AAU 17U Nationals Championship Game - Team Breakdown vs. King of the Court
August 1st, 2007 Posted in AAU Basketball
Photo: Team Breakdown at AAU Nationals
Photo: King of the Court at AAU Nationals
The slate is set. It’s Team Breakdown versus King of the Court in the championship game of the AAU 17U Junior Boys Basketball National Tournament. Game time is 8:30 p.m. at the Milkhouse in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.’s Wide World of Sports complex. Photo and video highlights from the games leading up to tonight’s championship are here.
A king will be crowned tonight. King of the Court, which has won eight straight games to earn a berth in the finals. And, yet again, it is a Florida versus Ohio game that will decide an amateur national championship - the Florida Gators beat the Ohio Buckeyes in the 2007 NCAA football and basketball championship games.
Just a week ago, Ohio-based King of the Court lost in the semifinals of the Reebok Summer Championships in Las Vegas. Delvon Roe, a rising senior power forward who attends St. Edward High in Lakewood, Ohio, then led the team to a third-place finish with a double-double. Roe scored 27 points and added 15 rebounds.
Snagging rebounds in one of Roe’s specialties. He always seems to be around the rim and uses his vertical leap advantage to pull down caroms before others can reach the ball. A few months ago, Roe was receiving help from Kenny Frease, a 6-10 center. Frease, though, left King of the Court and joined 6-5 guard William Buford with the D-1 Greyhounds, a team that might have faced King of the Court on Tuesday evening had the Greyhounds not been eliminated in a 65-63 loss during Monday’s fourth round.
The 6-7 Roe, who has committed to Michigan State, is supported by a backcourt that features Frankie Dobbs and Anthony Burns.
Combination guard Kenny Boynton plays a lead role for Team Breakdown. Boynton, who was drawing comparisons to the sponsor of the team he’ll play today even before he was in high school, scored a game-high 18 points in the first half of Tuesday evening’s championship game and has regularly scored in double digits during the tournament. In June, the 6-1 guard, who averaged 29 points per game at Blanche Ely High in Pompano Beach, Fla., last winter, announced that he will transfer from Ely High. According to an article that appeared last week on Sports Illustrated’s Web site, Boynton is considering Oak Hill Academy.
Eloy Vargas will have most of the job of shutting down Roe. The two men will be locked in an intense battle. Vargas, a 6-10 rising senior at American Heritage High in Plantation, scored 16 points and added 11 rebounds in the 63-57 semifinal win against the Georgia Stars.
Also in the mix for Team Breakdown is Bo Reliford, a 6-7 rising senior. Reliford, who is also considered one of the country’s best tight end prospects, is a potent scorer who knows how to find the rim.
