Bird leads Soldiers to EYBL title

Raphielle Johnson has the details of the Oakland Soldiers capturing the Peach Jam event as Jabari Bird clutched it at the end.

Adam Zagoria has more.

Oakland Soldiers & Peach Jam

Here's the preview, roster included, of the Oakland Soldiers who are participating in the Peach Jam tourney.

SF Weekly on the Oakland Soldiers

Here's Albert Samah/SF Weekly with an extremely in-depth piece on Nike and the Oakland Soldiers.

There is a lot of fascinating material included, especially on the early days of the Soldiers (a history not known by many including myself) and plenty of information for Samaha to still do a followup piece. Let's hope he does.

Bob Gottlieb on his team's win over the Oakland Soldiers

It's not news anymore but if there is such a thing as a basketball quake, this was it:

From Frank Burlison: "Bob Gottlieb's team in upset of summer, 70-54 over oakland soldiers"

Here is a video of the matchup -- the game begins just after the seven minute mark so fast forward it.

Gottlieb posted this at the So Cal Hoops Mens Message Forum:

It was a heck of a tournament. There were numerous divisions within the Las Vegas Fab 48, but the top division was the Invitational Division. This included 48 of the top teams in the USA, by invitation only.

Branch West Elite opened its Invitation Pool Schedule, with a very difficult and challenging three games. There were no easy games whatsoever.

Our first game was against the Las Vegas Lakers which included 6'9" Roscoe Allen and 6'8" Ben Carter both of Bishop Gorman H.S. Both are being recruited hi major at the Pac 12 level.

Early on we trailed 9-0 before we tightened things up. Using a stunting man to man defense, we fought our way back in the game, led at the half, and then coasted to a 25 pt win.

Second game we trailed an excellent Team Jones from Seattle, and we trailed 19-4 before we settled in to come back and win going away, by close to 30 pts. Again, a stunting, pressing, trapping defense got us back into the game.

In our 3rd game of pool play, against a talented and vey coached Wisconsin Swing team, we again fell behind 18-4 before we woke up and fought our way back to lead at the half by three points. Again the stunting defense came through for us. However, we seemed to tire in the second half and had a hard time scoring and lost by 16 pts.

The next day, the first day of "Bracket Court Play" we found ourselves playing the #1 seeded Drew Gooden Oakland Soldiers. They had won the Fab 48 a year ago, and were the #1 ranked team in California this year and #3 in the USA.

With an overflow of college coaches in attendance, it was a superb game overall with not more than 3 or 4 points separating the teams throughout.

With Oakland having athletes up front that are likely to be NBA Lottery candidates after one year in college, we went to a softer, help oriented defense. We fronted the posts. If the ball went in, we double them down low.

We played soft on the perimeter, took away the baseline, and kept our offside and help defense in tight to eliminate the driving seams.

In essence we wanted to force them to beat us from outside.
They are a great team. But every great team can be beat on a given night. Their perimeter players were equally athletic and impressive, but not consistent outside shooters. Furthermore, we emphasized, blocking out and bring our guards back to rebound.

We also emphasized all three of our perimeter players being back as soon as we shot the ball, to take away their fast break.

With 6 minutes left we had a five pt lead and got fouled and one of their players expressed his displeasure at the call, and was slapped with a technical foul.

We made 3/4 free throws and got the ball, and that seemed to change things dramatically. We began to spread the court which forced them to foul and we normally have a very god free throw shooting team and we hit every free throw down the stretch.

Once they were playing catch up, they began to shoot long jumpers, which only sealed their fate, and was responsible for the large margin 70-54 at the end.

They are a superb team, loaded with big time hi majors, but on that day, in that game, we did manage to beat them. It was our second signature win. Beating Belmont Shores badly last week in Dinos' Cream of the Crop was equally satisfying. Had them by 18 in the middle of the second half.

Whereas the win over the Oakland Soldiers has to be one of our sweetest AAU wins, it still is a distant second to when Branch West beat UCLA in a college exhibition game 92-67 (Steve Lavin) played at Pauley Pavilion, in 2003

Our top six players are all being recruited at the NCAA D1 level, several of them will likely have over 50 offers each.

After beating the Soldiers, we beat a very good Play Hard Play Smart team from Sacramento by over 20. The game was over at 11:30 pm .

It made it very difficult to play your best the next morning at 11:30 am. Not only that, we had to play the Wisconsin Swing, who had already beaten us by 16 points in pool play.

We teach our kids that if you play great team defense that you always have a chance to win. We did play tremendous defense and held Wisconsin Swing to just 45 pts. However, where normally, we are a tremendous perimeter shooting team, we could not buy an outside jumper, the whole game, but still had a very good shot to win.

Ended up Wisconsin Swing 45 Branch West Elite 44 in OT.

It was a terrific weekend and I could not be prouder of a great group of kids.

BABC versus Oakland Soldiers @ Peach Jam

Jeff Borzello just tweeted this:

"BABC just steamrolling teams right now...up 52-28 on Oakland Soldiers. Noel has to have like, eight blocks or so"

Is it going to be comeback time?

Here's Paul Biancardi on both teams:

BABC

The BABC team from Boston is one of the toughest and best defensive teams in the EYBL. It has lost only one game during the regular season and one game in pool play during the Peach Jam. BABC is lead offensively by 5-foot-10 2013 PG Jaylen Brantley (Springfield, Mass./Wilbraham & Monson) and 6-7 2012 PF Georges Niang (Methuen, Mass./The Tilton School), who is committed to Iowa State. SF Jake Layman (Wrentham, Mass./King Philip Regional) is also a good outside shooter and zone-buster.

Defensively, the backbone of the team is 6-10 2013 C/PF Nerlens Noel (Everett, Mass./The Tilton School), who is one of the best shot-blockers in the country. SG Dominique Bull (Worcester, Mass./The Tilton School), 2013 SG/PG defensive whiz Rene Castro (Milton, Mass./Beaver Country Day) and 2014 stud SG/SF Wayne Selden (Boston/The Tilton School) are slashers offensively and solid perimeter defenders.

BABC is a tough team to beat as it forces its opponent to the basket and into the waiting arms of Noel. Offensively, everyone works the ball for the best shot, generally going inside to Niang or outside to Brantley.

and

Oakland Soldiers

The Oakland Soldiers are perhaps the deepest and most talented team remaining in the tournament, led by PF Brandon Ashley (Dublin, Calif./Bishop O'Dowd), PG Dominic Artis (Vallejo, Calif./Salesian), 2013 SG Jabari Bird (Richmond, Calif./Salesian) and 2013 Aaron Gordon (San Jose, Calif./Mitty). Ashley and Artis make it happen when the game is on the line. Ashley is a skilled power forward with a great face-up game who loves the ball in crucial situations and can hurt his opponent inside or out. He is also a good shot-blocker and rebounder. Artis, who can knock it down from the perimeter, runs the team and is the go-to guy with the clock winding down. The Soldiers can come at their opponent in waves, going on some great scoring runs. Also, look for Bird to make things happen in transition and on the offensive glass, while drawing the toughest perimeter defensive assignment.

UPDATE: BABC defeated the Soldiers 78-66

The Soldiers just took down Boo Williams

The Soldiers just handled -- 87-78 -- another very talented team in taking down Boo Williams at the Peach Jam event.

Here's the box -- check out the lines for Dominic Artis (zero TOs) and Brandon Ashley.

Eric Hampford on the Oakland Soldiers

Eric Hampford writes about the Oakland Soldiers and attaches it to the video work of the Bay Area's Travis Farris.

Nick Johnson joins the press

Nick Johnson grabs a mic and dons the role of a media member in interviewing various members of the Oakland Soldiers, his former team. 

The Soldiers are down In southern California

At the PointGuardU site, two of the writers -- Ace Thakore and AK Murthy -- offer an update on the EYBL event in southern California and it's loaded with Soldiers information. They make it sound like Point GuardU (Arizona) will soon be re-named SoldiersU.

Plus, Josh Gershon has a number of tweets about the Soldiers, here and here and here and here.

DA lands third offer

Salesian High and Oakland Soldier point Dominic Artis has received his third basketball scholarship offer. The 2012 backcourter received his initial invite from Nevada a few weeks ago, then Washington State, and now Cal's Mike Montgomery just extended. That's one from the Mountain West and a pair from the PAC-12 conferences.

Congrats to the Bay Shore Athletic League most valuable player.

Any guessing on who else joins the beginning-to-be-a-crowd in pursuit once DA is out and about this summer?