ROSEVILLE, Calif. – Very few major basketball tournaments end up running with no glitches or bumps in the road, and while Boys California Live 2024 contested at the Roebbelen Center June 28-30 had a few, by and large the management team assembled by Bay Area Basketball Coaches Association (BABCA) President and University-San Francisco head coach Randal Bessolo pulled it off and produced a gem.
“BABCA would especially like to thank our BoysCaliLive24 management team,” Bessolo wrote on X/Twitter. “We feel we assembled a Dream Team.”
There was much kudos on social media for the event. Here is a sampling.
“Great work and much appreciated,” wrote Franklin-Elk Grove head coach Ken Manfredi. “Few people know how much work goes into organizing and running such a large event and your group did a great job! Thank you!”
“Headed back to San Diego but wanted to extend my congratulations to the Boys Cali Live 24 team for an excellent weekend,” wrote NCAA certified scout Aaron Burgin. “Appreciated the hospitality, the climate-controlled venue, and the great games.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed covering your event and the site was fabulous,” remarked veteran high school photo journalist Todd Shurtleff, the head of the photography department at ScoreBookLive.com
Just like the Girls California Live 2023 the Boys Cali Live 24 event was awarded to BABCA by the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) in conjunction with the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
Boys Cali Live was not just some run of the mill boy’s basketball tournament. At 168 teams it is believed to be the largest boys’ high basketball tournament in California history and one of the largest ever nationally.
The 168 teams competed in front of 167 college coaches, numerous NCAA certified scouts, plus several dozen members of the media from throughout the state.
The event was contested at the state-of-the-art, 12-court Roebbelen Center, and featured six of the top 10 teams in the Cal-Hi Sports Final Expanded Rankings and some of the top teams from Arizona and Nevada as well.
“College coaches are here to find the future generation of players who will be playing and starring in March Madness,” said Bessolo in an interview aired on Sacramento’s CBS television affiliate. “We expect a couple of these guys will ultimately play in the NBA.”
“Really, this event is set up to attract the best high school teams in the Western United States, primarily California,” Bessolo said in an interview with Sacramento ABC television affiliate sports anchor Kevin John. “When you build it they will come, and the college coaches are coming. We have 167 college coaches here from Stanford, Cal, Kansas, etc, and they’re here to see the players
The biggest winners were Cal-Hi Sports No. 4 Salesian-Richmond and No. 9 Archbishop Riordan-San Francisco. Each went 4-0 and won one of the top two pools in the tournament. All in all the Bay Area teams, and not just Salesian and Riordan, did very well.
The top match-up came in the championship game of pools 3-4 with Salesian facing No. 5 Mater Dei-Santa Ana. The game was close throughout the first 16-minute half and was still tied at 34-34 early in the second half, however it was at that point Salesian went on a 9-2 run to take control and never led by less than five points in a 73-64 victory.
The big star of the title game was incoming Salesian senior Alvin Loving IV. The 6-4 Loving, who announced his commitment to Yale after the game, led the way with game highs of 25 points and eight rebounds. Incoming 6-4 junior Elias Obenya added 15 points.
Salesian attempted 15 three-point shots and of the five they converted four were by Loving and one by Obenya, with three of Loving’s treys coming n the second half when he led the charge to the final buzzer.
“We came in with a mindset to win all the games,” Loving remarked before talking about his personal performance and his three-point shooting.
“The three-point shot is a big part of my game, and I got hot in the second half and helped our team,” Loving continued.
Mater Dei had gotten it to 52-47 midway through the second half, but a scoop shot by Loving followed by a three-pointer made it 58-47. A Mater Dei three-pointer was followed by another three-pointer by Loving, and at that point the momentum and the Pride defense stretched it 66-52 and at that point the game was pretty much over.
“We might be a small team but we hustle, we play hard,” Loving said. “They may have been taller than us but that didn’t mean they were going to work harder than us.”
Mater Dei certainly had the height advantage. The tallest player for Salesian is a 6-6 non-starter and the tallest starters are 6-5 incoming junior Carlton Perrilliat (eight point) and 6-5 incoming junior Leon Powe Jr. the son of former Oakland Tech, Cal and NBA power forward Leon Powe.
Mater Dei got a team-high 23 points (three three-pointers) from incoming 6-4 junior guard Luke Barnett, a double –double 15 points and 10 rebounds from 6-9 Blake Davidson, 14 points from 6-8incoming junior Brannon Martinson, and 12 points (two three-pointers) from incoming senior guard Owen Verna.
Boys California Live 2024 was about getting seen by college coaches but for Loving the buzz was about his commitment to Yale. Why Yale?
“I’m thinking about my future after basketball,” said Loving, who had a 4.2 GPA last semester.
Despite losing a couple of games earlier this month at the Section VII scholastic viewing event in Arizona, Salesian seemed to be improving as the summer progresses despite losing six key seniors off their CIF Northern Regional Open Division title team.
“With losing so many seniors it was good to see us playing this well,” remarked Salesian head coach Bill Mellis. “We’ve started to come together a little faster than we had expected.”
Salesian opened with a 67-43 win over No. 35 ranked Santa Margarita Catholic-Rancho Santa Margarita, followed by a 63-20 blowout of No. 13 Windward-Los Angeles, and then a 67-61 victory over CIF Southern Regional Open Division semifinalist and No. 6 ranked St. Joseph-Santa Maria.
Based on their showing in Roseville it’s pretty likely Salesian will start as the top team in Northern California in the Cal-Hi Sports preseason rankings
Riordan storms past shorthanded Damien
Besides having the top teams in California, plus a few from Arizona and Nevada in the 168-team field, the top two coaches in California with respect to wins also graced the event.
Mater Dei head coach Gary McKnight tops the list at 1,272 career wins and in the No. 2 spot is Mike LeDuc of Damien-La Verne with 1,074 career victories.
For LeDuc his team made it all the way to the title game of pools 1-2 but along the way they lost 7-foot incoming senior Nate Garcia to an injury, and he hobbled his way into the Roebbelen Center on crutches to watch his team play.
Damien at No. 14 in the final Cal-Hi Sports rankings was already an underdog against ninth-ranked, but without Garcia the Spartans were no match for the Crusaders. Riordan bolted out to a 12-1 lead and never looked back, leading by as many 29 points in a 72-48 victory.
Riordan had four players in double-figure scoring led by 6-4 incoming junior Andrew Hillman with 16 points with six rebounds. Incoming junior guard DJ Armstrong added 15 points (four three-pointers), incoming junior guard Semetri Carr, a 4-Star recruit and transfer from Branson-Ross with around 12 offers including Cal, USC, Washington and Washington State, had 13 points (two three-pointers) four rebounds and four assists, and incoming 6-10 senior center Steve Emeneke didn’t get a chance to match up with Garcia as many of the college coaches and scouts had hoped for, and he ended dominating the paint and still got significant interest from several colleges after finishing with a double-double 13 points and 11 rebounds.
Damien got 13 points from incoming 6-6 senior forward Jayden Avina.
Several other Bay Area schools including University make impressions
Besides assembling what he called a “Dream Team” consisting of an event management staff of six, and 12 other staffers, 30 scorekeepers and 62 officials as the Boys California Live 2024 Event Manager, Bessolo coached his University Red Devils to a 4-0 record and the pools 37-38 championship.
In the final against Temecula Valley-Temecula, a team most analysts and scouts had as favorites against a University team that lost nine seniors and all five starters from a 27-win season, the Red Devils fell behind by double digits in the first half but stormed back to win 99-85 in the highest scoring game of the 672 contested at Boys Cali Live 24.
Lucas Lau, an incoming 6-foot junior guard that Bessolo says will be the program’s “next great point guard,” was impressive all week and finished with 28 points, and that was what he averaged over the four games. Incoming 6-4 senior forward Jason Morris had a double-double 14 points and 11 rebounds with three blocks, and incoming junior Kenta Akiyama and incoming sophomore guard Beau Millar added 13 points apiece.
The other Bay Area winners at 4-0 were CIF Northern Regional Division I champions and Cal-Hi Sports No. 18 ranked San Ramon-Danville in pools 7-8, a fourth level pool, and Oakland High, in 10th level pools 19-20.
