Notes from 17u Pool Play at the National Invitational

July 12, 2009 New England Hoop News Staff

Saturday was the first day of Basketbull’s National Invitational held in Springfield at both the Mass Mutual Center and Springfield College. Forty-eight 17u teams made the trip to the birthplace of basketball to fight for the championship, but also be seen by college coaches during this NCAA “live” period. NEHoopNews.com was in the building all day and was able to catch some outstanding play by both local and national/international teams. Below we highlighted some of the things that stood out to us:

•  SECC All-Stars Impress: Squaring off in their first game against “The Dukes,” the SECC All-Stars (based out of Springfield) were able to use their hometown momentum to overcome their bigger opponents. Both teams got off to a hot start with Northampton’s Jesse Coulon knocking down four 3’s in a matter of two minutes. In the second half the forward trio of Ellis Cooper, Robbie Burke and Dan Martin ended up being too much as SECC took the game 81-78. SECC won their pool and will face NYC powerhouse New Heights in the opening round of the Gold Bracket.

• Tough Draw: The hardest pool to navigate through grouped together top programs like Florida Rams and Brookwood Elite as well as Massachusetts’ own Bay State Magic. Each team went 1-1 through the day buy the Rams, led by Fab Melo the 7’0 center who may have been the top player in the gym all day.

• Sanders continues to shine: The rising junior from New Heights has yet to score under 20 points in any game the last 2 days. The 6’5 lefty has the frame and the stroke to become a very, very special player.

• NE Playaz continue to Stand Out: Still missing some of their key players to injuries/absentees, the Playaz seem to be THE team to beat of the tournament. It’s obvious of their individual talent, however their ability to play together both on the offensive and defensive ends of the floor has them playing at another level so far this tournament.

• Expressions Elite gathered a rather big buzz of attention both from onlookers as well as college coaches throughout the day. This wasn’t more evident than their last game of the day when they played Connecticut Basketball Academy. Absent from yesterday’s First Eight, 6’8 wings Tyler Olander and Eric Ferguson brought athleticism and height to complete their roster.  This also brought numerous college coaches to stay for the final game of the evening which didn’t start till about 9:45. The list included head coaches: Paul Hewitt (Georgia Tech), Jim Baron (URI), Johnny Dawkins (Stanford), John Beilein (Michigan), Tommy Amaker (Harvard), Joe Jones (Columbia), Jesse Agel (Brown) and Sydney Johnson (Princeton). Also assistant coaches from Miami, Pitt, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Georgia Tech, BU, Temple, Vermont, Penn and Brown also lined the court.

Check back here with NEHoopNews for more info from tomorrow’s championship rounds of the National Invitational!

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