Barclay Center, Brooklyn,N.Y…. The Jordan Classic was held at the Barclay Center and while the National game featured some of the best players in the Country such as Jabari Parker, Andrew Wiggans, Julius Randle, Aaron Gordon and the Harrison twins, Andrew and Aaron not to mention St. Benedicts Tyler Ennis the interest of this article is the area players that were in the Jordan Regional game played between New York’s finest against New Jersey’s best in the game before! New Jersey was ahead most of the game but eventually fell 114-102 as the Jersey team only had 8 players dressed and seemed to wear down late! Hassan Martin was the New York player of the game scoring 19 points and grabbing 8 rebounds while Jersey’s player of the game was the Patrick School’s DeAndre Bembry who scored 26 points! Roselle Catholic’s Tyler Roberson had a double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds in a strong effort! St. Benedict’s Mike Young by way of Paterson and Hudson Catholic’s Reggie Cameron by way of Hackensack each impressed with 20 points and 5 rebounds for Young and 16 points and 5 rebounds for Cameron! Gill St. Bernard’s Austin Colbert scored 10 points and pulled down 6 rebounds,while Gill’s other star Jaren Sina did not play due to a hernia! Marist’s Manny Suarez added 6 points in the contest! It will be an experience these future College players will never forget!

   WoodRidge’s Gary Whritenour has had an outstanding highschool career,scoring over 1,900 points and becoming one of the most prolific three point shooters in the State’s history! His accomplishments have led him to choose Division 3 powerhouse William Paterson as his college choice! Whritenour had numerous D-2 and D-3 schools on his list but in the end felt comfortable with Coach Jose Rebimbas and his staff! Hoop Journal would like to congratulate Gary and his family on his College decision!

         Kennedy H.S. Paterson, N.J…. The annual Playaz sponsored Spring Fling for 15u and 17u took place this weekend and at the end the 15u championship was won by D.C. Assault, while the 17u “Chip”was captured by Albany City Rocks!

                                                                                                   D.C. ASSAULT  62        PLAYAZ 15   42

               D.C. Assault used a balanced attack and unconscious shooting to manhandle the Playaz 62-42! Guard Ako Adams led Assault with 11 points and the dominating play of their bigmen Sam Green and Joe Hampton proved too much for the Playaz to handle! Jagen Mosely led the Playaz with 15 points! D.C Assault reached the “chip” by defeating area rival Team Takeover 59-54 as the Green and Hampton combined for 26 points in another balanced attack game! The Playaz reached the game by getting past New Heights 63-53 behind the shooting of Patrick Andree with 25 points and Alphonso Gee with 11!

                                                     ALBANY CITY ROCKS   58                     PLAYAZ 17   28

        That is not a typo! Albany City Rocks could do No wrong in their dismantling of the Playaz! Led by John Shurmans 13 points and 10 apiece from Elijah Burns and Sterling Taplin! The Rock took over early and were never challenged!  City Rocks reached the finals with a 64-48 win over the Playaz 16’s as Burns(left) and Shurman led the attack with 12 points each! The Playaz reached the finals by getting past Team Takeover 68-64 in a spirited contest! Cheddi Mosely led the win with 27 points and Marques Townes with 11!

PLAYAZ NOTES:  Before the finals, the Playaz 15,16 and 17 teams were having a pretty good weeekend! The 15’s got strong weekends from Andree(left) and Jagen and also got major contributions from Gee, Najee Hunter and James Scott! The 17’s got strong play from Mosely,Townes and Elijah Cain, but the highlight of the weekend had to be the play of Medford Tech’s Myles Powell(right)! The guard shot the lights out for the weekend having games of 29, 30 and 36 points! He even had a game with 9″triples”! Nick Brooks, Ceasar DeJesus, Sammy Friday, Marquel Sheffield  and Gilberto Cue also had strong weekends for the 16 team!