Words. Aron Phillips

Every year a kid comes out of nowhere and sets the spring AAU scene on fire. Last year it was Anthony Davis; this year it’s the SYF Players’ Mitch McGary. This kid wasn’t even a starter on his Brewster Academy (Wolfeboro, N.H.) team this season, and now has Duke, Texas, UConn, Arizona and others at his school to watch him work out. Oh yeah, and he’s an inch away from being a legitimate 7-footer. Check out some footage of the rising senior playing at Brewster during the season, and for the SYF Players in Wisconsin and Pittsburgh.

MORE >

Words. Lucas Shapiro

Monday’s action at the finale of the Hoophall Classic in Springfield, Mass., had some of the best matchups of the weekend. We saw some pretty amazing performances that will have many players’ rankings shoot up the charts.

Rather than simply reading the scouting reports, we decided to talk with some of the players and coaches to get their perspectives on some of the day’s top performers. Here is what they had to say: MORE >

Words. Jason Jordan

Strake Jesuit College Prep (Houston, TX) combo guard Rasheed Sulaimon knew that after following up a stellar sophomore season with an even more stellar AAU summer, he’d have to adjust to being the primary focus of opposing team’s defensive strategies.

“It’s still been really tough,” said Sulaimon. “I’m three games in and I’ve seen pretty much everything that you can see defensively. I feel like I’m learning new ways to adjust every game and it’s been fun. The season’s young and I feel like I’m ready to have another big year.” MORE >

Words. L.J. Rose

Second Baptist School (Houston, TX) junior L.J. Rose is one of the most gifted point guards in the country. Despite suffering from a nagging ankle injury all summer, he still had everyone from North Carolina to Arizona trying to lure him to their schools. Fresh off surgery to repair a fracture in his fifth metatarsal, Rose has agreed to give HSH exclusive access by chronicling his thoughts in a regular diary. In this entry he discusses everything from the contact period to his upcoming visit to North Carolina for “Late Night with Roy.” MORE >

Words. Casey Mack

New York City high school stars traditionally have a large amount of hype behind them. Looking back over the past 15 years, there are so many names who were once praised as the Next Great One who are now lost in the wind: Lenny Cooke, Omar Cook, Erick Barkley, Sebastian Telfair … the list is long enough to support the theory held in other regions of America that NYC prep stars are too often overrated.

Lately, the New York City hype machine has lost some of its steam — Lance Stephenson notwithstanding — and now it seems players have to truly earn their keep from national recruiting services. MORE >

Words. Jason Jordan

Sacramento (Calif.) High School point guard Josiah Turner took his official visit to Arizona last weekend — alongside recent Wildcats’ commit Nick Johnson (Findlay Prep, NV) — fully planning on finishing out the rest of his scheduled visits, which included Kansas, UCLA and Louisville.

But by the time he left, Turner had made his pledge for the Wildcats. MORE >