Long Beach, CA – As the high school season comes to an end in California this past Sunday I headed down to SoCal to watch Day 3 of the four-day Pangos Best of SoCal League hosted by Dinos Trigonis at McBride High School. The Best of SoCal League featured 8 teams comprised of high school players from around Southern California and beyond. The League featured players from the classes of 2023-2026 placing them on rosters that allowed some of the top players in the region to battle against each other. Although there was a lot of talent at every grade level, the majority of the talent was from the ..read more

The 2023 Pangos Best of SoCal League presented by Wyndham Destinations tipped-off earlier this month (March 4th at McBride HS (Long Beach CA) and ran through last Monday March 13th – giving us a very good view of several top prospects from Southern California (and beyond). Besides myself, Frank Burlison, Ronnie Flores (Ball is Life) and Paul Hernandez (661 Hoops & Nothing But Net Magazine) stopped by to evaluate players. BallerTV live-streamed all games played and Beach City Hoops, Hustle 2k, Nate Buss and They Can Hoop were in the house shooting video highlights. The league was loaded wi ..read more

The Class of 2026 has already shown glimpses of being one of the deepest classes of potential next-level prospects the Central Section has had since the Class of 2021, which ended up having 7 players go on to play Division 1 basketball and a number of others playing at various levels (Division 2, Division 3, NAIA, or JUCO). Furthermore, the 2026 Class will be the first cohort of players since the pandemic that will not be subjected to the rigorous Covid protocols and guidelines throughout the 2022-2023 season, which helped with player exposure and development. The talent of this class is fairl ..read more

Fresno, CA – The Central Section Basketball Championships returned to Selland Area in Fresno for the first time since the 2019-2020 season, as the Covid pandemic moved these games to the site of the higher-seeded team the past two seasons. The best part of this format is that all 12 championship games, Divisions 1-6 for boys and girls, are played on one court in the Selland Arena facility. This makes it ideal for viewing, as media and scouts had to pick and choose which games to attend the past few seasons and some championship games received little to no coverage.  The two-day event bega ..read more

The Class of 2025 is rounding out its second year of high school basketball and, as sophomores, many are playing larger roles for their teams this season compared to their freshman year. Other than some rosters being hindered by Covid restrictions in place during their freshman high school season, which had minimal impact on teams after early January of 2022, this class of players has been able to showcase their skills and abilities on national and regional platforms more reminiscent of the pre-Covid era of prep hoops.  After last year’s high school season, players from the Class of 2025 ..read more

Central California – There have been plenty of quality match-ups and statement wins throughout the Central Section through the first half of league play, which has led to some significant movement of teams on this updated round of rankings. A majority of the games played since the last updated rankings two weeks ago have been between league opponents, therefore, head to head wins and wins over a common opponent are the basis for this round of rankings and team placement. This past week in particular featured three games between top 10 opponents in the Section and the outcomes of those games ar ..read more

The Class of 2024 has finally had a full year on the court without being negatively impacted by the stringent Covid protocols that hindered player exposure and opportunities for the first year and a half of their high school careers. Although Covid guidelines were in place last season at this time, most teams and players had already had the virus rip through their teams after the holiday tournaments and I do not recall any team missing a key player in the playoffs. After the high school season, players from the 2024 Class would get four NCAA Certified Live Periods (two in  April and two i ..read more

While the 2022 Tarkanian Classic featured over 200 teams in its high school and prep school brackets, I was able to see about 70-80 of those teams in the four days I attended the tournament.  I have listed them below based on the Top 25 players I observed and the “Best of the Rest” who showed the potential to play NCAA Division I basketball. With that being said, I know I missed a number of quality players and division one talents who played in some of the various other sights around Las Vegas in both the high school and prep divisions. I’d like to give a special shout out to Ronnie Flore ..read more

Central California – The start of league play kicked off throughout the Central Section over the past two weeks and the results have led to some movement in this updated list of team rankings. St. Joseph holds onto the top spot, as it has dominated any Central Section opponent it has faced and lost to some elite teams in their respective states. Clovis North continues to get wins over quality opponents and added two more against Central Section powers Clovis West and San Joaquin Memorial to jump to the second spot. As was predicted, San Joaquin Memorial and Bakersfield Christian have looked mu ..read more

Central California – The preseason is coming to an end this week and the holiday tournaments have concluded as of the 30th of December. There has been a lot of movement in this updated list from the first one of the 2022-2023 high school season that came out about 3 weeks ago. Clovis West and Dinuba are no longer undefeated, St. Joseph has played really well against some great teams but did not win any holiday tournaments, Edison of Fresno remains hot and made another statement by earning a trip to the Clovis Elks title game, Clovis North continues to get impressive wins over quality programs ..read more