City of Basketball Love

By Andrew Robinson (@ADrobinson3) +
Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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MANHEIM, Pa. — The 2024 edition of the Select Events Prime East tournament invaded Spooky Nook Sports this past weekend, with teams from up and down the East Coast coming to Lancaster County for a weekend of bracket play. 

Here’s Pt. 2 of our coverage notebooks from the weekend: 

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2024 Select Events Prime East Coverage
Standouts | Notebook Pt. 1 | Notebook Pt. 2 | Notebook Pt. 3 

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Kai Powell (2026 | Team Takeover 16U)

For Kai Powell, defense is personal.

It’s a massive point of pride for the Team Takeover guard, who plays her high school guard at the Bullis School in Maryland, that nobody gets the better of her when she’s guarding them. Powell, about 5-foot-9, is as determined as they come on the defensive end and it’s quickly apparent just how much it means to her.

“That’s what I’m really known for,” Powell said. “I just take it personal, I get in my feelings if someone gets past me and makes a shot so really my motivation for playing defense is I don’t go for any of that.

“If my shot’s not going in and I’m missing, I know I can always come back and play defense.”

Throughout the weekend, Powell took all her matchups personal as Team Takeover reached the 16U title game before falling to a strong Elevate Elite squad. 

Powell’s got all the tools to make an impact on the defensive end. She’s got good size, a rangy wingspan and she’s not afraid to be physical and disruptive even away from the ball or before a reset. That, coupled with speed and active hands, certainly can be frustrating for anyone she’s guarding.

Plus, Powell isn’t ever going to stop.

“That’s just me, I have a lot of energy on the court,” Powell said. “On offense, you might mess up going too fast but on defense, you can go as fast as you want. If I bring the energy on defense, then I can be in charge of the game.

“If I lock down a girl, it wasn’t her, it was me. It was my defense that got the stop.”

Powell’s ability to impact the game without scoring is always something college programs are looking for and it’s not surprising the guard’s drawn some attention. She has an offer from UMBC and she listed Columbia, Providence and Hampton as program’s she’s had talks with.

Powell couldn’t hide a wide smile when she described her first call with UMBC and the coaches there told her how much they loved her defensive intensity.

“It’s fun, it’s really exciting knowing people are looking at me and all the hard work is paying off,” Powell said. “When I talk to these coaches and tell me what they see, it just makes me want to go harder and get even more.”

On offense, Powell said her first inclination is usually to be a passer. As she put it, if her teammates are getting buckets and she’s getting stops, then everything’s good.

At the same time, she knows there will be times when she’ll need to step up and produce offensively.

“I do want to score more,” Powell said. “I know it’s not all about scoring but I feel like I have a good shot and I need to get it off some more.” 

Defense doesn’t always get the same shine as offense in basketball. It’s why Powell takes it so personal and is seeing the benefits of that approach.

“It’s a good feeling knowing people see me,” Powell said. “It makes me want to keep working and really confident in myself.” — Andrew Robinson

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Sabrina Anderson (2027 | Elevate Elite 3SSB 16U)

Anderson likes to stand out. 

That’s apparent from the young guard’s fearless play style on the court to her creative Twitter handle: @Bri_Bri_Bigfoot, both memorable and understandable. 

“My little sister, she would always call me Bri Bri and I got big feet,” she said, the 5-7 guard gesturing to her men’s size 10s. “And that’s how I got it, Bri-Bri-Bigfoot.”

The Potomac School (Va.) product is fun to watch, putting on a show for Elevate Elite as it captured the Prime East 16U championship. She was outstanding during a semifinals watch, scoring 27 points with seven rebounds, five assists and five steals in a win over the MCW Starz.

That type of outing has become normal for the talented lead guard, who’s got the ball on a string and is a knockdown outside shooter who’s not afraid to pull from anywhere within 30 feet. She’s also a terrific passer, something she showed this weekend with one-handed, cross-court passes on point and some nifty post passes when she was on the move.

As a freshman, Anderson was named First Team All-State in the Virginia Independent School Athletic Association (VISAA) Division I, alongside some of the top talent in the DMV area. She averaged 18.2 ppg as Potomac went 21-9, hitting 63 3-pointers along the way. 

“My goal was just to go out, play my hardest and that just came with it, so I’m super-thankful for that,” she said.

Anderson said she got into basketball when her mom, a former walk-on at Long Beach, put her into the sport as an energetic youngster, looking for a way for her daughter to burn off some steam. It was during the COVID pandemic year, she said, when she really felt her love for the game grow and her skill level blossom, realizing just how good she could be on the court.

“There was so much downtime, I really grew to love it,” she said, “and I knew this is what I want to do, I want to go D-I in this.”

That dream doesn’t seem like it will be a problem. College coaches have already taken plenty of notice.

Her first offer, from Providence, came in before she’d even played a game of high school ball; she now holds offers from Boston College, Pitt, Purdue, Wake Forest, and more.

Though there’s plenty of time before she has to start thinking seriously about her college decision, she’s already starting to take in information about the various programs and coaches who are talking to her.

“I just want to learn about the program, the school, what is the environment like on the basketball team,” she said. I feel like my biggest thing that I look for in a college is first, the academics, but then on the basketball team it has to be a family, a good and positive environment.” — Josh Verlin

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Nevaeh Roberson (2027 | Team Takeover 16U)

The thought of where Nevaeh Roberson could be in three years is tantalizing.

A 6-foot-2 wing, fresh off her freshman year, is already a legitimate high major target with the skills and growing offer sheet to back it up. Virginia, Louisville, Ole Miss, Georgetown, Maryland, USF, George Washington, Boston College and Virginia Tech have all extended offers already and with a start like that, more are sure to come.

“I’m getting used to it, I’ve played up my entire life and the older girls, they’re role models to me,” Roberson said on Sunday after a semifinal win in the 16U bracket.

Roberson comes from a basketball family. Both her parents played in college, her oldest brother Jerrell is a rising junior at James Madison and her other brother Aaron is at Howard.She also calls her older sister Cai - a 2026 - her teammate with Team Takeover.

“She’s getting some attention, but I wish she’d get some more,” Roberson said of her sister.

On the court, Roberson does a little bit of everything. She seems to glide up and down the floor, a springy athlete who also has some very refined skills already.

Throughout the weekend, Roberson showed an ability to get to the rim via numerous means, connected on several jumpers inside the arc and extended her range past the three-point line. She grabbed plenty of boards and among her best plays was a massive block of a three-point attempt in the semifinal where Roberson came out of nowhere for the swat.

“I like to say that I play everything, but I’d say my main positions are the 2 or 3 and a little bit of point guard,” Roberson said. “I got a little feel for point guard. I just try to go to the basket, score, rebound, do a little bit of everything.”

Team Takeover’s program is loaded with some exceptional players and Roberson has naturally gravitated to them as mentors. She said the program’s older girls on the 17U team have set a good example and she’s tried to emulate their aggressive play and competitive edge.

Being a competitor and playing to win are important, but so is having fun. There are times where Roberson said she’ll try something on the court just to see if she can do it and she’s even surprised herself a few times.

“One time I did a behind the back pass,” Roberson said. “I did not know I could do it, but when I did it in a game, I definitely wondered ‘how did I do that?’

“That’s what makes basketball fun, trying new things and smiling with my teammates.”

Even with an already impressive list of offers, Roberson does have a couple dream schools, listing Duke and South Carolina as two programs she’d love to have a chance to talk with.

Roberson listed shooting as an area she wants to improve in, listing everything from percentage to form as things she wants to keep refining. 

“I just have to keep improving my game and see where I go,” Roberson said. — Andrew Robinson

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Aidan Langley (2025 | Books & Basketball GUAA 17U)

For a while, Langley’s recruitment was unchanged. 

Temple had offered the Westtown School rising senior last summer, and she rolled into this spring the Owls still on her trail. But a couple strong live periods in April and May showed a number of other D-I programs what they’d waiting to see from the 6-1 forward, and her phone’s gotten much busier this spring.

East Carolina offered Langley this week, joining Buffalo, Charleston, George Washington, Robert Morris, Fordham, Colgate, Iona, UMBC, Fairleigh Dickinson and Towson, all of whom have offered since the end of April. 

“It felt great, just to show that all the work I’ve been putting in is paying off,” she said. “I’m playing with a good team and they’re helping me showcase what I can do.

“A lot of coaches told me they’ve been watching me for a while and they see my improvement, my confidence has gone up [...] and they can tell that I’m comfortable with what I’m doing, and trusting my teammates and everything.”

One talented cog on the loaded Westtown roster, Langley’s been able to shine with BBA this spring, emerging as one of the leaders on a Jersey-based squad that’s got plenty of Philly-area talent. She’s been able to prove herself as a capable 3-point shooter who can attack close-outs, while also maintaining her ability to score on post-ups and rebound at a good clip. 

She’s also a versatile defender, showing this weekend her capability to guard on the perimeter as well as around the bucket. 

With her sudden uptick in interest, she’s got a busy summer ahead to start to whittle things down. Langley said she’s visiting Towson and UMBC this week, with a bunch of other unofficial visits coming up. The only school she said she knows she wants to take an official visit to thus far is Charleston: “It’s what I like in a school, it’s in the city, it’s down South, it’s not too far but not too close either. It’s a good distance.”

With a decision she wants to happen sometime between the end of the summer and the early signing period in November, Langley still has time to sort things out. She’s still figuring out exactly what will matter to her as she sorts through this new pile, but she’s got a few basic tenets in mind.

“Definitely location [...] I’d like for it to be in a city,” she said. “Basketball-wise, posts definitely have to be involved in a way, they’re part of the offense, you look for them, all that.” — Josh Verlin

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