Memphis Roar

Entering its fourth year, the T-Mobile Invitational has become one of the exclusive holiday high school basketball tournaments. Prior to this year, the tournament has featured multiple All-Americans, three national players of the year, and Division 1 student-athletes across the country. This year’s boys team line-up features one of the top big-men in the 2010 class Josh Smith (UCLA commit), a scoring machine in Brandon Peterson (Western Kentucky commit), two elite scoring guards for the 2011 class in Trevor Lacey and Austin Rivers (soft verbal to Florida) and an up-and-coming 2012 jitter-bug point guard in Justin Price.

In the first game, concensus top-five in the country Yates High School out of Houston, Texas matched up against Kentwood High School (Washington). With Josh Smith sitting out (partially torn patellar tendon), Yates used their patented fast-paced, high pressure game plan to force Kentwood into non-stop missteps and mistakes. In the end, Yates defeated Kentwood, 82-62. Yates now sits at 11-0 on the year. Kentwood falls to 2-4.

Senior Joseph Young led all scorers with 20 points while Darius Gardner added 17 and Brandon Peters 13. Jason Boyce led four Kentwood players in double figures with 12.

Yates is the highest scoring team in the country,  but was held to their lowest total on the season. It’s previous low was 87 points against Kamehameha in the opening round of last week’s Iolani Classic.

In the evening’s second game, Butler (10-4) defeated Austin Rivers’ Winter Park (9-4) team in dramatic fashion. Butler’s sophomore point guard Justin Pride hit Trevor Lacey with a pin-point pass on a back-door cut for a lay-up with three seconds remaining to give the Rebels a 60-58 lead and victory over Winter Park.

Facing a box-and-one defense and constant ball denial by Butler’s guards, Austin Rivers struggled on the night, as he scored only one point in the first half and finished the game with 13 points. Robert Lovaglio scored 17 points for Winter Park (9-4) while Adam Jones added 15 points.

For Butler, Trevor Lacey was the star. He showed his elite-level talent on a wide array of moves. Whether it was pull-up jumpers, catch-and-shoot or a tough left-handed runner in the lane for an and-one, Lacey put Butler on his back down the stretch. Lacey finished the game with 19 points to lead all scorers, 12 of which came in the second half. Justin Price, who fed Lacey on the game-winning basket, finished the game with 11 points and three assists.

Scouting Lacey: The 6′3″ Lacey moves constantly without the ball, plays extremely well out of the pick-and-roll, is highly effective passing the ball out of a double team and has an all-around high basketball IQ. In the end, the number one thing to say for Trevor Lacey is that he just knows how to win. He made the plays down the stretch to put another notch in coach Jack Doss’ belt.

Schools for Lacey: Memphis, Alabama, Tennessee, UAB, Auburn, Florida, UCLA, Kentucky

Schools in attendance: Missouri (assistant), Alabama (head coach), Memphis (assistant)

Extras: Last week, former White Station forward Eric Richardson, who is now at Butler High School, listed Memphis on his school list at the City of Palms Classic. While Richardson has good size at 6′9″, he was basically non-existent the entire game. Richardson continually got beat to the spot by smaller guys on rebounds, many times resulting in an offensive rebound and bucket for Winter Park.