Reviews from Vegas

New England Recruiting Report | Monday, April 23rd, 2012

New England was represented with three Adidas sponsored teams at last weekend’s Adidas VIP Exclusive Run as the Connecticut Basketball Club, New England Playaz, and Rivals Basketball Club all made the trip to Sin City.  

The trip ended up being a productive one for all three clubs.  The Rivals were all over the national headlines on Saturday with Noah Vonleh’s picture covering the front page of the Rivals network and Dave Telep’s ESPN headline pretty much said it all, “Hill, Vonleh dominate Las Vegas events.”

“Vonleh is scary comfortable for a big man with the ball in his hands.  He’ll play the 4 in college and transition to the small forward when it comes time for his career post college,” Telep wrote. “His value in the 2014 class is going nowhere but up.”  

Scout.com’s Evan Daniels echoed those sentiments saying “Vonleh, a five-star recruit, is an elite prospect and one of the best forwards in the 2014 class.”

Vonleh wasn’t the only Rival to find himself in the national headlines as Kaleb Joseph also earned praise from Scout.com and Rivals.  “Joseph has the look of a high-major prospect,” according to Daniels, and “looked like a sure high major handling the offense” according to Rivals’ Eric Bossi.  

Even beyond the one two punch of Vonleh and Joseph other members of the Rivals young roster including Matt Cimino, Jeremy Miller, Josh Sharma, and Idris Taqqee were noted in the national write-ups as they knocked off Memphis Magic and Indiana Elite to advance to the championship bracket where they would fall to the eventual champions Florida Rams.  

The New England Playaz and the Connecticut Basketball Club both moved on to the silver bracket following their pool play results and the Playaz would go on to win that bracket, finishing the weekend with a 4-2 record.  

Jarred Reuter also found himself amid national write-ups as Daniels noted he has “plenty of potential” and “great hands, nice touch inside and can clear some space.” Meanwhile Bossi liked two other up and coming Playaz big men in D.J. Foreman and Kerem Kanter.  

Kahlil Dukes was the big winner for the Connecticut Basketball Club, scoring his first high-major scholarship offer from USC after an impressive weekend showing.  

To read the national write-ups in their entirety please see the following links:
ESPN - http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/dave-telep/post?id=1250
Scout - http://scouthoops.scout.com/2/1179674.html
Rivals - http://basketballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1357918
Rivals - http://basketballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1358291