Peach Jam: Green's day

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. – To put it mildly, five-star point guard Quade Green had himself a day on Saturday at the Nike Peach Jam. Thanks in large part to his efforts, the PSA Cardinals advanced to the finals where they will meet MoKan Elite. Read for more on Green and some of the other standouts from our last day at the Peach Jam.

What was a heck of a spring has turned into a heck of a summer for five-star point guard Quade Green.

On Saturday, he carried the PSA Cardinals on his back and into the finals of the nation’s toughest tournament, the Nike Peach Jam.

Travel plans kept us from watching Green help lead PSA back from an 18-point halftime deficit to Team Penny in the semifinals with 21 points and six assists. However, we were there for his masterful 17-point, 10-assist and four-rebound effort to help score a 53-45 win over Expressions Elite in the quarterfinals.

In a game that was low on scoring and high on intensity, Green never even blinked. Ranked No. 25 overall in the class of 2017, he carried his team offensively for stretches and he got the ball to his teammates in crunch time for easy scoring opportunities.

Green is not the biggest (he's about six-feet tall), but he is a huge leader and continues to take his game to new levels each time out.

Green gave high marks for recent visits to Kentucky and Duke while others like Syracuse, Arizona, Kansas, Michigan State, Louisville, Maryland and others have offered. Green won’t name leaders and said that he’ll likely look to cut down his list after the summer, but the growing feel is that Kentucky and Duke will end up the primary combatants for his services.

Mohamed Bamba doesn’t appear to be showing any rust from the foot injury that sidelined him in May and June. The near seven-footer with impossibly long arms made some key defensive plays for the PSA Cardinals and showed off a nice looking sweeping hook as a new part of his offensive arsenal.

The loss of Jermaine Samuels to injury may have ultimately been what doomed Expressions Elite. Sure, point guard Tremont Waters (No. 39), center Nick Richards (No. 21) and fellow wing Kimani Lawrence (No. 46) are ranked slightly higher in 2017, but at No. 49 he’s certainly no slouch. What Samuels also looks like to us after watching him all spring and now in July is the heart and soul of Expressions. He exudes toughness, does what is asked of him and his team seemed deflated after a bad landing resulted in an injured ankle. Indiana, Tennessee, Xavier, Pittsburgh, Villanova, Marquette, Providence, Boston College, Connecticut and many others have offered Samuels.

This year, Nike is running an eight-team 15U tournament and the semifinalists got to play in the main gym on Saturday. The action was high level and in particular the game between Nike Team Florida and the Playaz Basketball Club stood out because of the abundance of talent on the floor.

In the end, NTF’s Vernon Carey calmly made two free throws with just under two seconds left to secure a one-point victory. Big and skilled at 6-foot-9, Carey continues to look like a lock to start off as a five-star and perhaps a top-10 prospect when we rank the class of 2019 for the first time in August. He isn’t the only big man on NTF that could begin as a five-star prospect. High school teammate Balsa Koprivica is a seven-footer with tremendous skill himself, and he and Carey are both quite mobile, can shoot with range and will pound the glass. Louisville, Florida, Miami and Baylor are all among the duo’s early offers. Also impressing was two-sport standout Blake Hinson. To put it mildly, Henson isn’t out there to pass the ball, and he’s going to let it fly when he can. But his 6-foot-6 size, wide body, skill and creativity make him a really intriguing prospect. Miami, Florida State, Rutgers, Boston College, Virginia Tech and others have offered for hoops while Miami, Florida, North Carolina and Michigan have offered him in football.

The Playaz Basketball Club had it’s own standouts as well. Wing Paul Mulcahy is a well-developed and skilled all-around player. He’s got good size at 6-foot-4, he can shoot and he is a playmaker off the dribble with some athleticism. At the point guard position, Al-Amir Dawes is a fiery, creative and tough shot making specialist who can stretch defenses from deep. Athletic wing Cartier Bowman showed no fear going against the frontline of NTF and he’s a slasher and energy guy. Rutgers has offered Mulcahy and the likes of St. John’s and Seton Hall have reached out while Virginia head coach Tony Bennett watched him on Saturday. Rutgers has also offered Dawes.

In the other 15U semi, a deep Team United squad rode the athleticism of Juwan Gary to a big win over the Georgia Stars. Gary can get a bucket at the rim, plays with toughness and like we thought he could be when we first saw him back in November of 2015 - a potential top-25 kind of prospect. Also continuing to make a strong play for the initial 2019 rankings is the Stars' Christian Brown. The 6-foot-6 small forward plays the game with incredible energy and is a big-time athlete who changes things in transition. He had one of the best dunks of the summer when he weaved in and out of traffic on a full court drive that ended in a posterization of a few Team United defenders. Many others are sure to join Clemson and Western Kentucky in offering Gary while Brown already has scholarships from Tennessee, Georgia, Wake Forest, Auburn, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma State, Florida State and Clemson.