BST Hoops NE Exposure Showcase

Garet Beal took the MVP

Northeast Exposure Showcase Recap  

By BST Hoops - Seventy of the Northeast region’s top basketball prospects ascended on the campus of Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, NH over Columbus Day weekend for the 2011 Northeast Exposure Showcase. Each prospect was looking to accomplish two goals, 1) gain regional and national exposure, 2) prove which state or city truly has the best basketball in the Northeast kingdom,……… both accomplished.  The Northeast Exposure Showcase once again proved itself as one the East regions premier showcases, providing college/prep coaches an opportunity to see kids in a workout, practice and game environment, all under, one roof.  The event was highly productive for both prospects and coaches as the majority of the kids in the event received an inquiry from either a college or prep coach.  Below is the complete event recap.

The Saturday morning schedule, consisted of the BST academy staff putting the prospects through an advanced series of team and positional drills as both college and prep coaches took it all in, evaluating kids from technique to work ethic. The prospects then attended a lunch seminar put on by Boston College Basketball Strength/Conditioning Coach, who educated the kids on the importance of proper dieting and exercise physiology and how it relates to the game of basketball.  After lunch, the prospects re-entered the gym to be put through a team practice where a defense and offense was implemented for them to utilize in their games on Sunday.  After the practice session, the day concluded with a structured scrimmage session, used to determine seeding for Sunday’s tournament.

Sunday would be a single elimination tournament format, that would determine who is holding down the Northeast region, providing college/prep coaches an opportunity to see the prospects compete in a highly competitive game environment.  The first round saw Team Maine, and Team Toronto compete in game one at 9am, Team Maine utilized their size advantage and overall solid team IQ to keep Team Toronto at bay, taking a 56-43 win, and advancing to the semi-finals. Garet Beal led the way for Maine with 22pts, Jonathan Wallace paced Toronto with 15 pts.  Game 2 of the first round, pitted two Western NNE area teams, as Vermont and Western-MA squared off,  Western-MA jumped out quick with their athletic ability but Team VT hung close using their size advantage, pounding the boards, taking a 30-28 advantage into halftime.  The second half, the two teams battled back and forth with neither gaining any major advantage, down the stretch VT utilized their size advantage claiming a 64-61 win.  Vermont’s two big’s Eric Suder and Jacob Bushee led Team VT with 15 and 12 respectively, as they secured a date in the semi-finals against Team Maine.  Team Western-MA got a great floor game from Colin Richey, who displayed a real nice feel for the game,  scoring for Western-MA was led by Riyadh Asad(10 pts) and Tyler Delorey(14 pts). Game 3 was the highly anticipated match-up between Teams Boston-Metro and NH-Seniors, the teams were pretty evenly matched, with a slight guard advantage going to NH and a slight advantage on bigs going to Boston, however both are athletic teams who like to get out and run, making for a fun game to watch.  NH got out early with their guards Ryan Gauthier, Brad Holler and Javon Williams setting the early tone, but the size of Boston’s athletic big’s Macam Bak and Elijiah Okagbare were able to keep Boston in the game, pounding the boards and causing havoc around the class with above the rim finishes.  In the end it was consistent guard play for NH that would weigh out, taking 56-53 win for Team NH-Seniors. NH was led by Brad Holler (11pts) and Javon Williams (12pts) in the win, Boston was led by Macam Bak and Roger Paul who each posted 14 pts in the lose.  In the fourth and final first round match up, Team NH-Undergrads would face Team Toronto who received a second life via their undefeated record on Saturday, replacing Team St. Johns-Canada who was unable to make the trip.    One might think a team of under-grads would really struggle in this environment, but this group of young men might be the best group of under-grads the state of NH has seen in quiet sometime, all are great kids and all are college level players, with that being said the NH-UG’s jumped out quick on Team Toronto taking an early lead behind the guard play of Ian Sistare, Eric Gendron, CJ Iozza and Carmen Giampetruzzi and the interior play of a mountain line up of 6’9 Zach Grattan, 6’7 Roger Larrivee and 6’10 Tom Nason, but when all was said and done the mature, intense play of team Toronto proved to much as team Toronto received 18 apeice from Donnovan Hastings and Jonthan Wallace to grab the “W” and move onto the semi-finals and a date with Team NH-Seniors.

The semi-finals on paper looked like great match-ups and on the floor they did not disappoint, game one saw two very fundamentally solid basketball in teams in Team Maine and Team Vermont compete. Semi-final number two pitted two of the more athletic teams against each other, as Team NH-Seniors competed against another quick, high flying team in Team Toronto.  In semi-final match up number one it was the great guard play of Team Maine’s Harry Rafferty, Tanner Hyland, Levi Barnes, Garet Beal that was the deciding difference in this one.  The big’s for both teams matched up solidly, not allowing the other to gain any major advantage, making it so the guards would have to make the difference, and that they did as Maine’s duo of Raffery and Beal proved too much for VT, combining for 36 points, 18 apeice.  Maine would advance to the championship with a 64-59 win.  Semi-final number two would turn out to be an absolute battle, as these two athletic teams would go at it for 40 minutes and then 3 more to decide this one.  At the end of 43 minutes it was Team Tronoto behind the high flying Donovan Hastings(17pts) and Jovan Leamy (15pts) that escaped with the Win and an official date with Team Maine in the Championship.  Despite the lose, Team NH-Seniors got great interior play from bigs Trevor Fahmy and Marcus Swedberg, and scoring from Logan Kesty and Kamahl Walker with 16 and 11.

The finals would be a rematch of game one of the first round, Team Toronto vs. Team Maine, or Team athletic vs. team fundamental, either way you looked at it, this would be a good one.  Being that these two teams had already faced each other, made it interesting to see what kinds of adjustments would be made.  The one adjustment that just could not be made was that of how Team Toronto was going to stop Garet Beal, despite a focus by Team Toronto to try and slow down Beal, it was just not going to happen, as Garet once again proved why he is one the top prospects in the New England class of 2013. Garet moved well off the ball finding ways to hit seems and create havoc amongst the Toronto defense, weather scoring or finding teammates Harry Rafferty and Levi Barnes for open shots.  Tanner Hyland and Rafferty took turns all game long, fighting off the constant pressure of the quick athletic Toronto guards.  In the end it was the high basketball IQ of team Maine that proved to be too much for Toronto, as Team Maine Captured the 2011 Northeast Exposure Showcase Championship 50-44.  Beal on the way to taking home tournament MVP honors finished the game with another 20pt performance, chipping in with 15 was Rafferty who proved why he is considered one of the premier guards in the New England class of 2012.  Team Toronto got another solid performance from Jovan Leamy and Donnavan Hastings who finished with 13 & 11.