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| A. Harris, K. Derden, J. Keene, R. Hampton, J. Lipscomb & N Elmore |
For the past
17 years, All-Star Saturday has attracted some of the most elite middle and
high school players from around the state of Ohio. The middle school game was
very competitive and featured players from as far as Cleveland, Dayton and
Ironton. By the time the final horn sounded in the middle school game, the East
All-Stars was ahead. The East squad may have won the game, but the West team had more of the
highlight plays. We had not heard of him before the game tipped off, but the
performance Kayin Derden (5’11/WF/2019/Columbus)
logged in was nothing short of amazing.
Derden currently runs with All-Ohio Takeover, but he has the kind of talent
that suggests he should be on the organization’s top team. Long, explosive and silky smooth best describes
Derden’s game. Derden is not only dunking the ball (he had several in the game),
he throws it down in traffic and in guy’s faces. From what we saw, Derden has a big upside and
could be a great looking prospect going forward.
We can’t
forget about the game’s MVP, Andre
Harris (6’0/P/SG/2019/Cleveland) who made the trip down from Cleveland and
represented the enormous talent in northeast Ohio. Harris made numerous athletic plays throughout
the game and confirmed that he is an elite prospect in Ohio’s class of 2019. We
were also impressed with Columbus’ Jeremiah
Keene (PG/2019/Columbus) who displayed an advanced skill set, which
included a tight handle and the ability to shoot off the bounce from deep. Dayton’s Ronald
Hampton (WF/2019/Dayton) logged in another solid performance and continues
to impress us with how hard he plays. Kyle
Adkins came out firing from the opening tip and was a threat to knock down
the deep trey the entire game. Gahanna’s
Jaidon Lipscomb (SG/2019/Gahanna)
has always been considered an elite shooter and his play on Saturday confirmed
that he still has it. Lipsomb may have been his team’s leading scorer and was a
big contributor in the win. We also have
to acknowledge Elyjah Aekins
(5’2/PF/2021Columbus), the 9-12 year old MVP, who was a man-child and finished
with a game-high 14 points. Big, strong
and athletic are Aekins’ strengths. We
plan to keep an eye on Aekin’s growth and development. Below is a complete list of the MVPs in each
division. All-in all, it was a great day
of basketball. Congratulations to
Richard Crockett, the Metropolitan Youth Foundation and staff for putting
together another great event!
MVPs
Jay’reon Laws
(6-8)
Elyjah Aekins
(9-12)
Andre Harris
(Middle School)
Hannah Shaefer
(High School Girls)
Rodney Willis
(High School Boys)
What about all the 7th graders players in this game and i know there was more then one 6th grade and to get the mvp you need more then to just dunk in the game i think andre harris did not deserve the award and what about all the turnovers he had and he was ball hoging the hole game he showed no passing ability so yeah and there was no 7th or 6th graders wrote so yeah rob get it togeather.
ReplyDeleteThere were a couple of 6th and 7th graders, and although some of them played well, they could not be considered 1 of the top 5-6 players in the game, which is what we concentrated on. There were also several more 8th graders we could have written about also but did not. We can't write about everybody! If selected for next year's game, those younger kids will get their chance. Finally, the winning coach selected the MVP, not us.
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