W’s for Stewart, Simons
Sean Stewart, Windermere High’s 5-star basketball standout, is a world champion.
The 6-foot-8 Duke commit had a double-double with 10 points, 10 rebounds and 2 blocks as the USA Basketball 17U team rallied from 8 points down to win the FIBA 17U World Cup with a 79-67 championship game victory vs. tournament host Spain.
“It was like 7,000 people in there, all Spain fans,” Stewart said to the Orlando Sentinel on Wednesday. “Everything they did, the whole crowd went insane. We couldn’t even hear ourselves speak. It was really fun to play in that atmosphere.”
Team USA went 7-0 with Stewart as a starter to remain unbeaten (44-0) in six 17-and-under World Cup tournaments since 2010.
“A lot of the other teams had trained for a long time,” Stewart said. “[USA Basketball] put our team together in a few weeks. We played really well together and won the whole thing. That was really cool.”
Cooper Flagg, a do-it-all 15-year-old who will play for Montverde Academy as a sophomore, had a monster game in the final. Also a 6-8 forward, he had 10 points, 8 steals, 4 blocks and set a single-game U.S. 17U record with 17 rebounds.
Flagg was Maine’s high school player of the year as a ninth-grader.
Back on the floor
Stewart spent six days training with Team USA in Colorado Springs before a 17-day stay in Spain. He arrived home on Tuesday night but not for long.
He’s on the Orlando-based Florida Rebels 17U travel team that will compete Friday in the prestigious Peach Jam in North Augusta, S.C. The championship event for Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League summer circuit starts Sunday and continues through July 24.
“I never get tired of basketball,” Stewart said. “As long as I can get one day off.”
Oak Ridge High coach Steve Reece, previously director of the Each 1 Teach 1 travel franchise, upgraded his own Florida Rebels youth program to the EYBL this year and qualified all three teams for the Peach Jam. Quite a feat.
Other area rising seniors on the Rebels roster 17U are Olympia’s E.J. “Jizzle” James and Leesburg’s Camerin James.
The 16U squad has Oak Ridge teammates Elijah Elliott and Tyler Johnson; the Lake Highland Prep tandem of Kellan Lewis and Julian Clarke; and Sanford Seminole’s Quin’Darius Rumph.
Jalen Reece, who excelled as a freshman point guard for his dad at Oak Ridge, leads the 15U team alongside high school teammate Amari Davis.
Tipping off at TFA
SourceHoops.com is holding a Summer Showcase travel team event on Saturday and Sunday at The First Academy in Orlando. Admission is $15 daily, $25 for a weekend pass.
The field includes several Orlando-based clubs, including Southeast Elite, Showtime Ballers, GameSpeed Elite and Florida Sharks.
Two former NBA players, Chucky Atkins (Evans High) and Marreese Speights (UF), are scheduled to pit teams they run against each other on Sunday. Atkins’ Loyalty United 17U team faces Team Speights at 1 p.m.
Southeast Elite has a prospect on the rise, Mikel Brown, a 5-11 sophomore point guard playing up against rising seniors at the 17U level. He was sidelined by a broken hand for most of his freshman season at Orlando Christian Prep but has since blown up and attracted offers from Florida, Auburn, Baylor, Indiana, Maryland, Seton Hall and Texas A&M according to reports.
Brown recently revealed that he is leaving 10-time state champ OCP to play for independent powerhouse Sunrise Christian of Kansas, which finished No. 2 nationally behind Montverde last season.
OCP’s big man, Jayden Hastings (6-10, Sr.) also plays for Southeast Elite.
Showtime has a number of West Oaks Academy’s D1 prospects.
Play is scheduled 9 a.m. through about 8:30 p.m. Saturday and 8:30 through about 5:30 on Sunday. The game schedule is posted on the @SourceHoops.com Twitter account.
Simons banks nine figures
Former Edgewater standout Anfernee Simons signed a 4-year, $100 million extension to stay with the Portland Trail Blazers. That number confirms that Portland believes Simons, 23, is on the way to being an All-Star.
Simons, who won the NBA All-Star Dunk Contest in 2021, bloomed in his fourth season as a pro with averages of 17.3 points and 3.9 assists in 57 games. The real eye-opener was a two-month stretch through March 5 in which he averaged 23.4 points, 5.8 assists and 2.7 rebounds while making 42% of his 3-pointers.
Portland traded nine-year fixture CJ McCollum, opening the door for Simons to be a go-to guard alongside All-Star Damian Lillard.
Simons, who did not play college basketball, averaged $2.5 million per year on his rookie scale contract that began in 2018 as the No. 24 overall pick.
There had been speculation that Simons could be traded in a Blazers rebuild. But after the contract was finalized, the team posted on its official Twitter account: “Ant is with us for the long haul. All your hard work has paid off, young fella.”