Glory Johnson

Glory Johnson has really shown another dimension to her game here. She will always be among the most athletically gifted players in the country, looking impressive even going against Sylvia Fowels and Charde Houston. What you can see in this setting is her ability to execute fundamental sound skills when taught. Her footwork on her jump shot is less than perfect with her feet not pointed to the basket and her shoulders not square. But her footwork when taught a new skill has been very good. She has executed the reverse pivots, the step throughs and the floating runners with both hands pretty well with a few reps to learn it first. What it tells me is that with more skill development and repetitions she could be a phenominal player on any level. She has had great energy and a positive attitude throughout as well. She has a presence about her that she's not only here to get better but she seems to increse the intensity of those working with her too.

Samantha Prahalis is showing more of her shifty handle and creativity with the ball as the Academy goes on. There aren't too many people who can stay in front of her on a regular basis, maybe no one. What she continues to do that is so impressive is keep her dribble extremely close to the ground so that even players that are reaching have almost no chance of even getting lucky and tipping it out on her. She had done well with the change of direction drills attacking the basket. On Tuesday morning they added some stationary ball handling drills where one hand was handling the basketball and the other had a tennis ball. Prahalis, who most here are calling Paralis, was very good at taking care of the ball while focusing on the task of tossing the tennis ball around. She not only completed the tasks at hand but did them with great energy and speed. What stood out most was a drill where they had to crossover with the basketball while tossing the tennis ball across to the other hand. Her crossover was game speed. A new piece to her game that is looking stronger is her spin move. She usually gets so much done with her various crossovers and kick outs seeing another creative layer to her game is very entertaining.

Tierra Ruffin-Pratt is a tough minded kid who goes to work with her hard hat on at all times. She doesn't seem to be bothered as much by her ankle and knee as she was in Colorado Springs for the USA YDF. She is such a strong and efficient player to begin with that seeing her learn proper footwork is a lot of fun because it will take her game to another level completely. She's a kid that already knows to explode her inside shoulder into the defender's outside hip to go by. They've done a lot of drills working on attacking the basket from various angles but focusing on the footwork, then a solid finish. She is so good at attacking the basket naturally that she's going to be even tougher to stop in competition with perfected technique. With her explosive first step the work they've done with aggressive and threatening jab step fakes should really add to her game as well, to free her up space and to get them off balance, she's doing a good job of using those skills in the two-on-two drills and not reverting back to the habit of just going straight at the defender.