King James Shooting Stars Classic-Day 2 Report

Jack Cravaack, TK Robinson, Trey King, Brandon Johnson, Seth Goodson & Isaiah Payton

Day # 2 early on Saturday consisted of pool play, while the first 2 rounds of bracket play tipped off in the early afternoon and evening. Unique to the King James tournament is the fact that teams can be heading home as early as Saturday afternoon. Early in the day, Buckeye Prep's 8th grade squad faced off against Tier 1's "B" team. Buckeye Prep got out of the gates quickly and was up 14-8 by the 8:40 mark, and 30-10 with 4:33 left in the opening period. At the half, the score was already out of reach at 37-18. The second half mirrored the first, and Buckeye Prep would later cruise to an easy 52-29 win. Buckeye Prep was led in scoring by Teays Valley's Garrett Tipton (6'3 WF) who finished with 10 points. Behind him were TherRon Jennings (8) and Seth Goodson (7). Nick Moorman (6’0 WG Ottoville) paced Tier 1 with 14 points.

Later in the afternoon I caught the second half of the Shinning Stars vs Maryland Hawks game (8th grade). By the time I arrived, the Stars were up 20-21. By the 8:45 mark, the Shinning Stars had opened a 33-22 lead. With 1:11 left in the game, Maryland had pulled to within 4 points (43-39). Despite the Hawk run, the Shinning Stars would hold on to get the 46-39 victory. Johnny Miller's (5'8 SG Cincinnati) game-high 12 points came on 4 treys. Isaiah "Sleepy" Payton added 11 points, while Jack Cravaack contributed 8 and Tate Goodyear finished with 7 points.

Later in the first round of bracket play Buckeye Prep and Shinning Stars would face off for the 2nd time in 2 weeks.  Buckeye Prep found themselves down 9-4 quickly after committing 3 straight turnovers to start the game. By the 4:56 mark, the Stars had extended the lead to 8 points (13-21). The Shinning Stars would maintain a lead for the rest of the half, but Buckeye Prep would battle back to trim the lead to 30-26 to close the 1^st half. With 11:05 left in the contest, the game was knotted at 31. As was the case in the first half, Buckeye Prep was plagued by turnovers late in the second period and would eventually go down to the Stars 51-42. Jack Cravaack was a monster in the post and led his team with 12 points. Seth Goodson was the high man for Buckeye Prep with 13 points, followed by Garrett Tipton who added 11 points.

Chuck Painter’s Dayton Metro team had to overcome a huge first half deficit against the Lexington Future to advance to the second round of bracket play. At one point in the first half, Metro was down 22-8, and by the break, the score was a lopsided 30-18. Despite the big hole they had dug for themselves, Dayton started to fight their way back early in the second period. Sparked by TK Robinson’s (5’11 SG Dayton) three trey bombs, Dayton was able to trim the lead to 3 points (32-29) by the 5:57 mark. While Robinson was getting it done from beyond the arc, Jordan Coovert (6’2 PF Dayton) was getting busy in the paint. In the end, Dayton Metro got the win by a final score of 48-47. Coovert finished with a team-high 12 points, while Robinson finished with 11 points. Trey King (6’5 C Lexington) paced Lexington with a game-high 13 points.

Earlier in the day, Chicago Select (8^th grade) hooked up with the Cincinnati Lakers. It appeared that Chicago would run away with this one after jumping out to an 8-0 lead. However, back-to-back treys by Corey Davis (6’4 SG Walnut Hills) jump-started the Lakers and the game would remain close most of the 1^st half. However, Chicago’s superior size and strength would become evident, and by halftime they were comfortably ahead 14-26. Raekwon Drake (6’4 C Chicago) was a force inside and made it very difficult for the Lakers to score at the rim. Chicago went on to get the victory and advanced to face Dayton Metro.

I had a chance to checkout the Spiece Indy Heat for a second time this tournament, as they totally dismantled and out executed the New Yorked-based Rens. Last year at this time Rens was a final 4 team, but they were totally overmatched by Spiece, and eventually went down 59-28. Brandon Johnson (6’0 WF Ft Wayne). Led all scorers with a game-high 11 points.

In the 7^th grade division, All-Ohio Red ran through field with little resistance on Saturday. Their first victim, a National Select team based out on Maryland, but loaded with nationally ranked talent. Some of the talent included: Team Takeover’s Terrence Williams, and Tyler Brelsford, Tyrese Jenkins, Sche Evans, Gerard Mungo, Jordan Beckett, the Oakland Soldiers’ Shemar Morrow and Devin Hightower (6^th graders). Despite their collection of talent, National Select was no match for All-Ohio Red, who went on to collect an impressive 58-34 win. Although National Select was up 5-2 early, a 17-2 run to close the first half pretty much set the table for the win. Terrence Williams led National Select with 13 points and 12 rebounds and Tyler Brelsford added 7 points. There were no point totals for All-Ohio, but Sidney’s Andre Gordon and Columbus’ Jeremiah Francis were reported to have been the standouts in the game. All-Ohio would continue to win, and will face We All Can Go early on Sunday morning. National Select won their second pool game against VAC Air Attack 62-56, then made a run through the Sliver division bracket and will face The Family Sunday morning.

Championship Sunday should feature some very competitive games. I hope to check out the action in some of the younger divisions.