By RENALDO DORSETT
Sports Reporter
rdorsett@tribunemedia.net
THE inaugural edition of the Top 50 basketball camp concluded over the weekend, and even organisers along with visiting coaches walked away from the event excited about the opportunities the players gained from the showcase.
The Bahamas Basketball Federation, Bahamas Global Sports Foundation, CSA Basketball Academy and iOWNpr hosted the the camp in conjunction with the International Coaches Clinic at several venues, including the
Atlantis Resort, DW Davis and the Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium.
Veteran NCAA division I head coach Ronnie Arrow most recently served as an assistant coach at Texas Southern University but is most well known for his over 30 years of head coaching experience at San Jacinto Community College, Texas A and M Corpus Christi and two stints with South Alabama.
Arrow, familiar with Bahamian basketball talent after he recruited one of the country’s 40 greatest players of all time, said the rankings system of the top 50 camp were beneficial to the recruiting process.
“The system, they did a great job with that. It was a first class report and hopefully the organisers will be able to get these out to Division I, Division II and Division III coaches, then more and more scouts and coaches will be here next year. The talent is here. Parents, ex-players, anybody that is interested in basketball, you owe it to this country, you owe it to these young kids to get out and support these kids
because you have some major talent here,” he said.
“This is my third year in a row back down here, undoubtedly, ever since i recruited Craig Walkine ‘The Magician’ I have known the talent is down here. I think more and more people need to be getting involved in helping to develop these young kids. There are other Lynden Roses out there. There are other Mychal Thompsons out there.”
Arrow said he was impressed with the talent level of the camp’s youngest participants. “Some of the best talent that I saw in this group was the young talent. I’m talking about seventh graders, eighth graders I saw a backcourt that is going to be unbelievable when they get older,” he said. “In this camp we stressed academics, I told them when I was a coach in division I, I couldn’t tell them enough times how many kids I had to turn down because they didn’t have their grades. So the grades go hand in hand with basketball and keeping out of trouble.”
Jerrod Rucker, director of the Basketball Factory in Baltimore, Maryland, and coach of the Under-17 Baltimore Nike Elite AAU team, said the Bahamas is home to a plethora of undeveloped basketball talent.
“The Bahamas is a hidden gem. This is the first time I have been over here and I think these kids are so athletic and talented, they just need to be pushed on a daily basis. The stuff that we did the past three
days, if they can get that consistently, you will probably see a lot more NBA players come out of the Bahamas,” he said. “But this group if they stay positive, stay on course, they will be fine. They heard a lot about education and buying into being the best students they can be because education is really the thing that is going to propel their careers. Athletically and talent wise they are pretty good but the education side of it, they will have to improve on. A lot of them really listened, they really bought into the different coaches and speakers and the sky is the limit for them.”
Rucker, who led his teams to five scrimmage victories on the final day of the camp, said there were players ready to compete at a higher level in the United States almost immediately.
“I saw several players with the ability to make the transition. The younger division, those kids are really talented, they just lack strength,” he said.
“A lot of them have talked to me about coming over to the states so we are going to go back and try to work on some school situations and maybe housing situations for those kids because as many kids as we can help we will try to do so.”
The breakdown will include - the top 10 players between grades 7-9, the top 20 players in grades 10-12 and the top 20 players who have graduated high school or currently attend a junior college.
CSA basketball director Marvin Henfield said the true measure of the camp’s sucess will be when the organisation is able to publish the names of the players that have received scholarship opportunities through the process.
“Over the duration of this weekend I have had conversations with the coaches and we had as many as eight guys in the junior category that coaches want to carry right now and in the senior category there are at least 8-10 guys coaches are very interested in,” he said. “One of the things I want to do with this event is I want to be able to archive our success and the kids’ success. I know a lot of organisations and events say they send kids off, but we want to make known and we want to make public through the media, through the website and these other outlets, the names of these individuals.”
With the success of its inaugural edition, Henfield said the group is already looking forward to improvements for the 2015 edition.
“We want to continue to expand on the length and magnitude of the top 50. Next year Trinidad has already committed to sending their top four prospects, which is incredible,” he said, “We are not trying to invent
the wheel, we just need to duplicate. We are not trying to change the game here in the Bahamas, what we want to to is raise the standard. Not just in presentation, but also in the opportunities for our kids to go abroad and receive an education.”
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