ATLANTIC CITY, NJ- It was an exciting May Live Period weekend down in Southern New Jersey as many of New York’s best 17u teams made it down to Atlantic City for the Atlantic City Showcase run by Select Events Basketball.
With over 400 college coaches on hand representing schools from Division 1, Division 2, and Division 3, it provided just about everyone on hand an opportunity to showcase themselves in front of programs that could eventually be the right fit for them.
Focusing on the teams today, many of the Empire State’s best came and brought their best showing that regardless of who the opposition is that New York’s best can play and hang against anyone. It was a great three days of action and with it now officially behind us let’s recap the action from the 11th Grade teams we saw and took in the action of from down near the Jersey Shore.
NY Gauchos-Platinum/NY Gauchos-Black
Both Gauchos teams would win their pools as the program definitely looked as if it was among New York’s best. The Platinum team didn’t make things easy on themselves with a pair of 1 point wins in pool play, but it’s not by how much you win that counts at the end of the day. Reyna Scott (Nazareth ’22) looked like a future star on the ball controlling the Gauchos-Platinum offense throughout the weekend, while wings Jordan Obi (Choate Rosemary Hall, CT ’20) and young Jayda Johnson (Hamden Hall, CT ’23) are already known commodities and among the top in their classes. Offensively things sputtered out in their opening round playoff game against GTS Fusion, but the talent across the board was deep and had a lot of coaches watching.
The Black team is primarily comprised of Buffalo’s best as guards Angel Parker (Cardinal O’Hara ’19) and her sister Aaliyah Parker (Cardinal O’Hara ’21) were two of the keys cogs along with a good looking off guard in Tashawni Cornfield (Lake Shore ’20) who was great from the midrange as she consistently would pull up and knock down shots in the lane for this Gauchos team that won two of their three pool games by 17+ points. Leading by 5 at the half over JBHoops of Pennsylvania in their opening playoff game, foul trouble ended up costing Gauchos-Black as they would fall 47-45 in a tough one. It wasn’t the end result they wanted but the fact that so many of the Black team’s best had strong outings this weekend bodes well for them as a group in the weeks ahead.
