YDF: Best of Friday

By Chris Hansen & Glenn Nelson
HoopGurlz Staff
Posted Fri, 06/15/2007 - 21:08 A precocious rising junior, the battle for tops among point guards and other news and notes from Friday in Colorado Springs.

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PHOTOS BY GLENN NELSON

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - In a place with some of the best athletes in the country it was not a great athletic feat that led to a USA Red victory over USA Blue. It was the great equalizer, the three-point shot the gave Red the edge in its 106-98 win on Friday night that pulled them even with Blue at 1-1. Tayler Hill, the shifty 2009 combo guard prospect from Minneapolis, Minn., led all scorers with 20 points and sealed the deal with a three in the final minute. She took the lead from perhaps the best three-point shooter in the gym, Brittany Rayburn.

Tayler Hill

Rayburn had a tail of two halves shooting the basketball. In the first half she got several clean looks, which as the opposing coach would have to push your blood pressure into hypertension, but they just kept rimming out. Late in the second half the sweet sound of swish happened and sent her on a minature tear to reclaim the lead for red. You could read her lips - an emphatic "Finally! - as her shot fell from the left wing about three feet behind the international three-point line. The very next possession she found herself open on the right wing and buried another one which was followed but another emphatic expression, this time a fist pump that was somewhere between Michael Jordans pump and freeze and Tiger Woods' super pump.

Rayburn finished the fourth quarter making three of her final four three-point attempts and started a run of three's. After her second make, the Blue squad came back and Alicia Manning fired one from the top of the key as her defender couldn't find her quick enough. Then Hill finished things out with a back breaking three-pointer to push the lead to a three-possession game.

Playing well in defeat for Blue was Glory Johnson who finished with a team-high 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting, four rebounds and four steals. The spring in her legs was in full effect and she was finishing at the rim and skying over the defense on her mid-range, pull-up jumper. Also notable for Blue was the 14-rebound effort of Alyssia Brewer who completed the double-double by scoring 11 points.

_ Chris Hansen

Making Their Point
The great thing about USA Basketball's Youth Development Festival is that it gives context to the nation's elite and no position is probably getting greater context than point guard in the 2008 class. Destini Hughes of Kennedale, Texas, ranked No. 17 overall by HoopGurlz.com, is a major omission, but all the other top lead guards are here. And through the first two rounds of competition, it appears three of them - Shay Selby of Cleveland, Ohio; Ashley Corral of Vancouver, Wash., and Nikki Speed of Pasadena, Calif. - could decide the top spot currently held by Selby, the Duke commit who is No. 15 in the HoopGurlz overall ranking.

Selby, 5-foot-9, has good size, explosiveness and is ultra-smooth to the basket. She also sees and executes some amazing passes, once hitting a streaking Alicia Manning with a bounce pass, on the money from beyond midcourt. She probably is the weakest of the three defensive and is not consistent from long range, with a shooting motion across her body that needs fixing.

Corral, also 5-9 and ranked 20th among all prospects in 2008, has made a surprisingly strong showing - surprising only in that she wasn't supposed to be cleared, after ankle surgery in March, for play until sometime next month. She was impressive from deep, deep range in the morning game - prompting the opposing bench to yell, "shooter!" every time she touched the ball, something she said was a first for her - then had five assists in the nightcap. She so far has shown the best command with the ball, though doesn't penetrate as much as the other two.

Speed, No. 22 overall, has shown some very impressive progress with her outside shot, not only hitting consistenly from three-point land with good-looking form, but comboing dribble moves into pull-up jumpers. She also is the best defender of the three, putting her speed and quick hands to great use, and is the best at creating separation off lightning-quick dribble moves. Alas, turnovers continue to be her Achilles Heel - she had 16 in two games on Friday. Because of that, her game in many ways is better suited for scoring guard, though she is slight and just 5-9.

Three more games remain, so this on-point battle is far from settled. It may even be enough for Casey Morris, who impressed on Friday, or Samantha Prahalis, who seems to be adjusting to the competition, to crash the party.

_ Glenn Nelson

Rim Shots

 

Kevin Doty, father of Connecticut commit, Caroline, is his daughter's biggest fan, but hadn't planned on attending the Festival until his wife, Amy, provided him with an early Father's Day present - plane tickets and a hotel room in Colorado Springs. Caroline Doty clearly was pleasantly surprised by her father's presence. "I just called him this morning and said how I wished he could be here," Doty said. "He even said, 'How is that possible? I'm so far away.' " Doty, who is from Ft. Washington, Penn., celebrated with one of the best individual performances of the day with 16 dynamic points during her White team's 109-99 victory over Red. ... April Sykes of Crawford, Miss., the No. 3 player in the 2008 class, per HoopGurlz.com, is not here, as planned, because of her injured right hand. ... DeNesha Stallworth from the Bay Area of California, though one of the lesser-known players on the national level, has been impressive, not so much filling up the box score, but playing strong and physical in the post. She's done a bit of damage from the free-throw line. She converted five of six in the night cap and grabbed five boards as well. ... The Brazilian team got a nice taste of USA Basketball from Tiffany Hayes who scorched them for 17 points on six of 11 shooting, three of five from three point range, grabbed six rebounds, had four steals, dished out an assist and didn't turn the ball over once in 27 minutes of play. The UConn commit was impressive in both games today.

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Chris Hansen is the National Director of Scouting for Women's Basketball at HoopGurlz.com. He leads the panel that evaluates and ranks girl's basketball prospects nationally for HoopGurlz.. Chris has been involved in the women’s basketball community since 1998 as a coach, trainer, evaluator and reporter. He can be reached at chris@hoopgurlz.com.

Glenn Nelson is the publisher of HoopGurlz.com. He also founded and coached the Dragons and Northwest HoopGurlz select girl's basketball teams. Glenn previously was the editor-in-chief at Scout.com and a longtime, national-award-winning basketball columnist and writer for The Seattle Times. His work also has appeared in several books and national magazines. He is co-author of "Rising Stars: The Ten Best Players in the NBA" (Rosen Publishing, 2002). For more on Glenn's World, click here. He can be reached at glenn@hoopgurlz.com.

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