saw at the Team Camp, having not seen Atwater play in a few seasons, and he had his skill set on full display. Jackson keeps the ball on a string, probes the defense to attack openings in the defense, uses the crossover, hesitation, pump-fake, and between-cross to get his defender off balance, has a great burst of speed off the dribble to get into the core of the defense, has good body control on on the jumper off the take, with accuracy from the mid-range to the 3-point line, and is a creative scorer around the basket, using the Euro-step, reverse lay-up, or the floater, as well as the physical frame to absorb and score through contact at the basket. Jackson moves well off the ball, gets to his shot spots, is effective with the 3-ball off the catch, a great good positional rebounder for put backs or to push the ball up the court, and the court vision to make plays up the floor, off the drive and kick pass, or out of the pick and roll action. NorCal sleeper that impacted the game in several ways.   2027 [player_tooltip player_id='2273494' first='Zander' last='Jensen'] (6'4 | CG) - Hanford (CA)   The 6-foot-4 combo guard is active on the glass, controls the pace of play with the ball in his hands, and can score from 3-levels. Jensen has played limited basketball since the end of this past season, as he has been healing up, and it showed a bit in his first game, but he regrouped and was back to playing his style of basketball against San Joaquin Memorial, finishing with a team high 14 points. Jensen has a strong handle on the ball, uses his positional size to back down smaller players, with use of the spin-move or shoulder fake into the drop-step to get by his defender for buckets at the basket, as well as the perimeter moves to create shots off the bounce, using the crossover, hesitation, wrap-behind, and the toss-cross to create space from his defender, has great body control and strength to absorb contact, and is effective with the mid-range to the 3-point line off the dribble. Jensen crashes the boards, gets easy buckets on the put-backs, pushes the ball off the glass, makes great reads up the court or in the half-court setting to show off his court vision, and is a crafty scorer at the basket, using the Euro-step, reverse, and up-and-under lay-ups to evade shot blockers. Great to see him back on the court and Hanford will look to be one of the top teams in D2 this coming season in the Section.    2028 Kendrick Leung (6'3 | WG) - Redwood (Visalia CA)   The 6-foot-3 wing/guard can score from 3-levels effectively, has the poise and decision making  to find open players, and is a versatile offensive weapon. Leung has impressed during the club Spring portion of the calendar, and his role for the Rangers will expand even more next season, and he showed he is ready to do what is needed for his team to have success. Leung has good length and timing to alter/block shots on the wing, active hands and lateral agility to stay in front of perimeter players, looking to jump passing lanes or deflect the ball to turn defense to offense, with the court vision to find players up the court off the steal or the rebound, off the drive and kick pass, or from the top of the key or in the low-block to players cutting off the ball, and finds the diver in stride out of the pick and roll action. Leung has a solid handle on the ball, uses the crossover, spin-move, step-back, and wrap-behind to create space from his defender, has good size and length to shoot over smaller perimeter players, is accurate with the jump off the dribble from the mid-range to the 3-point line, and uses the rip through and long strides to get past his defender and into the paint, where he has nice touch on shots around the basket.     2028 Dalen Mason (6'2 | CG) - Bullard (Fresno CA)   The 6-foot-2 combo guard is an athletic and physical player that looks to attack the paint, is a tough on-ball defender, and looked extra bouncy for the Knights on Day 2 of the Team Camp. Mason has a strong handle on the ball, uses the crossover, between-cross, and hesitation to get his defender off balance, has the physical build to bully his way to the basket, scoring through traffic at the basket, as well as score it with the reverse and up-and-under lay-ups to evade shot blockers. Mason has active hands and good lateral foot-speed to stay in front of opposing perimeter players, gets into their dribbling space, and has the timing to jump passing lanes or poke the ball out to get out in transition for easy baskets in transition.   2028 Ethan Maxion (6'1 | CG) - Mountain House (CA)   The 6-foot-1 combo guard showed tough shot making, the ability to space the floor from beyond the arc, and has the court awareness to make plays when the defense collapsed on him. Maxion was playing for Mountain House's B-team (not its main varsity team), but the skill and shooting he displayed looked like a player that will be on the main squad by the time the season starts. Maxion has solid handles, keeps the dribble alive to survey the defense, has a good burst off the bounce, uses the hesitation, crossover, and between-cross to create space from his defender, is effective with the 3-ball off the dribble, and is a creative scorer around the basket over height, using the up-and-under and reverse lay-ups, as well as the floater.

Fresno, CA - Last weekend, Friday, June 5th through Sunday, June 7th, Fresno State hosted its Second Annual Team Camp, which featured teams from Bakersfield to Fresno, as well as few teams from NorCal. The event featured a pool play format for the first two days and wrapped up with bracket play on Sunday. I was in attendance for Pool Play on Friday and Saturday, and was focused on games in the North Gym only, but there were also games at the Valley Athletics Facility. This article takes a look at 7 standout guards from the classes of 2027 and 2028 (rising seniors and juniors), which is Part 1 of a two-part article on standout guards from the Team Camp. In this article you will find the following information: players name, height, position, school, and their skill sets. The players are listed in alphabetical order, not ranked order, and we begin with Elijah Banuelos.