Providence Journal NPSI Preview
Coming to URI this week: Top prep basketball teams
01:24 PM EST on Monday, February 2, 2009
By MIKE SZOSTAKJournal Sports Writer
Twenty-eight teams, ranging from tradition-rich prep schools like Northfield Mount Hermon in Massachusetts to new finishing schools like the Impact Basketball Academy in Las Vegas, will take over Keaney Gym at the University of Rhode Island for 31 games starting Thursday.
And as many as five dozen college coaches, always on the prowl for talent, will sit in the stands and take notes during the 11th Annual National Prep School Invitational.
Fanatics who can’t go an hour without logging on to Rivals.com, Scout.com, HoopScoopOnline.com or ESPNU.com will also float in and out between the start of the opening game Thursday at 12:30 p.m. (Impact vs. Lee Academy of Lee, Maine) and the finish of the final game Sunday night at 7 (Rise Academy of Philadelphia vs. Cushing Academy of Ashburnham, Mass.).
“PrepStars.com says it’s the best event of its kind,” said David Maron of Charlestown, the former executive director of the event and now the official scorer. “It’s not like an AAU tournament where there might be three games going on. We give the kids a chance to play one game at a time.”
The 300 or so players who will participate will dribble in the footsteps of the 600 NPSI alumni who went on to Division I college careers and the 20 who eventually made it to the NBA.
Among the stars this year are the Marquette-bound point guard Junior Cadougan of Christian Life Center Academy of Humble, Texas, the top playmaker at the NBA Players Association Top-100 Camp. And the Connecticut recruit Alex Oriakhi, a 6-9, 225-pound power forward from the Tilton School in New Hampshire. And the Kansas signee Thomas Robinson, a 6-8, 218-pound power forward from Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, N.H., who cranks out 200 pushups a day.
This is serious basketball.
“We’ll have 15 to 20 of the Top 100 players in the country,” Maron said. “I can turn on ESPN on a Tuesday night and watch Mississippi and Kentucky and say I have players on Mississippi and players on Kentucky.”
Rhode Island’s prep school contingent will also make an appearace. Erik and Alex Murphy of South Kingtown and St. Mark’s will tip off against Bridgton Academy of Maine Friday at 4:45. Erik is heading to Florida. Worcester Academy teammates Ben Crenca of West Greenwich and Sam Martin of West Warwick will play Massanutten Military Academy of Woodstock, Va., Friday at 6:30 and Marianapolis Prep of Thompson, Conn., Sunday at 4. Crenca is going to Vermont, Martin to Yale. Corey Wright Jr. of Providence is Marianapolis’s point guard and will play Notre Dame Prep of Fitchburg, Mass., Saturday night at 9:30. He is a junior.
Northfield Mount Hermon’s Mike Marra of Smithfield and Matt Brown of Barrington will go against Lawrence Academy of Groton, Mass., Saturday at 4 and South Kent School of South Kent, Conn., Sunday at 12:45. Marra is bound for Louisville; Brown is a junior.
Maron said about 1,000 spectators will show up during the course of a day, and interest among Rhode Island fans increases when Rhode Island players are on the court.
NPSI got started in 1999 when Mike Procopio of Chicago, an AAU coach in Boston at the time who eventually became a scout with the Celtics and is now director of basketball skill development at ATTACK Athletics in Chicago, decided he wanted to showcase prep school players from New England.
Procopio knew Max Good, the former prep school guru at Maine Central Institute and head coach at Eastern Kentucky, UNLV and Bryant and now head coach at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles, and mentioned his idea.
“Max suggested an event, and Mike took off with it,” Maron said.
Maron, vice president of Maron Construction and a self-described mediocre player at North Providence High in the mid-1970s, got involved in 2002 and a year later suggested moving the event to URI. It had bounced around with stops at Bryant and Boston College.
“I like being around basketball,” Maron said. “Then it morphed into what can I do for these kids. Not the top 10 kids. For me, the greatest satisfaction is to see a borderline Division I kid get a scholarship or a low Division I prospect move up to a mid or high major,” he said.
Maron wants Rhode Island youngsters as well as college coaches to see the talent on display at the NPSI so last year he decided to waive the admission fee for kids under 18.
“How much am I making from the gate anyway?” he said. “We sent notices to youth groups and inner-city groups. If they come down here, they will see players they will see on TV in college or in the NBA.”
Participating teams cover their own expenses, Maron said, so he tries to schedule three games for teams coming from a great distance to make the trip worthwhile. Stoneridge Prep of Simi Valley, Calif., and Christian Life Center Academy, for example, will play Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
A few of these teams are unabashed basketball factories. Rise Academy teaches basketball and lets its student attend classes elsewhere in the Philadelphia area. Impact opened last fall with 18 players joining the one-year post-grad program in the hope of attracting a Division I scholarship offer. Stoneridge re-launched its program in 2005-2006 with a 39-game schedule. Christian Life Center Academy has 19 students in Grades 9-12, according to privateschoolreview.com, and 14 players on the boys basketball team, which is 22-1 in a 37-game schedule. The National Elite Development Academy of Canada is a product of Canada Basketball, that nation’s governing body
For the complete four-day schedule, go to nationalprepinvitational.com.
