After a dismal first season at Maryvale High School last season (2-20) for first-year head coach Sebastion Payton, the Panthers will be back this season, and in a big way. After a season where the team struggled mightily to win ball games and lacked the depth of talent to compete consistently last season, things have changed for Payton after a year of molding and teaching his players to play the game. Payton, who took over a losing Maryvale program a year ago, was born and raised in the state of Arizona, and played his high school basketball in the late 1980′s and early…
Author: Anthony Ray
His college recruitment has ended almost as fast as it began. Rather than go through the recruiting process, Westwind Prep Academy 6-foot-9, 230-pound decided that he had found the right fit for himself and pulled the trigger on Friday evening with the Arizona State Sun Devils – making ASU head coach Herb Sendek a happy man, as well as his new basketball staff. MacDougall is currently rated among the elite post prospects in the West for the 2014 class, and so his early pledge to the Sun Devils came as a big development for a staff that is looking to secure its future at…
We can now add another Arizona 2013 prospect to the list of fall commits, as Pinnacle High School’s sharp-shooting 6-foot-5, 190-pound senior guard/forward Drew Bender has given his verbal pledge to a program in Conference-USA. On Tuesday afternoon, our Arizona Preps’ staff learned that Bender had decided to end his college recruitment and pledge to Rice University and head coach Ben Braun and his basketball staff. Bender chose to attend Rice over heavy interest from numerous mid-major programs, but narrowed his list of schools to UC Irvine, Princeton and Northeastern before his commitment. Bender gave a verbal to Rice after taking an official…
The 2012 ACCAC Junior College Jamboree took place on Saturday at Phoenix College and was hosted, once again, by Phoenix College head coach Matt Gordon, his basketball staff and his players. Once again, the event was very exciting as fans were able to catch a glimpse into each of the teams in the conference for the up-and-coming 2012-2013 season. The Jamboree is always a highly anticipated event each year for the players and coaches of each of the teams in the Arizona Community College Athletic Conference (ACCAC), as players compete at a high level in front of fans and, of course, college coaches. This year’s…
The wait is over for the “Big Fella.” After a long recruiting process for himself and his family, Basha High School’s 6-foot-9, 225-pound senior post Maurice Kirby has made his final college decision – deciding to give a big verbal pledge to Virginia Tech, a member of the prestigious Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The commitment came for Kirby on Thursday afternoon while on an official recruiting visit to the school. Kirby and his mother visited the program this week and liked what they saw – enough to give a verbal pledge to the program. Kirby had also taken recent recruiting visits…
Add another Arizona prospect to the list of division-I commits this fall. Greenway High School’s talented 6-foot-3, 175-pound senior combo-guard prospect Chris Miller recently put his name into the commitment hat when he gave a verbal pledge to Northern Arizona University and new head coach Jack Murphy and his basketball staff. Miller had generated loads of recruiting interest for himself after a strong summer performance – a performance which brought him a lof division-I college attention. This off-season Miller competed for head coach Sal Garcia and his up-and-coming Team Zona club program. Miller is coming off an excellent junior season…
Basha High School’s 6-foot-9, 225-pound senior post Maurice Kirby is still in the process of planning what he is going to do with his college recruitment, and last week it got much more interesting for Kirby and his family. With offers firmly on the table from two programs currently, from Loyola University Chicago and Brown University, Kirby received another big offer – the biggest of the three. Late last week, Kirby received an offer from Virgina Tech University – a member of the prestigious ACC Conference. The offer was unexpected by Kirby, who had seen his college recruitment tail off a great deal in recent months.…
Arizona’s 2013 class of prospects is very loaded with talented performers throughout. With many of the top-rated prospects in the class already having given verbal pledges to division-I college programs already, there are still many prospects in the class that have gone unnoticed by college programs. One of these prospects is Buena High School’s 6-foot senior forward Nidja Thomas. A very talented prospect that has flown well below the recruiting radar, Thomas is a superb talent that division-I college programs need to know about. Buena HS is always known for producing top-rated basketball talent for high school boys and girls,…
Westwind Prep Academy (WPA) underwent a major change in the spring, as the program hired long-time successful head coach Jeff De Laveaga. Immediately the school’s basketball program saw an instant development of the school’s level of talent and commitment to developing it’s student-athletes. With many kids either transferring to the school or moving to the program from outside of the state, the program is loaded with talented prospects that many college coaches are knocking the door down to catch a glimpse of. Already this fall, a large number of division-I college coaches have traveled to the school located in North Phoenix to view the…
As if making history last season in the state of Arizona in girl’s basketball wasn’t already enough for St. Mary’s High School’s head coach Curtis Ekmark. Well, he has done it again. After a perfect 30-0 season last year where the Knights won a state championship in easy fashion, the Nike Tournament of Champions girls tournament during the winter and also an historic national championship (by ESPN) and #1 national ranking, it had seemed that Ekmark and his Knights could do nothing better. But for the controversial Ekmark, there is always more to be done. And why is Ekmark controversial? Simply because…