GBCA Live 2023 Standouts
In keeping with my coverage of the GBCA live weekend that just passed, I want to highlight some of the standout players that I got to see that I might not have talked about quite yet.
It was a loaded weekend, and there were so many players and performances that I haven’t gotten to yet. I’m telling you, my notes are full. Hitting on a few guys per class will allow me to dig a little deeper into the weekend.
Starting with the 2023 class, here are some of the standouts that I saw.
Sherman embodies what this Grovetown team is all about. He’s physical, he’s tough and he’s fearless. Whether he was matched up with Greenforest’s 7-footers, Grayson’s super-talented frontcourt, or anyone else, Sherman took the fight to whoever was in his way. He’s a double-double machine and one of the best forwards in Georgia’s 2023 class. He pulled in some of his first D1 offers from Kennesaw State and Stetson over the weekend. It’s a little surprising to me that those were his first, but I feel confident that they won’t be his last. This is a can’t-miss prospect.
Parker played a solid role on a Sequoyah team with an outstanding senior core last season. Those guys have all graduated and moved on, and now it’s Parker’s time to step into the spotlight, which he proved to be more than ready to do. At 6-foot-6 he brings good size and length to the guard position, and he can absolutely fill it up. Preston is a lights-out 3-point shooter and averaged over 18 points per game for the Chiefs this weekend. After his impressive outing, he picked up his first D1 offer from Radford as well as offers from Life University and Reinhardt University.
I’ve been high on Yeh all spring. With BCB, he’s been tremendous, and he was so this weekend with White County. Yeh led his bracket in scoring with 21.8 points per game. Yeh has all of the tools that one would want in a PG. He has a high basketball IQ, he’s a good creator for himself and others, and he’s an exceptional 3-point shooter. Since watching him with BCB earlier in the spring, I’ve been saying that he embodies the program’s blue collar approach to basketball. If you’re a college coach reading this, be sure to add BCB and Yeh to your list of programs to watch in July.
The second Grovetown player on this list represents the Warriors’ backcourt. Malik Ferguson had an outstanding weekend for the Warriors. Copy and paste anything you’ve read about Grovetown and it applies to Ferguson. Tough? Yes. Physical? You bet. When Ferguson gets moving down hill, it’s probably best to hedge your bets and get out of the way. He’s hard to stop when he’s in attack mode, and he can finish through contact with the best of them. Ferguson picked up offers from Radford and Tarleton State over the weekend. Like Frankquon Sherman, don’t expect his first D1 offers from the weekend to be the last.
Thomas epitomizes southside basketball to me. He’s got that grit and edge to him that I love. McDonough was one of the better teams in Georgia last season, and Thomas was the catalyst behind much of their season. I love his willingness to defend and how he wants the ball in his hands in crunch time. After a solid weekend with McDonough at Lakepoint in which he averaged over 15ppg, Thomas picked up an offer from Catawba College.
Panoam has generated some national buzz around his name on the EYBL circuit with the Georgia Stars and kept that momentum going into the June live period with Norcross. The Blue Devils are going to look a lot different than they did a few months ago when they won the 7A championship in Macon. Panoam is one of the returnees from that team and will assume a significant amount of the team’s production moving forward. The uber-athletic guard should boast some eye-popping stats similar to the 17 points per game he averaged over the weekend.
