The first day of action at the Pangos All-American Camp in Long Beach, Calif., is always a shorter one with the camp arrivals and instruction taking up most of the time. However, there are a couple hours of camp games to end the opening night. The first night at the 12th edition of the event brought a few big match ups on Court 3, and there were plenty of eyes on some of the bigger recruits in attendance.
There were a number of bigger names missing from Friday's action for various reasons, but more are expected to show up beginning Saturday.
Each session of the first night had a big match up on Court 3 with two members of the 2016 class squaring off followed by two members of the 2015 class going head to head.
Lonzo Ball/Derryck Thornton: The event organizers like to get things going with big individual match ups on the first night of action, and that was once again the case Friday night when the two 2016 point guards were able to go up against each other. The match up is something plenty of people have been wanting to see with both recruits being ranked so close together in the Rivals.com ratings - Ball at No. 14 and Thornton at No. 20. However, the match up would never really turn into what people had hoped.
Ball really couldn't get himself involved too much as he didn't get play the point position too much during his team's game. Thornton was able to handle the ball a lot more for his team, but it wasn't his best showing either. The Arizona offeree did make some nice plays at times, but his shot wasn't quite falling. As the players get more acclimated to their teams things will certainly improve overall.
It will be interesting to see if we can get this match up again before the weekend is out in Long Beach.
Tyler Dorsey/Isaiah Briscoe: In the second set of games at the Pangos All-American Camp there was another big-time guard battle on Court 3 with the 2015 five-star prospects. Both combo guards are rated in the top 20 in the class and each holds that five-star ranking, but their games are certainly quite different. It ended up being Briscoe who got the "W" on the first night of action. The Newark (N.J.) Roselle Catholic prospect used his strength to really be the aggressor in the game and it led to some trash-talking between the two five-star guards.
Dorsey tried to get things going in different ways, but it just wasn't his night. He was able to turn up his own aggressiveness and get to the free-throw line a few times in the second half, but overall it wasn't his best performance. There were times when he looked to be pressing a little too much to make things happen and that might have gotten the better of him on Friday night.
Meanwhile, Briscoe is a big-time scorer and that's what he did in his first game of the event. It was good to see both recruits getting into a little bit and showing some of that competitive edge, and hopefully this is another match up we get to see again this weekend at some point.
Day 2 will have another couple sets of games, so there should be plenty of competition on the floor at Cabrillo High School. Things really get going later Saturday afternoon.
There were a number of bigger names missing from Friday's action for various reasons, but more are expected to show up beginning Saturday.
Each session of the first night had a big match up on Court 3 with two members of the 2016 class squaring off followed by two members of the 2015 class going head to head.
Lonzo Ball/Derryck Thornton: The event organizers like to get things going with big individual match ups on the first night of action, and that was once again the case Friday night when the two 2016 point guards were able to go up against each other. The match up is something plenty of people have been wanting to see with both recruits being ranked so close together in the Rivals.com ratings - Ball at No. 14 and Thornton at No. 20. However, the match up would never really turn into what people had hoped.
Ball really couldn't get himself involved too much as he didn't get play the point position too much during his team's game. Thornton was able to handle the ball a lot more for his team, but it wasn't his best showing either. The Arizona offeree did make some nice plays at times, but his shot wasn't quite falling. As the players get more acclimated to their teams things will certainly improve overall.
It will be interesting to see if we can get this match up again before the weekend is out in Long Beach.
Tyler Dorsey/Isaiah Briscoe: In the second set of games at the Pangos All-American Camp there was another big-time guard battle on Court 3 with the 2015 five-star prospects. Both combo guards are rated in the top 20 in the class and each holds that five-star ranking, but their games are certainly quite different. It ended up being Briscoe who got the "W" on the first night of action. The Newark (N.J.) Roselle Catholic prospect used his strength to really be the aggressor in the game and it led to some trash-talking between the two five-star guards.
Dorsey tried to get things going in different ways, but it just wasn't his night. He was able to turn up his own aggressiveness and get to the free-throw line a few times in the second half, but overall it wasn't his best performance. There were times when he looked to be pressing a little too much to make things happen and that might have gotten the better of him on Friday night.
Meanwhile, Briscoe is a big-time scorer and that's what he did in his first game of the event. It was good to see both recruits getting into a little bit and showing some of that competitive edge, and hopefully this is another match up we get to see again this weekend at some point.
Day 2 will have another couple sets of games, so there should be plenty of competition on the floor at Cabrillo High School. Things really get going later Saturday afternoon.
