New England Well Represented at Adidas All-American
New England was well represented at the Adidas Uprising All-American Camp, held Wednesday through Friday last week at Long Island University Post in New York.
Mustapha Heron, Tyrique Jones, Wenyen Gabriel, A.J. Brodeur, Tremont Waters, Makai Ashton-Langford, Kellan Grady and Tomas Murphy were all among the 90 players from across the Adidas Uprising brand selected to participate.
Heron was also one of 18 players from within the camp chosen to take part in the Uprising Showcase game, played Thursday night at the famous Rucker Park in Harlem. The event was the first of its kind in that Rucker had never been the host of a "live" event before and college coaches were out in full force sitting behind one basket.
With those 18 players sitting out Thursday afternoon's games in preparation for the showcase, Gabriel stepped-up to become one of the biggest stories of the day. He was followed by the likes of UConn head coach Kevin Ollie, Texas head coach Shaka Smart, Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey, Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins and Wake Forest head coach Danny Manning among others, but he heard from a new coach on Wednesday night when Duke's Coach K reached out.
Like Gabriel, Jones had his second consecutive big week as well. He was instrumental in helping New Rens win last week's Adidas Gauntlet Finale championship and continued to be a workhorse in the paint this week as well, rebounding and finishing at will.
Waters was the best of the underclassmen this week, knocking down a game-winning buzzer beater in one of the opening game sets and then forming a terrific one-two punch with Gabriel as the duo connected for a number of alley-oops on Thursday afternoon.
The Rens, Rivals and Playaz will all be in Las Vegas next week to take part in the Adidas Uprising Summer Championships, previously known as the Adidas Super 64.