CBC/Playaz Draw a Crowd in Vegas

New England Recruiting Report | Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Kentucky head coach John Calipari, Arizona head coach Sean Miller, West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins, Providence head coach Ed Cooley and assistants from UConn, Louisville, Kansas, and Stanford headlined the 75+ college coaches on hand to watch the New England Playaz take on the Connecticut Basketball Club Friday night on center court at the Adidas Super 64 Showcase. 

Andre Drummond, coming off a dominant morning performance over Isaiah Austin, set the tone early by opening the game with a pair of rim rocking dunks, throwing down a one hand reverse along the baseline before rising above the defense to catch an alley-oop for a two-handed flush. 

The Playaz would quickly settle in though, calling a timeout to regroup and then responding with pinpoint offensive execution to take a 31-30 lead into halftime behind 12 first half points from John Papale. 

The second half would continue to go back and forth for the first six minutes before Drummond found himself in foul trouble and consequently forced to the bench.  Playaz center’ Kaleb Tarczewski would seize the opportunity and begin to assert himself in the paint to help the Playaz open up a six point lead.  This time it was CBC’s turn to answer the bell as Kris Dunn recovered from a tough start to lead a mini run along with some big buckets from Kahlil Dukes. 

Ultimately, the game would come down to the final two minutes when Joe Bramanti would emerge as a hero for the Playaz, making a driving lay-up to give them a 56-55 lead at the two-minute mark and then drilling a three-pointer with just 20 seconds left in the game to tie the score at 58. 

That left CBC with one final possession and that meant one final chance for Andre Drummond to punctuate his tremendous day.  The big fella did just that, draining a fade-away 8 footer as time expired to score the dramatic win for CBC. 

Drummond finished with a game high 21 points, including 7 in the final two minutes.  Tarczewski and Papale had 16 each for the Playaz while Timajh Parker-Rivera and Dunn both finished in double figures for CBC with 13 and 11 respectively. 

Both CBC and the Playaz have one final pool play game on Saturday before automatically advancing to Sunday’s gold bracket.

Stay tuned to the New England Recruiting Report tomorrow as we’ll take a wider glance at the action in Las Vegas and update you on the local standouts.