Sierra Linda has had some very good basketball teams at their high schol in recent years, but this year looks to be their best team of all, as new head coach Joshua Haagensen and his team have compiled an impressive 11-1 start to the season. After this weekend’s tournament championship victory at the Horizon Holiday Hoops Invitational, the team has their sights set on competing for a Division-II state championship. On Saturday night, behind the superb play of 5-foot-8 junior guard Jorge Acuna, the team knocked off Horizon High School on their home floor in their own tournament. Acuna was…
Author: Anthony Ray
Planet Athlete Academy is absolutely loaded with talent this year, and no one works harder than their organizer and Director of Operations, Eric Bowman in attracting some of the nation’s elite basketball talent to the rising program in the state. Bowman has brought together some of the best basketball talent in America to the state of Arizona this season, and he will have college coaches living at his practices this season. I caught up with Bowman recently regarding the college recruitment of two of his top overall prospects in the program, and he gave me a recruiting update on both…
The 2014-2015 junior college basketball season in the Arizona Community College Athletic Conference (ACCAC) is now in full swing. Here are this week’s Players of the Week in women’s basketball in the conference . . . ACCAC D-II Player of the Week: Kylie Herd – Mesa Herd averaged 12 points and 10 rebounds per game, including a 15 point, 13 rebound performance against Glendale CC. Herd also had 6 steals in that game. Mesa also beat Phoenix College with Herd contributing 9 points and 7 boards in the game. ACCAC D-I Player of the Week: Jazmin Horne – Eastern Arizona Horne…
Horizon High School has been up and down this high school season, but much of the team’s success this season has come from the strong inside play of 6-foot-4 junior post Katie Grant. Very few post players in the state of Arizona or in the West, for that matter, have the size and potential of Grant, as she is quickly developing into one of the elite overall prospects in Arizona’s 2016 class. Often post players have the last laugh in the development process, as they develop at their own pace and take time to mature physically. For Grant, her potential…
The 2014-2015 junior college basketball season in the Arizona Community College Athletic Conference (ACCAC) is now in full swing. Here are this week’s Players of the Week in men’s basketball in the conference . . . ACCAC D-II Player of the Week: Brandon Brown, Phoenix College Brandon Brown led Phoenix College to two more wins last week, including a 41-point effort in a triple-overtime victory over Glendale, 128-124. Brown shot 48% from the field including 44% from the 3-point line and 80% from the free throw line for the Bears. This is Brown’s second Player of the Week in a row for the ACCAC.…
This week’s match-up between Brophy Prep and Sunnyslope looked like a similar game to the previous match-up this season between the two teams, but instead was very different altogether. The two teams had met with one another, earlier in the season, in the championship game of the Hoopsgiving pre-season tournament at Sunnyslope. Brophy Prep (8-2) would win a nail-biter in overtime – a game in which Sunnyslope 6-foot-3 senior guard Sammy Barnes-Thompkins would pour in 31 points in the loss. On Monday evening, the two teams faced off again. The setting at Sunnyslope HS was very much the same, the crowd…
Shadow Mountain High School (7-2) will have a very tough schedule this season, and they have already faced some of the top talent in America already this season – losing their only game of the season thus far to 3-time defending state champion Corona Del Sol HS. With their former contest against Corona, and a future game against historic power DeMatha High School (MD), nothing can prepare a team for a match-up with the nation’s premier high school program – Findlay Prep (NV). Findlay Prep (10-0) has produced loads of NBA players and high-major division-I college talent over the past…
Valley Vista High School (8-3) is as good as any girls team in the state this season, and is absolutely deep and loaded with talent. While the team has suffered three losses this season to three of the top girls basketball programs in the state, Seton Catholic, Dobson and Mesa Mountain View, the girls are back playing strong – winners of their last four games on the season. On Friday evening, the team would travel to take on a good Horizon HS (7-3) team on the road. While it seemed like a great match-up between two very good teams, Valley…
Sunnyslope High School’s gifted and impressive 6-foot-3 senior combo-guard prospect Sammy Barnes-Thompkins is already have a tremendous senior season for the Vikings. He would absolutely explode though on Tuesday evening in his team’s narrow, double-overtime loss to a very athletic Cesar Chavez team. In the 81-78 double-overtime loss, Barnes-Thompkins would sit out the game’s first half, but then would score, what must be a state scoring record of 40 points, in the game’s second half. barnes-Thompkins would sit out the first half due to team rules (missing practice), but would come out on absolute fire in the game’s second half. …
Scottsdale, AZ – Ranked as the #3 basketball team in the latest MaxPreps Xcellent 25, Findlay Prep (NV) returns to Arizona to challenge two of the top teams in the desert – Hillcrest Academy and Shadow Mountain High School. In last year’s event, Findlay Prep defeated three-time defending state champions Corona Del Sol, and state-runner up Pinnacle on their way to a 31-5 record and an appearance in the Dick’s Sporting Goods High School National Tournament in New York City. The 2014-15 squad is led by 6’4″ senior and University of Arizona commit Alonzo Trier. Ranked by ESPN as the #3 Shooting…