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The best of the best
Although the prep season is not over yet for many schools, let's take a current look at the national player-of-the-year candidates in the senior, junior and sophomore classes. Among the seniors, we'll list five finalists without yet selecting a winner, but in reality we consider it a two-way race. Four juniors are legitimate player-of-the-year possibilities, while one sophomore already is a clear-cut winner in his class. SENIOR CLASS Our five finalists for player of the year in the class of 2001 are (drum roll) ... 6-2 Memphis PG signee Dajuan Wagner of Camden (N.J.) High, 6-11 DePaul C recruit Eddy Curry of South Holland (Ill.) Thornwood, unsigned 6-8 PF/C Ousmane Cisse of Montgomery (Ala.) St. Jude, 6-4 Michigan State WG signee Kelvin Torbert of Flint (Mich.) Northwestern, and unsigned 7-0 C David Harrison of Nashville (Tenn.) Brentwood Academy. Not making the cut are highly touted prospects such as 6-11 Florida PF recruit Kwame Brown of Brunswick (Ga.) Glynn Academy, unsigned 7-1 1/2 C Tyson Chandler of Compton (Calif.) Dominguez, 6-6 N.C. State WG/PG signee Julius Hodge of Bronx (N.Y.) St. Raymond's, 6-7 Florida SF recruit James White of Chatham (Va.) Hargrave Military Academy, or any of the multiple stars of the nation's top two high school teams, Mouth of Wilson (Va.) Oak Hill Academy and Sugar Land (Texas) Willowridge. Brown, Chandler, Hodge and White have actually all had erratic seasons marked by too many subpar performances. Of the seniors at Oak Hill and Willowridge, the one who has played the best overall is 6-2 Oak Hill PG Billy Edelin, a Syracuse signee who drives extremely well but must markedly improve his perimeter jump shot in order to have anything resembling the same level of success against big-time collegiate competition. In fact, were we to add a sixth senior to our five finalists for player of the year, it would be another Florida signee, 6-9 PF/SF David Lee, who has had an outstanding season for St. Louis Chaminade. Back to the top five, Harrison has had a terrific season (averaging some 30 ppg) but is our fifth choice, because his overall level of competition doesn't appear to be as strong as that faced by the other senior finalists. We'll be surprised if he doesn't ultimately opt for hometown Vanderbilt (where his father, Dennis, is football defensive-line coach) over Colorado and North Carolina. Other than one bad game versus powerful rival Flint (Mich.) Northern, Torbert has also been superb, with a high output of 50 points. He and Cisse, a fantastic run/jump athlete who started the season with some triple-doubles but has been out of action since mid-January with a balky knee, are tied for third on our current senior list. Denny Crum's insecure situation at Louisville may lead Mali native Cisse to sign a national letter-of-intent this spring with Arkansas, Duke, Virginia or someone else besides Louisville, where his brother Daouda is a freshman. That leaves the obvious (at least for us) top two players in the class of 2001, Wagner and Curry. Some writers seem to be holding Wagner's 100-point outburst earlier this season him. Frankly, it was his coach's decision to keep Wagner in the game (for the first 28 minutes) and to continue to press fullcourt. All Wagner did was play basketball to the best of his considerable ability. At this writing Camden is undefeated versus large-school competition, Wagner is averaging over 40 points per game, and when facing Bronx St. Raymond's in the recent Prime Time Shootout in Trenton, N.J., he didn't shoot particularly well yet still scored 39 points (to 17 for Hodge) and led his team to a come-from-behind, 68-64 victory. Furthermore, when Wagner faced blue-chip point guards Carlos Hurt (headed to Louisville) of Louisville (Ky.) Moore and Kansas-bound Aaron Miles of Portland (Ore.) Jefferson at the Nike All-America Camp last summer in Indianapolis, he clearly outplayed them. Thus, Wagner is the player to beat for the top spot in his class, at this juncture. The sole individual who conceivably could still nip Wagner for this honor is Curry, a highly skilled, 290-pound space-eater with enough athleticism to be widely considered "the next Shaquille O'Neal." Curry has consistently posted impressive numbers against strong foes despite being regularly double-teamed, but a huge early-season matchup with Compton Dominguez (and Chandler) resulted in Thornwood's only defeat to date, as Curry shot just 5-for-18 from the field. In other words, Wagner carried his team to a victory in his Camden's biggest game thus far this season, but Curry was unable to do that. Consequently, the nod, at least for now, has to go to Wagner. Bear in mind, however, that our actual senior player of the year will not be announced until late April, after all the major postseason all-star games are over. Stay tuned. JUNIOR CLASS Switching streams, arguably the two best basketball prospects in the class of 2002 have played none or very little this season, hence neither can be considered for player of the year among juniors. We're referring to 6-10, 235-pound Winter Garden (Fla.) West Orange C/PF Amare Stoudemire, who on Feb. 13 announced an early verbal commitment to Memphis over Georgetown after being declared ineligible (three times) for the entire season by the Florida High School Activities Association; and 6-6 Old Tappan (N.J.) North Valley SF Lenny Cooke, a transfer from Manhattan (N.Y.) LaSalle who gained his eligibility under New Jersey rules just a couple of weeks ago. Cooke, incidentally, racked up 52 points, 16 rebounds and seven assists the other day in an 80-41 trouncing of Bergenfield (N.J.) High! With those two potential superstars out of the picture (at least for this season), our four current finalists for junior player of the year are 6-1 Latta (S.C.) High PG Raymond Felton, 6-10 Raleigh (N.C.) Broughton PF/C Shavlik Randolph, 6-11 Winchendon (Mass.) Winchendon School C/PF Sani Ibrahim from Nigeria, and 6-1 Saginaw (Mich.) High PG Anthony Roberson. Roberson is presently fourth on our list. While he's certainly a prolific scorer who plays with great confidence, his shot selection (especially in clutch situations) wavers too often for our druthers. Tied for second right now are Randolph, an immensely skilled natural forward who racked up 53 points in a game earlier this season, and Ibrahim, who played as a junior in Atlanta and led powerful Winchendon to the title of the National Prep School Invitational in Worcester, Mass., just over a week ago. Virtually everyone assigns a pair of defenders to Randolph, who's looking very hard at Duke and North Carolina although his late grandfather ( Ronnie Shavlik ) was an All-American at N.C. State in the mid-1950s. Ibrahim, who got the best of blue-chip 6-10 Inglewood (Calif.) High junior C/PF DeAngelo Collins in a fall matchup, is nearly as talented as Randolph at the offensive end of the court and perhaps even more intimidating on defense. So let's call it a draw for now. Regardless, our present choice for junior-class player of the year is Felton, who's averaging over 28 points and seven assists per game for twice-beaten Latta, a tiny (Class 1A) school that shocked both famed Hyattsville (Md.) DeMatha Catholic and Cincinnati Western Hills at the post-Christmas Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C. In those two games, Felton scored 33 and 30 points despite being constantly double-teamed by well-regarded players! The 78-73 win over DeMatha ranks as the biggest upset of the season, beyond a doubt, and after watching the game long-time Five-Star Camp co-director Howard Garfinkel termed Felton the best high school point guard he's seen since NBA Hall of Famer Calvin Murphy! Rumors persist that Felton may make an early verbal commitment to North Carolina, but it hasn't happened yet, at least publicly. SOPHOMORE CLASS Finally, our hands-down selection for sophomore-class player of the year is 6-6 SF LeBron James, who already has the complete package and is averaging approximately 25 points, seven rebounds and six assists per game for Akron (Ohio) St. Vincent-St. Mary. In his team's sole loss, he torched loaded Oak Hill for 33 points as the nationally top-ranked Warriors squeaked out a 79-78 barnburner. James, who probably is better right now than any high school senior or junior small forward, has superstar written all over him, assuming (as we do) that he keeps his head on straight. While our final player-of-the-year choices will not be announced for two more months, rest assured that James is a virtual cinch among the sophomores. Regional notesThis week we'll focus, region by region, upon the very best senior and junior point guards in the nation, while also mentioning a few recent verbal commitments. EAST SOUTH MIDWEST SOUTHWEST WEST Brick Oettinger is talent evaluator for the Prep Stars Recruiter's Handbook and recruiting columnist for the ACC Area Sports Journal. For more information on either publication, call 1-800-447-7667.
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