Jennings Leads Strong West Coast Contingent
At 2007 NBPA Camp
By Dinos Trigonis
(June 24, 2007)
All spring long, Southern California native 6’2” rising senior Brandon Jennings (Oak Hill Academy/Mouth of Wilson VA) has solidified his status as the nation’s #1 point guard prospect. This past week at the NBPA (National Basketball Players Association) Top 100 Camp @ University of Virginia (Charlottesville VA), Jennings’ strong play also continued to raise the question of whether he might very well be the nation’s best 2008 prospect regardless of position. All Jennings did was lead the camp in scoring (with a 13.5 ppg average) as well as being the #2 assist leader (2.63 dimes per game). When you consider the fact that these averages were achieved by just playing 20 minutes per game (all players at the camp played just half the game) and that he had just one sub-par scoring game (2 points although he did record a game high 4 assists), Jennings was clearly the one player who stood out above all the rest in two of the top three statistical categories. But Jennings wasn’t the only West Coast player making noise in Charlottesville. The camp team championship was captured by the Spurs (a 73-50 winner over the Suns). The Spurs were composed of several top West Coast prospects including 6’6” junior Jordan Hamilton (Dominguez/Compton CA), 6’8” senior Renaldo Woolridge (Harvard-Westlake/North Hollywood CA) and 6’0” senior Larry Drew (Taft/Woodland Hills CA). Hamilton averaged 8.33 ppg (with a high game of 16 points) and was a scoring threat all camp long. Woolridge started off somewhat slow, but came on very strong at the camp’s end averaging 11.7 ppg during the play-offs (including a camp high 15 points during the Spurs’ quarterfinal play-off win). Drew struggled against some of the elite guards present at the camp (e.g. Jennings who outscored him 24-0 in the opening game of the camp), but regained his poise to help lead the Spurs to the title as well as being #3 in the camp in assists (2.56 apg).
Several other West Coast players also turned in impressive performances, most notably rising seniors 6’6” DeMar DeRozan (Compton/Compton CA), 6’7” Luke Babbitt (Galena/Reno NV), 6’9” Matt Simpkins (Berkeley/Berkeley CA), 6’4” Elston Turner (Roseville/Roseville CA), 5’9” Washington native Isaiah Thomas (South Kent School/South Kent CT) and 5’11” Los Angeles native Dash Harris (Montverde Academy/Montverde FL).
DeRozan continued his strong McDonald’s All-American-caliber play here, averaging 9.9 ppg (in 20 minutes of action per game) with a high game of 18 points. Babbitt and Turner have been both somewhat disappointing this spring, but Babbitt played with renewed intensity at this event (had a high game of 16 points) while Turner finished 2nd (behind Jennings) in the camp scoring column with a 13.1 points per game clip. The small, but very quick Thomas (well known as a big time scorer) played the role of distributor here……..and he did it very well – leading the camp in assists in per game (3.1) as well as posting the top game assist high of the camp (7). Harris also showed a very nice ability to run a team and set the table for teammates as he too was one of the camp leaders in assists – tied for the #4 spot (2.0 apg).
Other West Coast players present at the camp were rising seniors 6’6” Frank Otis (McClymonds/Oakland CA), 6’’7” Washington native Clarence Trent (Findlay Prep/Henderson NV) and 6’4” Brendon Lavender (Mountain View/Mesa AZ).
