Take Flight Challenge: What We Learned
The 5th annual Take Flight Challenge presented by Jordan Brand and Reggie Morris, Jr., and his crew at Culver City High was a resounding success.
The two-day, 12-team event at Cerritos College featured plenty of marquee teams, players and match-ups, headlined by a short-handed Bishop Montgomery win over Sierra Canyon Friday night.
Prep Hoops So-Cal was in attendance for every game Friday and Saturday. Here’s what we learned.
Bishop Montgomery has a stranglehold on So-Cal’s top spot
The Knights beat a full-strength Sierra Canyon team loaded with Division I college talent, 65-62, without three starters. Yes, you read that correctly, without three starters. UCLA-bound guard David Singleton missed the game with a nose injury, highly-recruited point guard Gianni Hunt was out with a foot/ankle injury and 6-foot-6 four-man Will Crawford was also sidelined due to injury, but coach Doug Mitchell continued to work his magic. Boston University-signee Fletcher Tynen had 18 points for the Knights and junior guard Josh Vazquez made a whole bunch of timely plays to lead Bishop to the upset. Many knocked the Knights for not playing the toughest tournament schedule, and wondered if that would come back to bite them in their showcase and playoff games, but it clearly had no effect.
Reggie Morris has Culver City primed for a deep playoff run
The Centuars 7-7- record might not look pretty right now, but they’ve played a difficult schedule to this point and their 79-68 victory over Loyola Saturday showed that all the new pieces are starting to come together. Morris has a marquee scorer (Tevian Jones), do-it-all glue-guy (Cyrus Johnson), solid point guard play (Keith Dinwiddie and Ryan Willoughby), a sharpshooter (freshman T.J. Wainwright) and some pop off the bench (Jaylen Cross). Culver City is ranked 9th in the most recent CIF-SS Division 3A poll and has played a more difficult schedule and possesses more talent than just about any other team on that list except for maybe Riverside Notre Dame.
View Park has two nice young pieces
View Park beat Heritage Christian 60-57 in Saturday’s early game and freshman guard Christian Johnson and sophomore forward De’Shawn Johnson had a lot to do with the Knights pulling away late. Christian is a heady point guard with innate feel for the position at 5-feet-10, 160 pounds. He understands how to attack angles and get into the paint in both the half-court and transition settings. Christian doesn’t force many actions, which is rare for a young prospect who has the ball in his hands as much as he does. De’Shawn is a long and bouncy interior presence who makes his presence felt most on the defensive end. He contests shots in the paint without fouling, rebounds in and out of his space, and sprints the floor with purpose.
View Park freshman Christian Johnson is a solid young point guard prospect.Sierra Canyon not firing on all its cylinders
On paper, few teams in the country can challenge Sierra Canyon as far as talent goes. Sierra Canyon’s lone senior, Duane Washington, Jr., is headed to Ohio State in the fall, while juniors Cassius Stanley, K.J. Martin and Scotty Pippen, Jr., all have high major college offers, and sophomore Terren Frank, who was the team’s best player on the weekend, might have the most upside of them all. None of that mattered in the above-mentioned loss to the undermanned Bishop Montgomery team and the Trail Blazers barely shook the Josh Christopher-led Mayfair team in an 84-79 win Saturday night. So, where exactly is Sierra Canyon faltering? For one, there’s not enough basketball to go around. There’s a lot of shot hunting and not much flow to the offense. Secondly, the late-game execution and decision-making a championship team needs hasn’t been there at all times this season. Still, Sierra Canyon is 11-2, has played a tough schedule and has plenty of time to put it all together come playoff time.
Loyola youth movement could pay dividends toward end of season and into next year
We haven’t seen the Loyola we’re used to under Jamal Adams over the last couple of years, but the makeup of the Cubs roster bodes well for the future. Loyola lost to Culver City Saturday, but junior center James Keefe, junior point guard Neil Owens and junior shooting guard Mason Butler all turned in nice performances that show the Cubs could be a force come playoff time and into next season. Loyola may get beat up in the Mission League, but of the 15 players on its roster, 12 are juniors and one is a sophomore.