Connecticut Recruiting, Georgetown Recruiting, Providence Recruiting, West Virginia Recruiting, Zach Smart

SATURDAY AT THE HOOPHALL CLASSIC (PT. 2)

By Zach Smart

Middletown, Conn.– One player with an arsenal of athletic gifts, shooting range, and all-around basketball package is 17-year-old Amir Tariff.

Tariff, a forward at Proctor Academy in New Hampshire (where UConn guard Jerome Dyson played after transferring from Churchill HS) could better his stock with an ultra-productive summer.

Tariff pounded the glass and scored at will at Wesleyan’s Freeman Athletic Center Saturday, as Life For Champions pasted Cental Jersey with a 72-4O blowout.

Considerable balance in the score book and solid execution in half court sets was key in LFC’s scoring onslaught.

“Our philosophy is that we train uphill to play downhill,” said Chris Matesic, the coach of the Bronx-based 17U AAU program.

Matesic views Tariff as a high major player.

“He’s getting several mid-major offers but I think he’s a Big East player,” he said.

“He’s a perimeter four, at the next level he’s a three. He can shoot from 24 feet out or take the ball to the basket on you. He’s a beast. We certainly take him for granted.”

Tariff was all over the floor. He pounded the boards. He got out in transition and finished strong. He never hesitated to make that extra pass. He dialed in from downtown and was extremely versatile during a game when Life For Champions’ communication was at it’s pinnacle.

Tariff is getting most love from MAAC and Atlantic-10 schools, but Matesic (who has molded a bundle of Big East talent in the past) believes his workhorse is cut for the Big East.

-On an afternoon where parents were calling for the jobs of the men in zebra shirts (some getting belligerent with them), it was nice to see good sportsmanlike conduct between the two programs.

Don’t expect to see it at the next level, especially if some of these youngins play in the physical, black-and-blue marked (see UConn vs. Pitt, Feb. 16 2009 for more on that one) Big East.

-Life for Champions connected on seven of their last eight shots before running the clock out. It was a clubbing that certainly injected some confidence in the group.

In some early 16U action, CT Elite utilized crisp ball movement and shot the rock at a high percentage. This was en route to copping a 64-45 victory over New Haven Pride in the fieldhouse.

Two late-game treys helped secure the dumpoff over the kids from money-craving, pistol-waving, tattoo-blazin’ New Haven.

Jason Pierre led all scorers with 21 points.

In the paranoid compartment of my brain, I once thought that AAU was tainted. Several other people shared the view of AAU as a political, parents-first, corrupt brand of basketball.

“I don’t f— with that AAU s—,” says one basketball talent evaluator from Washington, D.C. Obviously, this cat wasn’t in attendance Saturday.

When I saw an exact replica of “Screech” from Saved By The Bell coaching CBC’s 16U team, I figured maybe I had been right in the past.

I’ll put it this way. If this string bean, who looked as if he had the athleticism of a fifth grader actually shined as a player…..He should be hustling people on Rucker Park and West Fourth Street.

Screech’s exact replica coached his team to a drubbing of the Orange County, N.Y. based BC Eagles.

CBC instigated a torrent of turnovers early with their clamp-down press. This helped them seize a 23-9 cushion.

The Eagles thwarted the run with a fast break lay-in by Dante Cowart.

CBC continued to break out the track shoes. They ran up the score and a washout ensued.

They leaked out on the break and finished strong.

Albeit it was in losing fashion, the Eagles’ Brian Paterson showed promise. The pint-size point guard has only been playing organized hoops for two years, but he’s the mix that stirs the drink for the Eagles.

He uses his quickness and ability to alter speeds to make up for his lack of size. He knows how to get around the defense and knife through traffic.

Paterson’s fast break layup with cut the lead to ten in the first half, but CBC kept its distance in the second.

The parents got into this one an Eagles player was issued a technical for obscene language.

The hostility and breakneck pace was almost too much for me, as I was ready to venture across campus and talk politics with some of the Wesleyan students.

I was thinking I’d meet some intriguing characters and wash down some beers before the scenic, peach-painted sky.

Nope. Ball above all.

Jakari McCallup, a forward at East Hartford High, gave an efficient account of himself.

He scored 19 points and pulled down rebounds as if he was trying to impress the boss at Connecticut Glasswork.

McCallup, who plays at the same HS where former UConn Husky Doug Wiggins took the state by storm, is already receiving some Division-I looks.

Northeast Conference coaches Howie Dickenman (a member of the Jim Calhoun coaching tree and now at the helm at Central Connecticut State) and Dave Bike (Sacred Heart) have reached out to the big youngin.

The CT player with the real bulls-eye on his back, however, is 6-foot-9, 245-pound big man Andre Drummond.

Drummond is being actively pursued by a number of Big East schools–Connecticut, Georgetown, West Virginia and Providence, to name a few.

Though he’s a bit rough around the edges, Drummond (who stars for Capital Prep Magnet school in Hartford), is beginning to assert himself more in the paint. His ability to box out and crash the boards was never in question, and he has no problems grasping the intricacies of the game.

The highly sought after product on the recruiting market must go harder to the basket and become more aggressive.

Drummond was playing for an IS8 team this weekend and looked right in place in a uptempo, hellfire style.

He steal needs to embrace the beast within him and grow into his body. The big neophyte, however, could make an impact at the next level.

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