Public Servant and local basketball promoter Matt Denison put on a great event last Saturday at Iroquois High School in Louisville, Kentucky. Four games for $10 culminating with U of L signee Terry Rozier scoring 68 points for Hargrave Military Academy made the day worth the price of admission.
The day started with me being escorted to my seat as a member of the media (yea, that's right, I also was able to go to the hospitality room and eat some really nice food, too). On the baseline, I was able to watch most of the Rock Creek vs. Iroquois game. Rock Creek is improving, though losing to a much larger school and Iroquois is coached by Jeff Morrow. Coach Morrow won a state championship in Kentucky when coaching at J-town in Louisville.
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| (Iroquois H.S., Louisville, KY's facility) |
The next game featured Apollo H.S. out of Owensboro, KY vs. Manual H.S. in Louisville. Hunter Biven is a 6'6" 300 lb. something going to play football at Notre Dame, the kid is huge, but had other players such as Sam Sargeant, the coaches son who is able to handle about everything Manual could throw at him. Manual H.S. is coached by former Jeffersonville coach Jimmy Just and has a really good player in Andy Tillman.
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| (Apollo's Sergeant and Bivin) |
The third game involved the Butler Bears vs. Lexington Catholic. Lex Cath is perennially one of the top teams in Kentucky and had a nice player in 6'8 Jack Whitman. The best compliment I can give Butler is that they played like an Indiana team. There was a purpose to everything that they were doing and discipline. I have seen Coach Shawn Purlee's team play a few times and everytime, I think, they play like an Indiana high school team. Butler has Demetrius McReynolds who is being recruited by some mid majors such as Samford whose head coach and former Indiana University men's assistant, Benny Seltzer was in the house.
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| (LC Jack Hartman on left, Rick Bolus, Butler's McReynolds) |
The final game, the true feature game, highlighted Hargrave Military Academy vs. Action Sports Academy, two prep teams. On the Hargrave team are U of L signess Anton Gill and Terry Rozier. The teams played two 20 minute halves with no shot clock and they didn't need one. The game was actually well defended with both teams playing hard. The game went double OT with Rozier and Hargrave setting records for points scored. Hargrave with 137 points for the game and Rozier with 68, shooting over 50% from the field. Rozier and Gill will be nice additions to the U of L Cardinals for sure.
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| (ASA's Derek Harper, Bolus, HMA's Terry Rozier) |
All of that for $10. You cannot go to a movie for that price for two hours and you got this entertainment for eight hours by the end of the night. Thanks to Matt and everyone else involved to made this day a success, as a basketball junkie, I enjoyed it.
(This shot by ASA sent the game into the first OT)
