Team Flight Wins the IS8 NIke Spring Championship

The IS8 is one of those legendary tournaments held in a small gym in

Queens, and it is a good place to scout future college and pro stars.

This year the final game for the
Spring Classic took place late Saturday afternoon and the matchup was Team Flight verses  the Rens Juniors and it was a great game for scouting purposes.

Team Flight took flight early and controlled the action for about a 12 point lead with slick guard play and one basket after another from Jordan Washingto who continually set up in the low blocks and was able to catch the interior pass and go up for a quick layup or short jumper from every angle imaginable.

There wasn't a double post presence offensively as Team
Flight set up for just Jordan Washington in the blocks and otherwise leaving space for guards such as Maurice Watson to take it to the hoop from up top and release quick floaters in the lane.

On offense in this particular game, Chris Obekpa was more so one of the players making the interior pass to Washington rather than looking for the power jam himself

On the breaks, Obekpa would stay back on D with his focal point in this championship game was defending the paint and being a presence on defense and this being his second game of the afternoon he might have been conserving some energy..

He had 15 points in the semi finals earlier in the afternoon against could comp.

Early on, Felix Balamou finished on the break with high flying jams in which he glided in the air and hit a silky smooth deep corner jump as well.

Jameik Riviere was fairly dominate early as well for Team Flight at the guard position.

The Rens featured power guard
Terrence Samuel who certainly looks to ramp it up both offensively and defensively.

Felix, didn't play much of the second half apparently do to foul trouble with 5 fouls being the limit.

He looks like a good fast break open court scorer who likes the press the issue of scoring.

He finished the game with 12 points in limited playing time.

In the second half, the Rens Juniors stared to rally and the game became nip and tuck.

Playing on the Rens Juniors was senior forward Thaddeaus Hall who likes to drive all the way to the hoop for either a layup or jam and doen s't stop for anybody in doing this.

Obekpa backed off on two of his drives to avoid the foul

Hall is comfortable shooting the ball lefty upwards of 30 feet and even in warm-ups he was swishing one shot after another from that distance.

He ended up with 24 points and his combination of skills in quite interesting in that he is still a drive first player who can really shoot it from deep no problem

The most mesmerizing presence on the Rens Juniors Wayne Martin who had some incredible acrobatic moves to the basket and at 6'8 his gtame speaks of high potential.

Kenton Facey was a key player for the Rens Juniors, who is listed at 6'9 on Max Preps actually looked about 6'10 and moved quit well and was active on the glass.

He has a little trouble at the foul line and ending up with ten points but he is certainly bouncy and quick and he did hit a nice baseline jumper with good form and took it too the rack.

He is a junior forward from New York and may still be growing

In the second half, I was standing underneath the basket and focused on the defensive play of Obeppa given that he is touted as the top shot blocker in the prep ranks along with Nerlens Noel nationally.

Obekpa was listed as having 6 blocks on the game, in the second half where I was focusing on his defense,. I saw him black 9 shots which included back to back blocks twice, three blocks in another sequence and another two blocks.

Obekpa is super adept at blocking shots without fouling and his is cat quick in doing this, so it is mostly timing and super quick reactions.

It was also impressive how quick he can run the full court, super speedy, so either way a block is coming.Nike

Maybe whoever was officially keeping the shot blocking totals doesn't count double and triple blocks but they should be counted.  I didn't watch for his shot blocking totals in the first half as it was the far end of the court then.

It looked like it would be either way for the win in the closing minute of so of regulation, but Team Flight got it going early in the overtime and it was too late for a last minute comeback for the Rens.

Jordan Washington was MVP of the game with 32 points, mostly on a variety of short distance shots in the blocks and he was facing good defenders while doing this.

He wasn't sneaking up on the defenders and he was sometimes being double teamed yet still was able to convert numerous times.