2014 Live Period Next Week – Will Oakland Soldiers Hold Court?

We are now a week from the first “NCAA Live Period” of 2014!  This probably would of been an upcoming live period but Easter threw things for a loop, so college coaches really are going to have to watch as much basketball as possible, get the right information and have their assistants spread out across the Country.

– Nike’s EYBL starts off in Sacramento.

– Adidas Uprising kicks off in Dallas.

– Under Armour will kick off in Kansas for the Jayhawk Invitational & Hoop Group Pitt Jam Fest 2014

Those are the “Big 3” shoe company circuits, however there are still LOADED other events that you can browse through at indihoops.wpengine.com/tournaments

Our #1 team in the preseason is Oakland Soldiers (You can see their whole roster by clicking on the link) with two top 5 2015 players in the country in their front court and arguably the #1 2015 player in Ivan Rabb.

However, guard play is paramount and the Soldiers started out with Derryck Thornton (#24 2016) the starting PG for Findlay Prep who ended 11th in the Country in our HS poll.  However, sources have confirmed that he will not be on the team anymore leaving a hole at the PG position.

Max Hazzard is a great guard but more of a combo who in High School played alongside Parker Jackson-Cartwright, obviously does not have much gametime experience at that position.  Something of note, is that he is a great capable guard and did have to take the responsibilities when PJC was ruled ineligible before CIF California State Playoffs.  Oakland Soldiers will most likely fill that PG spot at the next stop and have Mater Dei’s Rex Pflueger as a new addition to the squad.

Rex will most likely be working on his PG skills as Stanley Johnson assumed most of those responsibilites during HS at Mater Dei.  However, it appears with the size that they have a solid High-Low gameplan and an inside/out attack could get them far.

– Last season Mac Irvin Fire had 2 Top 5 players in their front court and did finish the best in the Nation.  It will be interesting to see this front court dynamic as they are more new school bigs with perimeter skills, with Mac Irvin Fire’s tandem more back to the basket smashmouth bigs with Cliff Alexander and Jahlil Okafor.  As a side note, Jahlil was injured for a chunk of last year’s AAU season.

Why don’t you check them out for yourself with this latest Ballislife video.

With the defection of Thornton and EYBL we will learn a LOT next weekend.  Will be interesting to see how the Arkansas Wings and E1T1 fare.  E1T1 is the reigning EYBL Peach Jam champs that picked up Ben Simmons, who is another in contention for #1 2015 player.

They had the Indihoops AAU #2 Recruiting Class in the Nation.  A quick reload and they are at the #3 spot.

– Oakland Soldiers 16u and 15u are Top 5 in the country as well in our rankings.
Here is who the ESPN Top 5 2015 are currently playing for and where they should be:

Nike: Sacramento
Adidas: Dallas
UA: Kansas City or Pittsburgh

1. Ivan Rabb – Oakland Soldiers (Nike)
2. Malik Newman – Jackson Tigers (Nike)
3. Ben Simmons (LSU) – E1T1 (Nike)
4. Stephen Zimmerman – Oakland Soldiers (Nike)
5. Diamond Stone – Young Legends (Under Armour)

Remember all scores, updates tweet out to #indiupdate  good luck everyone!