Nickle Dickle Days Notes
The Nickle Dickle 3 on 3 Tournament and now dunk contest/three point contest draws a strong crowd and this weekend there were several notes to share.
The men’s division of talent included Forest Lake guard Manny Jingco who pushed his squad all the way to the title game battling with older men and having success. Jingco then competed in the three point contest and hit the 22 point mark in his first round of shooting leading to a second place finish. NHR continues to believe Manny is about to have a massive senior year making Forest Lake a real sleeper candidate.
The high school division was one by PJ Hayes of Waconia, Dawson Garcia of Prior Lake, and Robert Jones of Prior Lake. Hayes and Garcia will be sophomores, Jones a junior. Hayes also competed in the three point contest and showed off a beautiful stroke. Hayes has definitely grown physically and is going to be a weapon knocking shots down after a Charlie Gove creation.
It’s not easy to judge players when they are competing against kids wearing pink underwear or wrestling singlets on the court but what we can saw is that Garcia has definitely grown. He’s about 6-foot-9, maybe close to 6-foot-10. At that size his agility and skills are rare. The way Garcia fluidly moves moving with his back to the basket or using a dribble to get around forwards is something that makes him a top 100 level talent nationally in his class. Then you have Jones who was posting up against a 6-foot-3 player but the post moves utilized were done more fluidly than we’ve seen in the past. Jones also looks like he’s grown an inch.
Shooting wise Calvin Wishart won the three point contest for the second straight season. The young man can definitely shoot but then he moved to the other end of the floor and played the showmen role during the dunk contest. Wishart’s Georgia Southern visit was re-scheduled because of the hurricane down that way but he will take that visit soon. Wishart will also visit Evansville but not Wofford who just added a commitment.
Other dunkers were Aaron Gill, Uhana Ochan, and Damani Hayes. Gill was the defending champ but wasn’t able to throw down some difficult attempts. Ochan was the power dunker while Hayes had some good dunks as well. Damani shot well in the three point contest too.
Nick Fulford of Waconia won the dunk contest but he also was third in the three-point contest. The contests were a good representation of Fulford’s versatility. He shot the ball well at the arc and then showed his agility in the dunk contest. Lets also throw in that Fulford was a definite home town hero with this performance and the kids swarmed him for photos after the event.