AAU Hoops Championship Bracket Cut To 32
July 30th, 2007 Posted in AAU BasketballThe sun set Sunday for 45 teams at the AAU 17U Boys Basketball National Championship Tournament, and Monday’s sunrise brings a busy day for the 32 teams still competing for the national crown.
(For full coverage of the tournament, visit LocalReplay.com’s tournament page.)
Today’s third-round games begin at 10 a.m. and conclude at 2:30 p.m. The day’s early games will set the Sweet Sixteen field, and those teams will be whittled down to a final eight in afternoon and evening games.
The Monday sunrise was a welcome site for the D-1 Greyhounds, who survived pool play thanks to tiebreaker rules to earn a No. 2 spot in their pool despite losing on Saturday evening. The D-1 Greyhounds, the defending national champs, plowed past Florida’s Team Breakdown 16U squad Sunday afternoon and then kept their comeback on course with a 69-67 victory about Boo Williams Summer Leagues’s 17U squad, which was considered one of the favorites to win the championship at The Milkhouse in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
Boo’s Ed Davis, a 6-9 rising senior who has already committed to the historic program at the University of North Carolina, scored 18 points and worked with 7-0 center Tyran Walker to keep the Greyhounds honest in the paint. Davis, though, couldn’t stop 6-5 guard William Buford, who sank six three-pointers and two key fourth-quarter runners to lift the Greyhounds, who handily defeated Boo Williams in last year’s tournament championship game, to victory once again. Buford, who finished with a game-high 29 points, almost had it all erased when the rising senior from Toledo Libby High stepped on the end line after chasing down an errant pass with only 21.3 seconds to play in the fourth period.
On the ensuing possession, Davis drew a foul with 14.1 seconds to play and sank two foul shots to cut the Greyhounds’ lead to 68-67. Boo Williams regained possession with 11.9 seconds to play, but Walker missed a buzzer-beating putback attempt that came after a three-point shot from the right corner sailed long over the rim.
