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I was on hand for the IS8 semifinals on Saturday June 2 for this late spring tournament. The story of the afternoon was the mesmerizing performance of Kevin Jones for his high school team of Mount Vernon in a hard earning victory in a seesaw battle against the Juice All Stars who were led by super sophomore Lance Stephenson. Kevin Jones finished the game with 43 points and 15 rebounds. Mount Vernon also had standout senior guard Michael Colburn, who was hitting the step through jumper in this game and had 29 points. Colburn, is an excellent timing passer who is tough as nails on the court, and has the type of skills that can earn him an eventual trip to the NBA. I have seen him play a number of times and he really jells with big time players as a passer, yet he looks to shoot a lot and is especially tough when he gets in rhythm with his shooting. He is going to play for Rutgers this coming college season and should be a significant contributor right away in the Big East conference. Kevin Jones had the outstanding performance of the day and it was against top flight competition and for significant parts of the game 6’6 super sophomore Lance Stephenson was taking him on defense and really pressing him hard in the front court while Jones was jostling for position on offense. Jones also returned the favor while defending Stephenson at times. Stephenson, who had 20 points in the game, has a national reputation as a top 5 in his class in the country and has been listed sometimes as the number one player nationally in the class of 2009 but a couple of fantastic big men from the South have emerged to take the top couple of spots on most of the national listings. Getting back to the performance of Kevin Jones. Jones is now 6’8 with long arms and he is an all purpose forward who is very active on the court but also an effective active in terms of obtaining good position whether it be on offense for quick release shots, getting out on the break, or positioning himself for offensive rebounds and putbacks. He really runs the floor well, and releases quickly on his shot, often from the deep corner, and besides being very quick end to end he is also a quick leaper with sweeping moves to the basket. His outside shooting ability really complements both his inside game and his ability to run the court and find spots on offense. Even when he is defended well or even double teamed, he will still go to the basket with an array of moves and is a take charge player on offense. He really forces the action, contends both on defense and offense, and stands out on the court throughout the game. He outlets well off the defensive rebound to start the fast break. Interestingly, late in the game I thought to myself that he reminded me in terms of play of Tim Duncan the perrenial NBA star. On the way out, I was speaking with basketball scout Harvey Epstein, who said Jones is the player who most plays like Tim Duncan in terms of an on the court style in the high school ranks and I told him I was thinking the very same thing. This performance of Kevin Jones also had high entertainment value and he was fun to watch. Not for the usual reasons of high flying dunks or the spectacular. It was more just for how imposing his presence was on the game and a special moment was seeing him jostling with Lance Stephenson while defending Stephenson and his refusal to give an inch. While some players bring up the intensity in a way that seems like they are reaching for it, with Jones it seems to come natural and with consistency. He seems to enjoy playing this style that has that extra push. Jones is only a junior in high school so you wonder what his long ranging potential is given his youth and he may in the long run be a dream team type for say the Olympics. He looks like he should be ranked in about the top 30 nationally in the class of 2008 right now. His game is in the range of dynamic and that of an on the court leader and that includes his game on the defensive end of the court. Among the schools recruiting Kevin Jones heavily right now is Indiana University. For the Juice All Stars, 6’3 combo guard Devon Peterson who is heading to Hofstra, displayed a nice jump shot and had 17 points. Also for the Juice All Stars, Kevin Menner, is a 6’5 guard who shows a classic one on one style with excellent footwork in which he is effective as a scorer and he finished with 13 points. Menner has good shake and bake moves to the basket to go with a nice mid range touch on his shot. Irving Walker, who has verbally committed as a junior to play for the national champion Florida Gators, as a backcourt ace, was also on hand for the Juice and had 14 points in the game. He had a number of spectacular moves to the basket where his bank shots came off the rim too hard, perhaps he should make the adjustment of just going straight in the basket on his floaters in the lane as Tony Parker does in the NBA, rather than bouncing the shot off the backboard.. Walker is super fast with the ball, really a jet, but he runs also in controlled fashion and that is interesting to watch. He has the speed of say an NFL wide out, but yet he would be like the NFL wide out who displays blazing speed but also gets his patterns down perfectly while operating at those high speeds. Walker is strong on his shot, and he looks to shoot the deep three often and he does this effectively and confidently. He also extremely quick laterally which complements his great coast to coast speed. Walker had 14 points and took control of the game late with plays that included some deft passing on his part, and it looked like a Juice victory until Mount Vernon had yet another surge in the last couple of minutes to run by the Juice for a late comeback victory for a final score of 82 to 80. In the second game, the J.R. All Stars eventually pulled away from New Heights for an 84-65 victory. No one player on the court was spectacularly dominate as it was more of a team effort on both sides, but the break away speed on the open court of the J.R. All Stars did make a difference in the second half as 6'7 Memphis recruit Jeff Robinson would slide down court for repeated break away dunks and he finished the game with 18 points. You often find him above the rim finishing acrobatic dunks off steals, but he can step out and hit long lefty pinpoint jumpers. He is quite relentless on defense and often generates offense off his numerous steals. He is headed to Memphis University who will be a preseason top ten college team for this coming season. Also for the J.R. All Stars, 6’8 jumping jack power forward, Justin Burrell had 14 points. Burrell will be playing at Madison Square Garden this coming college season for St. John's and he can probably also play the center position a bit on defense in college. Burrell has the corner jump shot down pat and has a good mid range jumper, but he almost exclusively set up down low this game. He is a willing and effective passer in the blocks, which seems to make him all the more elusive on offense in that he takes advantage of openings against the rotating defense with some excellent passes. But just as often he catches and goes into a tremendous leap off the standstill for towering jams where he is way above the rim. He is above the rim times 2. In terms of sheer height achieved on his jumps, you would probably have to search the globe to find someone who jumps higher. He has great hands on defense, for catching rebounds in traffic or pinning blocks against the backboard on defense. Jamie Harris is a slick NYC point guard from Wings Academy who is heading to Drexel University, and he had 13 points for the J.R. All Stars. Jamie is a great driver, who can dash to the hoop for finishes with either hand and he is effective in finishing inside against the trees. He can come in also with high flying jams in traffic. He is also automatic when open on the outside and overall he shoots for a very high percentage. He sees the court well for excellent passes and has good poise on the court. He has an excellent handle and is a leader on the court. Lamont Jones a 6'1 guard from Rice High School, was part of the fast breaking onslaught for J.R. He likes to run, but also displays excellent ability to stop on the dime and pop the J. He works with a nice handle and a team attitude. For New Heights, Chris Delarosa, a fun to watch point guard who will play for Siena College this coming season, did force things a bit in heavy traffic in the lane and was at times effective with spectacular drop back no look passes and spinning moves but he wasn’t always finishing on his shots. He has a superlative handle, and excellent court vision. He will need to rely more on the outside jumper to up his game at the next level. With him on New Heights was 6'10 big forward Matthew Bryan Amaning, who is a top 30 national recruit headed to Washington in the Pac 10 who disappointingly had only 11 points but he is extremely skilled and will usually come up big. Demetrious Jacobs had 17 points for New Heights mostly scoring on an almost constant array of drives late in the second half. Lance Gouldbourne who is a junior who now plays at the Hun School in Princeton New Jersey, had 11 points but showed some good prowess and a finishing touch in terms of moves on offense as only a junior and he has good athleticism to go with his size. He is listed at 6’7, he has to be at least 6’8 now and might be closing in on 6’9 and also looks very strong. Some of the major schools are already interested. It was a good afternoon for catching some of the top area talent in head to head competition, but the standout and leading man performance of Kevin Jones stood tallest.
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