Every year, the wild and crazy high school hoops scene winds down it’s season with the annual Summer showcase known as the Elite 24 Game. While this year, the game changed it’s primary sponsor from Boost Mobile to Under Armour, the game remains the only outdoor All Star Game of it’s kind, allowing fans to catch a glimpse of the college and pro ranks’ future superstars on the blacktop in a streetball setting.
While in year’s past, we’ve witnessed future stars like Brandon Jennings, Kyrie Irving, and Anthony Davis show out in the sunny outdoor venue, this season we were introduced to a new crop of elite prospects like Julius Randle, Aaron Gordon, and Justice Winslow, with an assist from Syracuse bound PG Tyler Ennis, Jabari Bird, and sharpshooting Kansas commit Connor Frankamp.
Speaking of Frankamp, the 6’0 Kansas native was the first to show off his impressive long range shooting as he blew away the competition in winning the 3 point contest to kick off the Elite 24 festivities Friday evening. Connor scored a 17 in the Semi-Finals to advance to the Finals to face Rashad Vaughn, where Frankamp then upped the ante with a whopping 19 points to take home the 3 point crown. It looks like coach Bill Self has found himself a shooter.
As for the main event Friday night, the nation caught it’s first glimpse of the high flying antics of Top 3 ranked senior Julius Randle, who scored not one, but two perfect scores to crush rising sophomore Jamar Ergas in the Finals of the Dunk Contest. While the Canadian born Ergas has a bright future and has already won a HS dunk contest as a freshman, the brutish 6’9 Randle amazed the judges with an elite athleticism rarely seen with a player of his size by throwing down a thunderous Eastbay jam and impressive behind the back dunk to win the 2012 Dunk crown. Randle is a unanimous Top 3 talent in the 2013 Class and has already been compared to Lebron James in terms of his ever developing skill set.
As for the game itself on Saturday, it was literally a dunkfest with Brandon Jennings’ Ray Lewis coached team getting the best of rookie coach Kyrie Irving’s Marques Johnson squad 164-138 behind the stellar play of seniors Aaron Gordon, Julius Randle, and Andrew Harrison, who scored a combined 72 points to secure the win.
Cali native Aaron Gordon, whom many already compare to Blake Griffin, was the real showstopper, scoring 25 points mostly on dunks and a game high 7 boards, even going between a defender’s legs and borrowing Tracy McGrady’s now signature off the glass dunk when he seemingly had nowhere to go on a possession. The 6’7 and 240lb Gordon is the younger brother of former UCLA and New Mexico star Drew Gordon who is now playing pro ball in Europe. Aaron is still uncommitted on a college choice but is down to 5 schools(Kentucky, Washington, Kansas, Arizona, Oregon, and Stanford).
Sharing 2012 Elite 24 Game MVP honors along with Gordon was the aforementioned Julius Randle(27pts), Top 5 ranked PG Andrew Harrison(25pts), and high flying junior Justice Winslow(21pts) from the losing squad. It deserves mention that Winslow, who is only entering his junior season nearly came close to matching Gordon’s above the rim play, with several eye popping jams to pace his squad.
While many were disappointed in not getting to see previously committed Andrew Wiggins or the recently arrested Aquille Carr in action this weekend, we learned that the incoming junior and senior HS classes are once again loaded with talent and the college ranks are in good hands going forward. With so many of the top players in this year’s Elite 24 Weekend still uncommitted, it will be interesting to see where so many of these top flight players will be playing their college ball in 2014.
Check out Julius Randle Winning 2012 Elite 24 Dunk Contest:
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen has also provided content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, Cleveland.com, CSN Philly.com, Buckets Magazine, ?in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
