skip navigation

Live in AC: Day 3 Notebook

07/25/2015, 10:30pm EDT
By Ari Rosenfeld

Ari Rosenfeld (@realA_rosenfeld)
--

STOCKTON, N.J. -- Few area summer events provide aspiring college basketball players with the opportunity to impress that Elevate Hoops’ annual Live in AC tournament does.

Friday's portion of the event featured the final few games at the 15-17U levels, as players got ready to wrap up the last of three July live periods. The champions are as follows:

17U: Connecticut Basketball Club
16U: D.C. Premier
15U: Team Takeover Black

Here’s a notebook from the action on the event's final day:

~~~

Keandre Fair (2016/Connecticut Basketball Club)
The 17U championship game featured no fewer than five players with a multitude of Division I offers.

They just all happened to play for Sports U.

Despite the one-sided talent advantage, Connecticut Basketball Club was able to get hot from deep and pull off the upset, led by 24 points from its lead guard, Keondre Fair.

“It just makes the game very exciting,” Fair said of his squad’s hot shooting. “This is a very good team that we just played against, so to come out here and shoot the ball the way we did and play hard, it shows a lot about our team.”

Entering his senior year, Fair is currently devoid of a Division I offer. He holds interest from St. Peter’s, Vermont, Quinnipiac, and “most of the colleges that’s in the MAAC”, with the Bobcats of Quinnipiac being in touch the most right now. Thus far, Quinnipiac is the only school he’s visited.

“It’s very good,” he said of his relationship with the school’s coaching staff. “I went on a unofficial visit around this time last year, so hopefully I can go back.

“I liked it. It’s very nice.”

According to Fair, the most important thing he must improve in order earn a Division I scholarship is his point guard play.

He already excels as a spot-up shooter, knocking down four three-pointers in the win over Sports U, but at 6-foot-2, Fair knows he must prove himself as a lead ballhandler to excel at the next level.

“I’m getting way better at it,” he said. “We have a really quick guard on our team, but at the same time, we both share the ball. We have a lot of guards on my team, so I try my hardest to bring up the ball and show I can be a point guard.”

Although no one on his team currently holds any offers, Fair and his teammates have been able to put that fact in the back of their heads throughout the month.

In their minds, the best way to get exposure is through team success, and a Live in AC championship is a great place to start.

“I try to just have fun,” Fair said. “My coaches, they try to tell us to just play and not worry about the coaches and all that. Our whole team, we’re all hungry for offers, but at the same time, we’ve just got to have fun.”

~~~

Sam Friday (2016/Sports U)
On Thursday night after the second day of Live in AC, Sammy Friday got one of the more relieving text messages he’d gotten in quite a while.

Not satisfied with the state of his game after graduating from New Jersey power Hudson Catholic last June, Friday opted to reclassify to the 2016 class and take a post-graduate year at St. Andrew’s, a Rhode Island prep school.

Despite holding offers from LIU-Brooklyn, Wagner, St. Francis, Wagner, and Holy Cross as a member of the 2015 class, Friday had yet to pick up his first 2016 offer before this week, when Niagara extended him his first scholarship opportunity.

“It feels great, knowing that people see me doing what I do. I’m working hard,” Friday said. ““They texted me last night, and said, ‘We would like to offer you a full scholarship.’ I’ve got to text him back when I get a chance.”

Other than Niagara, Friday has been hearing from Morgan State, Tulsa, and Wagner, with the latter being the only one of the schools that had previously offered to reach out to him since his reclassification.

Although he already held several scholarship offers, Friday didn’t yet feel he was ready for the college game. At 6-foot-8, he feels he needs to be prepared to step out to the perimeter in order to be successful at the next level.

“[St. Andrew’s] has a 7 footer and a 6-10 kid, so that’ll allow me to play more on the perimeter,” Friday said. “I just wanted to mature my body and develop overall, my perimeter game, be more mobile.”

As of now, Friday looks to be having success with the transition outside.

He displayed a workable mid-range jump shot with range nearly out to the three-point line, as well as a nice dribble-drive game on face-ups. Where he needs to continue to improve, though, is on the other end of the floor.

“Defensively, I need to get better, guarding on the perimeter,” he said. “Guarding bigs is alright, but guarding on the perimeter, I need to get better.”

Friday is still not sure quite what he’s looking for in his eventually college of choice. He’s yet to take any visits, but has one school in mind that he’d definitely like to get to in the near future.

“I’m gonna try to go to Tulsa soon,” he said. “The coach, I contact him every day. He texts me everyday and I like him. We have a great relationship. I’m gonna try to get out there soon.”

~~~

Quick Hits

--Justyn Mutts (2017/Team Final Blue), fresh off his first offer, had several impressive performances while helping lead Team Final Blue’s 16U squad to a championship appearance at Live in AC.

At 6-foot-6, Mutts is working on playing more on the wing after years of being strictly a perimeter player.

“Well, I don’t feel as though I’m tall enough to play the 4 spot in college,” he said. “I have to expand my game to the wing to be a dominant member of the team.”

Since CoBL spoke with Mutts last week at Hoop Group Elite Session 2, the young rising junior forward has picked up his first Division I offer, from University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.

That certainly provided a sense of relief for Mutts, especially once head coach Matt McCall expressed his desire to make Mutts a priority recruit for the Mocs in the 2017 class.

“I was really excited when it happened, because it was my first one,” he said. “My coach texted me, and he just told me, ‘You picked up your first offer from University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.’ I didn’t even know what to say.

“[McCall] said he’s looking forward to recruiting me really hard moving forward.”

--Justin Anderson (2018/Team Final Blue), one of the top freshmen in the area last season, has found himself a new home for this upcoming year.

Anderson racked up 388 points last year at Springside-Chestnut Hill, good for fourth in the Inter-Ac, but the rising sophomore will be transferring to Academy of the New Church for his second high school season.

At ANC, he’ll be joining with AAU teammates Marcus Littles Jr. and Matthue Cotton, as well as Martin Luther King transfer Jabri McCall (2017), to form a formidable young core for the Lions.

“It’s gonna be kind of an adjustment for me,” Anderson said. “It’s gonna help a lot because I’m really good friends with [Littles and Cotton] and I’m pretty sure they’ll help me adjust to ANC.”

Anderson’s experience at SCH will surely help him as he transitions to ANC. After having to do almost all of the scoring and ballhandling for the Blue Devils last season, he’ll have a fair amount of help on both fronts for the next couple years.

“Back at SCH, having to dribble, pass, and do all the stuff I had to do, it kind of prepares me to have a big contribution to ANC, so it’ll help a lot,” he said. “It’s a huge relief.”


Recruiting News:

HS Coverage:

Tag(s): Home  Recruiting  Contributors  Recruiting HQ  Archives  Ari Rosenfeld