City of Roses Live Preview
The only live evaluation period of the spring takes place this weekend and in Portland, the City of Roses will be the only NCAA certified event in the area. Several of the state’s top teams will be in tow but other talented teams from out of state will be in town to challenge for titles.
The 17U Showcase Division will feature the most talent and the presence from Oregon will be in four teams: Deep III, Team Jones, Maeko, and Team Push NW. Deep III has a talented group of unsigned seniors making one final run such as Trevon Richmond (2019 Jefferson), Lukas Findley (2019 Dayton), Jacob Bolger (2019 Cleveland), Solomon Campbell (2019 Parkrose), and Cam Feik (2019 Wilsonville). Team Jones also has some unsigned seniors looking for a home including Jaysen Howard (2019 Dayton) and Tyler Hodgson (2019 McMinnville).
Maeko is comprised mostly of Class of 2020 standouts from the Portland metro area such as Cobee Crawford (2020 Benson), George Sadi (2020 De La Salle North), Malik Kelley (2020 Roosevelt), and Kobe Withers (2020 Sprague), while Team PUSH has a mixture of guys from different classes led by Nate Rawlins-Kibonge (2021 Jefferson), Emmanual Steward (2020 Grant), and Elijah Munyan (2021 Columbia Christian).
Coming from out of town are some teams with Division I prospects. Cache Valley Elite out of Utah features point guard Luke Smellie who has been getting Big Sky interest. Play Hard Play Smart out of California comes North with a talented roster with players like Ishmael Rehberg and Isaiah Gray getting Division I recruiting interest. Hotshots Elite will bring their Select team up from California as well and is led by Khalil Stewart who has been getting interest from a number of different college levels. both teams are based in the Sacramento area. Colorado Titans have powerful Owen Koonce and Jalen Page on their squad and Team Bradley from Washington always has talented players on the roster.
All of the Showcase Division will be played at Parkrose High School with games beginning on Friday night and the title game will be played on Sunday afternoon at2:55 pm. All of the schedules can be found .