Hello to all the Bballspotlight bloggers. This is Chance Ellis with more current events about the 14U AAU Div. 1 basketball circuit. Juice All Stars will meet the NY Gauchos Harris Championship Monday on Memorial Day at the Island Garden in West Hempstead, NY. There will be championship games all day for 9U Div 1 & Div 2 all the way up to 17U Div 1 & Div 2. We traveled 8 hours to participate in the King James Shooting Stars Tournament in Akron, Ohio. There were over 93 teams participating in the 14u division. Many of the top players and teams in the country were there and the talent/size of the teams was unbelievable. Scheduling was brutal! We had to play seven games in less than 42 hours in order to win this tournament. Just about every game came down to the wire so we really got a chance to find out who will take and make pressure shots for the Juice All Stars. First game out of pool play Friends of Ohio looked like a varsity team. We trailed the whole game but the usual suspects pulled it out for us. In the quarter-final we played Mid-America Elite (Springfield, Ill) in a tough defensive struggle but the usual suspects pulled it out for us for an 8pt win. We caught a small break in the semi-finals when we played Youth Interlock (Philly, Pa.) because at least we were familiar with each other but the game was a all out war but the usual suspects pulled it out for a 4pt win. In the finals we ran into the 3rd ranked team in the country, Ray Allen Select Huskies (Madison, WI), who are not over powering but they have been together for 4yrs. and they run a lot of screens/picks that make you play defense for 40 to 60 seconds then when you relax they stroke a 3pter or they get a backdoor layup. We had another team situation that left us shorthanded in the 2nd half so we continued to battle and we had a chance to win but we came up short 53 to 49.
The tournament was a success because we found out that we were able to beat some great teams with outstanding coaching on the fly from Jermaine Brown (Lincoln HS) even though we don't practice. We realized now that we have to change the way we do things if we want national success. I find it fascinating that we have 6 nationally ranked players on our Juice Team yet everywhere you read it seems as though we have only 1. Everyone on our team enables each other to perform on this national stage. No one can do it or has done it by themselves. We have the best player in New Jersey on our team yet no one is writing about that...not even New Jersey. That's just the way this AAU circuit flows. There's nothing the players can do about it. We just have to continue to work and play as hard as we can because that's the only thing we can control. Shout out to all the over looked ballers who have worked hard to develop their game yet they have received little to no acknowledgements for their efforts. This has been Chance "The Gifted One" Ellis keep balling everyone.
