Minnesota Prep Academy 65 Central Pointe Christian 60 – Five Things to Know
Today in Atlanta, Minnesota Prep Academy played their first of two weekend games and knocked off Central Pointe Christian 65-60. Prep Hoops was looking on and here are our takeaways form the contest… One. A Name to Know. Six-foot-5 PJ…
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Continue ReadingToday in Atlanta, Minnesota Prep Academy played their first of two weekend games and knocked off Central Pointe Christian 65-60. Prep Hoops was looking on and here are our takeaways form the contest…
One. A Name to Know. Six-foot-5 PJ Edwards is a 2021 with Minnesota Prep Academy coming to the program from Indiana and from Illinois before that. Two springs ago the athletic wing earned a scholarship offer from Southern Illinois and based on what I saw today he’s a 2021 to keep an eye on going forward. Edwards came off the MPA bench and brought instant productivity with basket attacks, wing boards, and position defense.
One key memory I have from the game is Edwards attacking left beating both his man and the help to the attacking lane and a rim finish. The make was followed by a quick sprint back on defense where Edwards forced a ball reversal, stayed in good position so he was able to bump his man off a cut, and then when the ball came back Edwards was in position to hotly contest a shot that missed against the shot clock buzzer. Edwards finished with 13 points on 6 of 13 shooting plus six boards.
Luis RolonTwo. FGCU Getting a Good PG. Central Pointe Christian has a pair of Florida Gulf Coast committed players but Victor Rosa didn’t look to be playing. Lead guard Luis Rolon, a future FGCU ball handler, was on the floor and he put on a passing clinic at times. Rolon really had a hard time getting his teammates going early as the CPCA turnovers from those around Rolon came in big numbers (credit the MPA defense here at times as well). Where I learned to really admire Rolon was how he continued to provide opportunities to his teammates in good spots even after they had struggled so often to start the game. Rolon’s ability to use a physical dribble attack and then quickly move the ball to the waiting hands of a teammate was impressive.
What kind of point guard do guys like to play with best? PG’s that make scoring comfortable for them and Rolon surely does that. Later in the game CPCA needed Rolon’s offense so he attacked four two scores and four foul shot makes but it was the ten assists that really grabbed my attention. Tough point guard that was fully committed to getting open high percentage looks for his teammates.
LuCye PattersonThree. Lu’Cye for the W. Edwards helped MPA greatly, Juwan Grant put the game away from the foul line, and Decker was a big help in the paint but Lu’Cye Patterson was the big difference maker. He was robbed of an And1 late splitting the defense with a scoring attack for the second time in two possessions but we will focus on the attacks themselves rather than the call.
There are three reasons that Patterson can split a defense regularly: 1) he’s one of the strongest ball handlers you will see, 2) Lu’Cye is one of the smartest ball handlers so his recognition of attacking space is better than most, and 3) the ball handling skills are tremendous. Lu’Cye knocked out four threes for the game including one late in the clock with a defender all over him but Patterson drained it which was huge late in the game. Also need to point out how deep his crossover is covering a ton of space to playmake. Had 17 points on 5 of 11 shooting.
Four. Decker Improves Daily. This spring and into June we saw Amahn Decker play a number of times and the theme was always improvement. I think Decker has grown to about 6-foot-7, maybe 6-foot-8. Tough to tell from a live video, but what you can see from that live feed is the regularity of pursuit that Decker has to rebounds. In addition to that pursuit is a strength as well as good hands in securing opportunities. Decker grabbed seven boards by my count plus made all five field goal attempts and three of four foul shots. The touch on those foul shots looked good and four of his five scores were Decker chasing down his own chances with offensive rebounds.
Colleges keep an eye out for this 2020 big, Amhan continues to improve. We talked about his work rate last June and that is something that continues to be true.
Ramses MelendezFive. White Tigers 2021 Pair. Central Pointe Christian has a couple junior wings that played well and you can see the potential is there for a quality basketball future. Basketball takes off for a prospect when a comfort arrives leading to consistency of play. When that happens for 6-foot-4 Ali Dibba (from Sweden) big things could be in store. Dibba at first looked like a long, all out effort athlete that had some initial struggles but as the game moved on you could see some handles, some good passes that were shots for others, and a perimeter game that led to some aggressive attacks. Defensively he was super active, almost overplayed some angles at times he was so relentless. He finished with 11 points making half of his ten shots after setting down.
6-foot-6 Ramses Melendez is already high on prospect lists ranking 9th in Florida with an impressive list of offers already . Melendez made five field goals and put his workin with some of the best hard cuts and sprints to spots that I’ve seen lately. Melendez didn’t make many jumpers today but at 6-foot-6 he has a really nice stroke in a good frame. In last weekend’s win over Edgewater, Dibba had 19 and Melendez 17. Melendez had scored 17 three straight games coming into today.