How national HS teams in Ariz. changed the game
Some of the top high school basketball players in Arizona are transferring. But not to other Arizona Interscholastic Association schools.
They’re transferring to national high school teams in the Valley.
Peoria senior Kevin Kogbara was the most recent to announce he will play at Glendale Dream City Christian. That’s a week or so after senior point guard Justus Jackson announced he was going to Gilbert Eduprize Prep, which also landed 6foot-10 forward Duke Brennan, who in March withdrew from Gilbert Perry, while the COVID-19 pandemic was settling in as a monster nobody knew would still be dominating how sports are played.
Eduprize also got guard Devontes Cobbs, who left Phoenix Shadow Mountain after one year to play for Hillcrest Prep in Gilbert.
There have been players shuffled throughout the prep scene even before the pandemic reared its head and canceled spring sports and is causing the AIA to tread lightly as it enters the fall seasons.
What has happened to the neighborhood basketball game?
The national teams have come into the Valley and basically taken over the landscape without much of a fuss from the AIA coaches, who don’t want to show sour grapes over losing players to teams that attempt to showcase them on a national platform with travel teams and Grind Sessions.
What once was basically just Hillcrest
Prep as the big national high school team in Maricopa County a few years ago, there are now PHHoenix Prep, Scottsdale Bella Vista, Dream City, Chandler AZ Compass Prep, Eduprize.
Those are the big five with PHH Prep, run by John Ortega, mainly picking up AIA players who stay at their schools for academics but play for PHH Prep, which now has five teams -- two post-grad teams, a national grind session team, and two Canyon Athletic Association Open Division teams.
Earlier this month, Phoenix Pinnacle, which won back-to-back AIA titles behind Nico Mannion in ’17 and ‘18, lost its best player, Royce Ramos, to PHH Prep.
Ortega said that 28 players left their AIA teams this year to join his program. He still has eight holdovers from his first team last season who left AIA teams the previous year.
The Fire is coached by former AIA coaches Kirk Fauske (Phoenix Mountain Pointe) and James Capriotti (Mesa Skyline).
“National teams have definitely changed the game,” Ortega said. “Especially in Arizona, because the game was so far behind.
“The AIA rules have held players and programs back for years. We aren’t the first program to take AIA players but we are the first program to do it on a large scale.”
AZ Compass Prep is building its national team around former AIA players, led by senior guard TyTy Washington, who lasted one tournament last season at Laveen Cesar Chavez.
After Washington left, his Chavez backcourtmate Ricardo Sarmiento soon left to join PHH Prep.
It’s hard to find an AIA coach who will talk on the record about what is going on, how they’re losing their top players for what they believe are greener pastures. They don’t want to sound like sour grapes. So they pour compliments on the departing players, wish them well, while looking for the next guy to lead them.
When the CAA decided to put in a shot clock this summer starting next season for the boys Open Division, that became another selling point for places like PHH, AZ Compass and Eduprize to attract local players.
The AIA follows the National Federation of High Schools rules, which doesn’t endorse the shot clock.
Ortega has always been a proponent of the shot clock helping kids get ready for college. He also boasts one of the best strength coaches, Chuck Howard, whose son Markus just completed a record-scoring career at Marquette.
Ortega believes his players are bigger, stronger and more prepared for the college game once they leave PHH.
But there is a price.
At PHH Prep, Ortega said, it costs $2,800 to play, but he noted that players in need of financial aid are helped by “finding them angel donors or allowing them to earn working at PHHacility during events.”
“The $2,800 is about half of what the season truly cost but we also fund-raise and we help find sponsors that want to help,” Ortega said.
The pandemic didn’t help the AIA in keeping players, because there still is uncertainty on what the 2020-21 basketball season is going to look like in Arizona. The
AIA relies on its Sports Medicine Advisory Committee and the state and health and education departments for guidance on how to conduct sports during a pandemic with school districts’ governing boards basically having the last word on whether schools can play sports or not through this.
The national teams, for the most part, don’t have school districts’ governing boards to guide them. The CAA, however, has stricter rules than a national team, more closer to the AIA.
If the CAA allows for basketball, there will likely be a lot of AIA coaches irate they’re not able to play, especially if the positive infection rates keep going down and they’re following strict protocols to try to make a season happen.
“We only have a second team at the CAA level because of the pandemic,” Ortega said. “We’re providing somewhere to play and improve. I think there was a lot of interest and people wanting to make the jump and the pandemic pushed them over the edge.”
Since the AIA refuses to let these national programs in, even as part-members, places like Hillcrest, Dream City, Bella Vista, AZ Compass and Eduprize are going to welcome elite Arizona talent in with open arms.
But how many five- or four-star players can you have on a team and keep them all happy with enough playing time?
Staying on their AIA teams, where they would be the stars, would give them the minutes and give them the film that should recruit itself to college basketball coaches. And the coaching in the AIA is as good as it has ever been.