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Big Shots Philadelphia Notebook (June 6)

06/07/2015, 12:15am EDT

By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Upper Chichester Rec Center was buzzing all day long on Saturday, as Big Shots hosted an event that brought several top area programs out to the facility’s two courts for the first day of a weekend-long tournament.

Here’s a notebook featuring several standouts from the day’s action:

Samir’s effort indicative of Philly Pride’s success
It’s been a good spring for Philly Pride’s 17Us, who went 8-4 in three stops on the Under Armour Association circuit during the two April live periods and one weekend in May.

That was good enough for a tie for second place in the “Hungry” division, earning them a spot in the UA Association Finals next month in Atlanta, one of 16 teams (out of 28 in the circuit) that will be competing for the championship.

In a rare local appearance this summer, it became clear to see why in a 69-30 rout of an overmatched Reach One Teach One. Head coach Sean Colson has a lot of length on his squad, including 6-foot-8 Maurice Henry, 6-8 Tyere Marshall and 6-7 Rasool Samir up front, plus two athletic wings in 6-7 DeAndre Hunter and 6-6 Charlie Brown.

“We’re a longer team now,” Colson said. “We’ve got Tyere, we’ve got Mo, Charlie Brown, Rasool has gotten better, now he actually gets some meaningful minutes. Obviously DeAndre...so it helps us on defense for sure.”

The guards are solid as well, with Conwell-Egan duo of Stevie Jordan and LaPri McCray-Pace joined by J.P. McCaskey’s Kobe Gantz, Imhotep’s Jaekwon Carlyle and D.C.-area guard Mickey Bell; all five are very capable scorers who can all handle it as well, though Jordan and Carlyle take care of the majority of the point guard duties.

“They’re smarter, obviously they’re 17s now, and we’ve done well these two years I’ve had them, and this is the year we really want to kick it up and even try to win the Under Armour thing. We finished second in our division, so we’re trying to really do good things this year.”

Though Hunter is the most highly-recruited prospect of the bunch, with high-major offers from leagues all across the country, while Brown is already committed to Saint Joseph’s and Marshall and others are receiving Division I looks, it’s the play of Samir that really stood out on Saturday as a good indication to why this team is doing well.

The lanky forward was all over the court on the defensive end, bouncing out to guard the perimeter with a lot of success while also doing a solid job on the glass and blocking shots; offensively, he contributed a few buckets, posting up 10 feet from the hoop and working his way to the rim.

It was a far cry from the player who never scored more than four points in any game as a junior, and Samir acknowledges the past season didn’t go the way he was expecting. So now he’s trying to change that for his senior year, and it’s paying off on the AAU circuit.

“My 11th grade year, it feels like it was a waste of time, I didn’t really do anything, I wasn’t in a big role in the offense or all that,” he said. “I’m starting to mature, ever since we lost to Roman [in the state playoffs] I’ve been in the gym every day, every single day. There wasn’t one day I wasn’t in the gym.”

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La Salle’s future backcourt putting it together
Two years ago, a pair of junior guards at La Salle College HS prepared to make the leap from fairly minor reserve roles to big-time minutes in the starting lineup.

Head coach Joe Dempsey should hope that history repeats itself, because all Shawn Witherspoon and Najee Walls did was help lead the Explorers to the program’s deepest-ever run in the state playoffs.

This year, it’s Jarrod Stukes (pictured above) and Matt Paulus who are making that similar transition. The two scored a combined 82 points as sophomores but will slide right into the starting roles vacated by Witherspoon and Walls, who are bound for Division II schools Nyack (N.Y.) and East Stroudsburg (Pa.), respectively.

“They taught us to take our opportunities last year and they really prepared us,” Paulus said. “They told us to play with confidence and be ready for our time.”

That time certainly seems to be now, and the Explorers have a lot to replace this season, including another starting guard in Dan Corr and Colgate-bound forward David Krmpotich. Those four seniors represent about 78 percent of the team’s scoring from this past year, from a team that went 21-7, including 9-4 in the ultra-competitive Catholic League.

But two years ago, Walls and Witherspoon and their classmates had to replace seven seniors from a 15-win team, and all they did in 2013-14 was win 23 games and make it to the PIAA Class AAAA championship game. Paulus credits that successful succession to the “La Salle way,” which he defined as “team basketball.”

“We just keep going through it and going through it, and each class teaches the other classes,” he said.

While Paulus was helping his Team Final Black 16U squad to a win on Saturday, Stukes was one court over with Team Philly’s 16Us; both had seven points and a number of assists for their respective squads.

Stukes, at 5-8 and 150 pounds is more of the drive-and-dish point guard, while Paulus (5-11, 170) is a confident perimeter shooter who’s developing a stronger handle as well. They both agree that they compliment each others’ games.

“He’s a knockdown shooter and I’m a penetrator, so when I draw the defense, I just kick it to him for a 3,” Stukes said.

Of course, the name Stukes is a rather familiar one in the city’s basketball scene. His oldest brother, Nadir, just finished up a four-year career at D-III Rosemont College (Pa.), while another brother, Amar, will be a redshirt sophomore at La Salle University this fall.

So it’s no surprise that Jarrod has been spending a few days each week up at the “other” La Salle, working out with his older brother as both prepare for big seasons ahead of them.

~~~

Newman energized by first Division I offer
Paul Newman is used to being a little lost in the crowd.

Though the forward stands 6-foot-8 and 225 pounds, he’s still somewhat easy to miss on the court. That’s what happens when you play for state champion Roman Catholic alongside Division I recruits like Tony Carr, Nazeer Bostick, Gemil Holbrook, TreVaughn Wilkerson and D’Andre Vilmar.

And it doesn’t get much easier for Newman on the AAU circuit, where in addition to Carr and Bostick, his Team Final squad also features high-major targets in Lamar Stevens, Lonnie Walker and Dylan Painter, plus a few other D-I recruits.

So when he got a text from Towson head coach Pat Skerry after Skerry watched him during the April live periods with a scholarship offer, he finally felt noticed.

“I was proud of myself, I was like ‘wow, somebody’s really looking at me now and getting interested,’ so that felt good,” he said. “He likes my motor, they like how I run up and down the floor, don’t take a play off, go for everything.”

Newman went to visit the Maryland school’s campus last month, and liked what he saw. The Tigers already have one area commitment for 2016 in Neumann-Goretti guard Zane Martin, who committed a few weeks back after receiving an offer in April.

“Me and him are pretty close, we went to a camp a couple of years earlier, so we got more acquainted with each other,” Newman said.

Beyond Towson, Newman’s recruitment is still somewhat lukewarm, though he’s been talking to several local schools.

He’ll certainly see his stock rise if he can start producing at a more consistent basis than he was at the end of last year; in Roman’s nine playoff games, he scored a total of 22 points. And though he started the majority of the season, senior Manny Taylor (headed to Rutgers for football) emerged near the end of the season as the dominant big man on the team.

“I think close to the end I kind of fell off,” Newman admitted. “But I’m going to get it back going into the summer.”

And how does he do that?

“Defensive confidence,” he said. “Confidence in myself.”

~~~

Quick Shots
--JB Hoops made the trip down from northeastern Pennsylvania and despite missing a few key pieces due to SATs, came away with a 41-32 win over the Freedom Stars behind 16 points from Hazelton’s Bobby Planutis. The 6-6 rising senior wing grew four inches in the past year, and after a strong April live period, has been hearing from a variety of Division I, II and III programs: Army, Navy, UMBC, Brown, Princeton, Dartmouth and New Hampshire have all been in touch. His AAU teammate, Tim Toro, a 6-8 forward from Abington Heights, is also hearing from Division I schools: Fairfield, Brown, Loyola (Md.), Bucknell, Yale and Navy, though he’s also still waiting on his first offer.

--Two games, two very strong performances for a pair of Team Final Black 16U/Archbishop Wood teammates. Tyree Pickron, a 2018 SG who plays up a year on the AAU circuit, continued his strong play of late with a 22-point effort against Reach One Teach One in a 47-14 domination, knocking down three 3-pointers and doing his usual strong effort on the glass. For a 2018 prospect, he’s got a solid physique and decent size at 6-3, and as long as his game and body continue to mature, there’s no reason he won’t be picking up mid-major offers before long. In a 64-46 win over South Jersey Jazz, it was 2017 G Collin Gillespie who erupted for 25 points after scoring 16 in the opener; the 6-2 guard is a defensive pest, good outside shooter and has solid size for a lead guard with a good head for the game.

--Philly Pride’s 16s had some scoring issues, but were ultimately too much for the L&L Running Rebels in a 42-35 win. No one player on Philly Pride really stood out above the others, with St. George’s PG Kyson Rawls and Chester F Jamar Sudan scoring nine while Archbishop Carroll SG David Beatty and Hodgson Vo-Tech SG L.J. Stansberry adding eight apiece. They’ll face off against the Team Final 16s at 11 AM tomorrow in what should be a very entertaining clash of shoe-sponsored Philly programs, with Under Armour (Philly Pride) against Nike (Team Final) for a berth in the Big Shots 16U final.