Rivals Undefeated in Dallas

New England Recruiting Report | Tuesday, April 29th, 2014

Our final look back at the evaluation weekend takes us to Dallas for the first of the Adidas Uprising events.  

The Mass Rivals traveled with their u17, u16, and u15 squads and finished a perfect 5-0 in the senior division with all 12 players on the roster seeing time in each of the five games.  

They opened with a 69-66 win over the Milwaukee Running Rebels on Friday night.  Marcel Pettway led the way with 13 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 blocks while a total of seven different players scored at least six points.

Saturday’s action began with a 70-42 lashing of the Michigan Mustangs behind 15 points from Jalen Adams and Curtis Cobb alike.  Later that afternoon it was a 71-67 win over NW Panthers as Pettway, Adams, and Cobb all finished in double figures again.

Adams had his best performance of the weekend in the nightcap, going for 21 points and 10 assists, while Cobb added 18 points.  Josh Sharma also came alive in this one, finishing with a double-double of 12 points and 11 rebounds, along with 4 blocks as the Rivals beat MBA Hoops 82-61.

The Rivals punctuated their weekend with a 66-50 win over New Orleans Elite in a game in which 10 different players saw double digit minutes.  Sharma had 14 points on 7-8 shooting from the floor, along with 4 blocks, in just 20 minutes of action, while Adams scored 11 points and handed out 6 assists (against no turnovers) while playing the point guard position.  Cobb also finished in double figures for the fourth consecutive game with 11 points.  

By the time it was all said and done Adams had finished third in the entire field in assists, while Sharma was the leading shot-blocker at the event with 2.4 blocks per game.  Adams was also profiled by Rivals.com's Eric Bossi who noted, "an athletic and aggressive guard who has a motor that doesn't quit...[He] wasn't forcing his offense for Mass Rivals on Sunday, but the 6-foot-1 guard who ranks No. 27 in the class of 2015 was in total control of the game whenever he was on the floor..."

Kansas head coach Bill Self was front and center for a pair of Rivals' games while Adams told Bossi that Creighton, Connecticut, Georgia Tech, and Kansas were the schools working hardest to recruiting him.  He picked up his latest offer, this one from Tennessee, just following the conclusion of the weekend. 

Here are some of Adams’ top plays from the weekend, care of Ballas TV:

Adams wasn’t the only one to help his recruitment this weekend.  Makai Ashton-Langford landed an offer from Boston College head coach Jim Christian on Thursday night while Cobb reportedly heard from Butler, Creighton, Rice, Richmond, and St. John's.  Chris Baldwin heard from Wake Forest, East Carolina, UMass, and West Virginia.