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Re:JC competition (long)
>I watch JC competition several times a year. Some leagues, including the
one >>Kedrick was in, are good. The players are talented enough, for the
most part, to >>make 4 year college rosters, but they haven't made their
grades.
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I have some insight into the Community College scene since my son played
JUCO ball for two years in one of the better Leagues in the country.
I have to agree with Mark. In fact, I was making some of the exact same
points when we drafted Kedrick at #11 that Mark is making now but no one
wanted to listen then either.
Are there some very talented players in JUCO? Yes, but they are hardly the
norm. The talent level is all over the place. You will find one or two very
good players on each team who are there because of grade problems, but many
times kids who can't make the grades in high school continue to have grade
problems at the next level.
Most of the time you find kids that have some hole in their game somewhere
that have made them initially less desirable to D1 teams. They are trying to
prove themselves.
Kids that were shooting guards in high school and can shoot lights out but
are only 5'8".
6'4" Kids that played PF in high school against other 6'4" kids and find out
pretty quickly that power forwards come bigger and stronger in college.
Real big men are not very common. Usually you will have one or two teams in
the League who have some real height and that's about it. When you do come
across legitimate big men they are usually from overseas and haven't played
much basketball before.
My sons team went into last years season with one player over 6'8" .
Unfortunately, they lost him before the season even started when he failed
cooking 101!!!!
Then there are the local kids. There is a quota of local kids that each team
has to meet. Some teams try very hard to bring in very good local players.
Other teams, it seems, just want to fill their quota with kids that will be
happy to sit on the bench.
Then they find themselves up a creek when they lose players because of grades
or injuries or even homesickness, and have to play these guys.
The step father of one of my sons friends runs basketball camps and a
scouting service for both high school and college kids. He's also an ex-Juco
Coach and Athletic Director.
He tells us that the talent level in both players and coaches has gone down
hill dramatically in the last 5-10 years and there are at least a dozen
different reasons why.
Here is the list of First Team All-Americans from two years ago.
2000 All-Americans FIRST TEAM
NAME HT WT YR COLLEGE
Eugene Costello 5-10 160 SO Midland College, TX
Lee Guinn 6-1 180 SO Champlain College, VT
Joe Gordon 6-2 170 SO Brevard CC, FL
Daryan Selvy 6-6 205 SO Carl Albert State Clg., OK
Eric Batchelor 6-6 215 SO NE Mississippi CC, MS
Tyray Pearson 6-7 200 SO Kankakee CC, IL
John Grice 6-7 205 SO Shelby State CC, TN
Johnnie Selvie 6-7 225 SO Southeastern CC, IA
Aaron McGhee 6-7 240 SO Vincennes University, IN
Cory Hightower 6-8 210 SO Indian Hills CC, IA
Any names jump out at you?
Eugene Costello- Averaged 12 pts, 3 reb, and 3 as last year at Texas El Paso.
Undrafted and not playing anywhere as far as I can find.
Lee Guinn- Was playing for Central Connecticut. That's all I could find on
him. Maybe someone out there could fill us in on where he is and what he's
doing.
Joe Gordon- Played with Miami to start the 2000-01 season. Didn't finish.
Wasn't on the 2001 roster. That's as much as I can come up with. Again, being
a Big East player maybe someone else on the list knows what happened to the
guy.
Eric Batchelor- Averaged 8.5pts, 3reb, 1.2 as for The University of
Alabama-Birmingham. Undrafted. Was on the roster of a team in Hungary, but
left at the start of this season.
John Grice- Now averaging 12.4pts and 7.5 rebs for Memphis after being
academically ineligible for almost two years.
Aaron McGhee and Daryan Selvy- Both played for Oklahoma.
McGhee averaged 16pts, 7.7 rebs and was the MVP of the Portsmouth
Invitational Tournament. Still, he went undrafted and is now playing in
Italy for Scavolini Pesaro.
Selvy is playing for the NBDL's Asheville Altitude after averaging 7pts, 5
rebs his Senior year.
Tyray Pearson- Averaged 18pts and 8 rebs last season at Iowa State.
Undrafted and not playing anywhere as far as I can find.
Johnnie Selvie - Played for UCONN, as I'm sure most of you know. Was the
JUCO National player of the year in 2000. Averaged 11pts and 6 rebs for
UCONN last season. Undrafted by the NBA and is now playing for the CBA's
Great Lakes Storm.
How about Cory Hightower you say? This is what one publication had to say
during that years draft.....
****Joel Hopkins, Hightower's high school coach at Mt. Zion Christian Academy
in Durham, N.C., says Hightower is a better one-on-one player and shooter
than his former Mt. Zion teammate, Tracy McGrady. Perhaps that bodes well for
Hightower's NBA career, which he apparently couldn't wait to embark upon.
Like McGrady, Hightower wanted to bolt for the pros after high school. He
wound up at junior college and actually signed with TCU last fall, but as
soon as Indian Hills was eliminated from the NJCAA playoffs, he reportedly
left school. As a freshman at Indian Hills, Hightower led the team to the
NJCAA championship and was chosen tournament MVP. He averaged 13.3 points his
first season and 23.5 as a sophomore. ****
Even with this glowing report from his coach, he still was drafted #54 by the
Spurs and then traded to the Lakers for two future second round picks. The
Lakers let him go and he had a one month cup of coffee with the Hornets
before they also released him before the start of the 2001 season. He is
currently also playing for the CBA's Great Lakes Storm.
The point is these were considered the best of the best in the JUCO ranks the
year before Kedrick came out and now where are they?
Not a single one is on an NBA roster. Most aren't even playing.
TAM