Top Talent at Rose City Showcase
This weekend, June 13-15, some of the nation's top prep talent will be gathered
in Portland, Oregon for inaugural Adidas Rose City Showcase. The tournament
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will feature four of the nation's top AAU teams, as well as four teams from the
state of Oregon.
Also hosted by Courtside Entertainment, 989 Sports, Slam Magazine, Days Inn,
and Inner City Players AAU program, the tournament is the first national
tournament of its kind in the state since the 2000 Nike Global Challenge that
was held in the southwest suburbs of Portland. According to Canaan Chatman,
tournament director and founder of the Inner City Players AAU program, the Rose
City Showcase will have the most prep talent gathered in an event in Portland
since the Nike Town Fab 40 Shootout in 1993, when the likes of Kevin Garnett,
Stephon Marbury, Lorenzen Wright, and many others made the trip to the Great
Northwest.
The national teams that will be competing in this year's event feature several
members of RivalsHoops.com's Top 150 of the Class of 2004. Coming to play will
be the Atlanta Celtics (featuring the powerful frontline of Dwight Howard - #3,
Joshua Smith - #4, and Randolph Morris - #30, as well as Dwayne Day - #147),
the Houston Superstars Three Stripes (Marshall Brown - #53, Delbert Simpson -
#143), the Oakland Slam N' Jam Soldiers (Devon Hardin - #89, Tim Pierce -
#114), and the Seattle Rotary Select (Marvin Williams - #10, Josh Heytvelt -
#106). For more on Rivals.com's Top 150, please click here.
But as talented as the national teams are, the four teams from Oregon are
nothing to sneeze at as they feature virtually all of the top players in the
state. The top players in the Class of 2004 on these teams include Maarty
Leunen - #81 (Portland Elite Legends) and Kevyn Green (Inner City Players I),
while talented underclassmen such as Omar Leary (Portland Elite Legends), Josh
Tarver (ICA Panthers), Lathen Wallace (ICA Panthers), and Vince Thomas (Inner
City Players II) are on the other squads.
All games will be played on the campus of Grant High School, located at 2245
N.E. 36th Avenue in Portland. The schedule on the evening of Friday, June 13,
is as follows:
Winners of Friday's nights games will face off on Saturday, with the
championship determined at 6:15 on Sunday evening.
Tickets for the tournament are $5 daily admission and can be purchased at the
gate. Proceeds for this year's event will benefit the Grant High School boys
basketball team and the ICP Basketball Program.
The tournament will be kicked off on the evening of Thursday, June 12, with the
2nd Annual ICP Achievement Banquet, held to honor ICP’s graduates from last
year, a class that includes Thomas Gardner (Missouri). Quin Snyder, head coach
at Missouri, will serve as the keynote speaker.
Jed Tai is a Senior Writer with Hoopville.com