Grant High School played host to one of the finest Boy AAU basketball tournaments of the season as teams as far away as Georgia showed up to participate in the Rose City Showcase, a fundraiser hosted by Courtside Entertainment. Even though none of the three Oregon teams will battle for the title in the U17 "Big Dogs" title game on Sunday, it was apparant that the talent pipeline is still 'rosy' for the host state.

The tournament had the funky and vibrant feel of an innercity happening with a DJ spinning snippets of tunes between time outs and breaks. Rules are a bit different than high school league play and even the philosophy is a bit 'offensive' as players work to hone their game for college. Those that graduated this year were allowed in and players were given the NBA standard of six fouls. In this years mix were Team Reebok USA and the Worldwide Renegades, two teams laden with stellar talent that looked more like NCAA Final Four teams than a collection of high school talent. The Renegades out of Georgia have a kid named Shawn Kemp Jr. The rosters of both team are kids courted by the likes of UConn, Indiana, Texas, UCLA and Georgetown.

Caught two games on Saturday night and in both cases, teams from Seattle ambushed the Oregon teams. It just seems that regardless of the sport, the northern state has gotten the best of Oregon lately and it ended with the same results on this night. The first game I caught was the Northwest Panthers against the I-5 Ime Udoka team which came down to the wire. Even Udoka was in attendance to watch his Portland team, who had led most the night, snatch the loss from the jaws of victory when, with the ball and 12 seconds left, they called a timeout and pulled a Michigan Fab Five and Chris Weber. The local favorites were called for the technical and the Panthers iced the victory from the foul ine and escaped with a 77-74 win.

It should be noted that the Panthers had one of the better backcourts in the tourney if not the nation for this summer run. The Seattle area seems to be the "cradle of guards' lately and Abdul Gaddy and Avery Bradley were fun to watch as they vivisected the I-5 team throughout the night. Gaddy has signed to play with Arizona. Still, the talent on the Oregon team was impressive and when you think one of their better players was a SEVENTH GRADER, it makes the future look even brighter for Oregon down the road. Nigel Williams-Goss just finished the season at Sunrise Middle School in Clackamas and will enter Eight Grade next season yet he was cool, calm and collected and made nice plays when in. He has good court vision and a sweet shot already in his arsenal and a 6'0 he should add a few more inches before high school. However, the 'big dog' on this I-5 team is clearly Mike Moser who kept his team clicking when they needed it most. He will be a big time D1 talent and at 6'8 has a solid game inside and out. A couple of other kids also jumped out at me. Larry Richards was a scrappy little point guard with good quicks and dribbling ability and Wilson's Daryl Finley looked like a moose around the rim. On this day though, the second best player to me on the I-5 team was Terrell Mack, a high flying wing from Ft. Vancouver who made several sensational plays.

In the first semi-final of the evening, Seattle's "Friends of Hoop (FOH), who had punked the Renegades the previous night, took on Team Freddy Jones who was playing without their major Jones as Jefferson's 6'8 point guard Terrence Jones was off to attend the Nike Invitational. Still this was an exciting game with familiar names and great basketball. Team Jones sported a nice collection of athletes, shooters, leaders and great bloodlines and FOH mirrored them in every respect. Oregons roster had Michael Leunen and EJ Singler and Washingtons roster had Alex Schrempf. Yes, you can connect the dots on these players. I know you can.

This was a game of runs. FOH would take the lead and Team Jones would roll back to take a nice lead before losing it. The two teams played good defense and communicated well with each other. In the first half, South Medford's EJ Singler hit some tough shots in traffic while Century's Cameron McCaffrey hit some deep tre's to get them to a 36-35 lead at the half. The second half, it was the Terrence Ross show for Team Jones. With two minutes left, Team Jones was nursing a 70-68 lead but FOH would make the smart plays down the stretch and Team Jones would get whistled for a couple of costly turnovers and fall 76-70.

One player who has intrigued me since two years ago when I watched him quarterback the Jeff team, was Kalonji Paschchal who was easily the quickest kid I saw play in the tournament. He is just a tremendous athlete who in my opinion should be leading a spread offense somewhere as he may be better at football.  Still, he has great leadership skills and made some passes for his teammates getting their highlight dunks in that not even Jamarcus Russell could make. However, if one playerer deserved MVP status on this night, it was Bellevue's 6'7 Matt Olson who just shot the eyes out of the basket from deep or would come into the lane for a sweet little leaner. Ross and he battled with deep arcing shots but Olson would prevail. During one stretch of the second half, he drained three in a row. He was 'en fuego' baby!'

The nightcap semi was Team Reebok against Seattle Rotary and while those Rotarians were gamers, they just couldn't hang with the talent of the Reebok collection who should be favored tonight again but beware. FOH is good and if Lady Luck is dancing with them, they could sneak out of Portland with the title.