Top prospects from Boo’s team receive big-time offers
Thomas, Williams looking forward to Peach Jam
Cam Thomas and Mark Williams have flourished this spring. Their recent scholarship offers are proof: Kansas and St. John’s for Thomas, Duke and UCLA for Williams.
Thomas leads Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League in scoring, much like he did Oak Hill Academy during the high school season. Williams anchors the interior for one of the EYBL’s best teams, much like he does at Norfolk Academy.
Moreover, both competed last week at the National Basketball Players Association’s Top100 camp for elite prospects, staged at the University of Virginia.
But ask Thomas and Williams, both rising seniors, about their spring and you’ll hear first about the collective rather than individual. It’s refreshing and defies the stereotype of players turning selfish during spring and summer events.
“I’m definitely proud of what I’ve been doing, but not satisfied, because the main goal is to win Peach Jam,” Thomas said, echoing Williams.
July’s Peach Jam in North Augusta, S.C., is the EYBL’s most prestigious tournament, especially for the 17-and-under age division, in which Thomas and Williams compete for Boo Williams’ Hampton Roads-based squad. Boo’s group failed to qualify for the 2018 Peach Jam, but did so comfortably this year with a 9-4 record in pool play
Mark Williams and Thomas, who transferred to Oak Hill from Chesapeake’s Oscar Smith High, are primary reasons for the turnaround.
A 7-foot, 230-pound center, Mark Williams played on the Adidas circuit last spring and summer, but switched this year to the more challenging EYBL.
“It’s been a great transition,” he said. “The competition is off the charts. Everybody’s good … and I think that’s forced me to get better.”
Like most young big men, Williams is far from a finished product. He needs to get stronger and more aggressive. But his instincts and mobility on both ends are excellent.
Williams is averaging 13.3.points and 7.9 rebounds in EYBL play while shooting 65.2 percent from the field. He averaged 18.3 points, 10.6 boards and four blocks for Norfolk Academy against far less rigorous competition.
“We’re not a basketball power
house by any means,” Bulldogs coach Eric Acra said. “Nor will we ever be. But he’s bought in totally to the culture and loves his (teammates).”
Williams has bought in athletically and academically. His dad, Alex, is a gastroenterologist, his mom, Margaret, used to work as a nurse and the classroom is a priority.
Just consider the two home visits Williams has had with college coaches: Stanford’s Jerod Haase and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski — Williams’ sister, Elizabeth, was a four-time All-American at Duke after a stellar career at Virginia Beach’s Princess Anne High and plays for the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream.
“I definitely take pride in that,” Williams said of his academic chops. “That’s been instilled in me by my parents and coaches since I was young. At this point, I don’t know anything else. … At the next level, you’re going to be challenged in the classroom and on the court, so you just have to prepare yourself the best you can.”
With more than a dozen scholarship offers — the ACC’s Virginia Tech, North Carolina State, Clemson, Virginia and Pittsburgh are among them — Williams plans to narrow his options this summer and select a destination in late fall or early winter.
“Everybody’s going to try and come at me just because of that (Duke offer),” Williams said.
“But that’s a target I have to accept, a target I have to embrace. I think I’ve started to embrace that pretty well, and again, it’s forced me to get better, do more things, put more things in my arsenal.”
The ACC’s Virginia Tech, N.C. State, Pitt and Wake Forest are among the suitors for Thomas, a 6-3 guard whom Boo Williams calls the most gifted pure scorer he’s coached since Allen Iverson in the early 1990s.
Calm down. Boo’s not saying that Thomas will be the No. 1 overall pick of the NBA draft and a Basketball Hall of Fame inductee like Iverson. What he’s saying is Thomas can score at all three levels — from beyond the arc, in the mid-range and at the rim — better than anyone he’s coached since AI.
Thomas’ flair for scoring emerged immediately with Oscar Smith, where as a freshman in 2016-17 he led South Hampton Roads in scoring at 23.7 points per game, earning firstteam honors on The Virginian-Pilot’s All-Tidewater squad. But Thomas sat out his sophomore season at Oscar Smith because, according to his mother, Leslie, the family and coaching staff “weren’t on the same page.”
Thomas worked out daily, maintained his grades and distinguished himself in the 2018 EYBL. That momentum continued at Oak Hill, the renowned prep school in southwestern Virginia, where he teamed with point guard Cole Anthony, a consensus top-five recruit in the Class of 2019 and a North Carolina signee.
Balanced scoring is usually the rule at Oak Hill, where the likes of Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony have played. But Thomas averaged 26.2 points while shooting 50.2 percent from the field, 37.6 percent from beyond the 3-point arc and 82.1 percent from the free-throw line.
“He’s probably in the top five scorers in a given year that we’ve ever had,” said Steve Smith, entering his 35th year as Oak Hill’s coach, “and we’ve had 30 guys play in the NBA and 33 McDonald’s All-Americans. … If I let him, he could score 35 points a game easy. He’d have nights when he’d put up 40 or 50. But we don’t need him to do that.
“He’ll take one or two (shots) he shouldn’t, and he knows it. … But when he’s going, and he’s feeling it, it’s like a heat check, you don’t want him not to shoot. … And he’s a great passer.”
Thomas’ EYBL numbers are equally impressive: 29.5 points per game on 48.3 percent overall shooting, 38.6 percent from deep and 89.2 percent from the line.
It’s one thing to score. It’s another to score with that kind of accuracy and lead a circuit that includes 40 teams and approximately 400 prospects.
Even when Thomas struggles from the field, as all scorers inevitably will, he still has a knack for drawing fouls. And he is money at the foul line.
According to stats posted on the Top100 camp’s website, Thomas missed all 13 of his 3-point attempts in five games, but made 22 of 44 shots inside the arc and all 22 of his free throws.
For example, in the Thursday afternoon Top 100 game I watched, Thomas shot 4 of 14 from the field, 0 of 3 from beyond the arc. But he contributed six assists and didn’t miss any of his eight free throws in just 26 minutes.
Perhaps most important, he didn’t mope about his shooting. He played hard and within the team concept.
Williams was similarly effective in a Thursday contest, scoring 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting and adding 11 rebounds, three steals, two blocked shots and two assists.
Thomas and Mark Williams are hardly the lone elite talents on Boo Williams’ team — top rising juniors Aminu Mohammed and Zion Harmon are also on the roster — but they bring maturity and experience that should serve the squad well at the Peach Jam.
“That,” Williams said of the tournament, “is the best of the best.”