Scooter and Rodney McCray started the championship ways at Mount Vernon H.S. back in the late ’70s, both Rucker performers and mainstays at the Jim Couch Foundation workouts. That winning tradition has extended throughout the years, with coach Bob Cimmino at the helm.

Cimmino, who coached Ben Gordon and keeps tradition intact with a rigorous 24-7-365 basketball schedule, is a dedicated playground coach who has always shouldered a high-order commitment to outdoor tournament ball.

Last week, Cimmino’s squad rose to the challenge and again, captured another Westchester County Section I/Class AA Championship. The main ingredient for success was junior guard Jabari Hinds. Read More »

Edgar Sosa and Kemba Walker, a pair of electrifying NYC playground-bred guards, got their baller’s teeth cut while playing for the Gauchos on the AAU circuit.

Gauchos gym is rich basketball real estate (see Strickland, Rod or Marbury, Stephon for more on the program’s OG’s), a bandbox joint with one-side stands in an Ampitheater-type atmosphere.

Sosa and Walker put in countless hours at this very venue during their primary period of youth hoops prosperity, when both emerged as tough-as-nails guards tailor-made for the physical Big East…

Read More »

Aspects of Mike Poole’s game have changed over the past couple of months.

The senior has been working religiously on developing a dependable mid-range game, erasing his tendency to barrel to the bucket every trip down the floor. Poole has made some progress, some footsteps, though the high-riser is hell-bent on adding rich range and accuracy to his offensive repertoire. Slim refuses to rest until that happens.

Supplementing his forays to the cup and trademark explosiveness with a medium-range game he can extend to beyond the arc has been a commitment of highest order, Poole told BOUNCE on Wednesday.

Read More »

Doron Lamb’s lights-out offensive onslaught was an extraterrestrial one-man shooting clinic like none I’ve ever before witnessed at that level.

All of you who dipped following the St. Patrick’s game during Saturday’s PrimeTime shootout at the Sun Center National Bank Arena in Trenton, N.J., y’all missed one of the greatest high school performances in recent memory.

Lamb’s 49-point barrage occured during the tail end of a scorching Saturday showcase that was essentially a who’s who of some of the nation’s elite high school players. Lamb, the Oak Hill HS combination guard and New York City native, finished three points shy of matching Lebron James’ 2002 Primetime record of 52.

Read More »

Antoine Mason’s game is no laughing matter. It rises with the tier of competition.

Overlooked and underappreciated by the masses, Mason opened eyes like a pair of nude Maxim models Monday night, sparking New Rochelle to their second come-from-beyond win over Section I power Mount Vernon this season.

A 6-foot-2 guard/forward on a vaunted 17-1 New Rochelle team that’s taken the NYC suburbs and greater 914 area by wildfire this season, Mason has embraced the big-game beast within him.

Mason hoops for the Metrohawks on the AAU circuit.

Read More »

After Mount Vernon and New Rochelle renewed hostilities in a sold-out late-January jumpoff, with hordes of fans hawking security guards to let them inside New Rochelle’s jam-packed gym (fans were forced to wait outside in weather more brick than John Starks in Game 7 last Saturday, as every seat in New Ro’s standing room only gym was spoken for 45 minutes before the heavily-billed battle), Section I’s storied rivalry resumes this afternoon at Mount Vernon High School.

It’s Mount Vernon, the historic hoops hotbed of the 914 real estate.

It’s New Rochelle, a football school that’s re-emerged as regal basketball recruiting waters for scouts and coaches to test and approve.

It’s an endless tale of battles. And that’s why it’s intriguing.

Read More »

Jermaine Sanders is only a junior.

Folks tend to forget that…

When Sanders was burying medium-range jays, dialing in from downtown, or cutting into the nooks and crannies of defenses to drop teary left-handed floaters during BASKETBULL’s National Invitational in Springfield, Mass., and New Heights’ Summer In The City, his class of 2011 status was an afterthought.

This oil-smooth young gun plays with swag, savvy, and nerveless poise beyond his years.

Read More »

Kemba Walker will admit it.

The kid they call EZ Pass hasn’t been operating UConn’s offense the way CT folks envisoned the Rucker Regular would the past few weeks, and UConn’s three-headed mauling machine of Walker-Stanley Robinson-Jerome Dyson hadn’t been leading the way they were supposed to during the program’s first three-game slide in three years.

“(Coach Blaney) told us (Walker, Dyson, Robinson) we’re the big three on this team and he wanted us to take the leadership role,” said Walker.

“All three of us haven’t been doing a great job with it, but lately throughout practice, we’ve been talking to the guys and trying to get them to step up.” Read More »