NEW ORLEANS, La.—The second half of the yearly all-star game double header joined forces with the NCAA Women’s Final Four in the Big Easy Saturday afternoon. Taking the same floor that the Irish, Huskies, Cards and Bears will be using Sunday, the “next generation” offered up a sequel to Wednesday’s McDonald’s All-American game in Chicago. The Women’s Basketball Coaches Association High School All American Game presented by Nike is in its 22nd year and the best of each graduating class has annually offered up one last scholastic performance before turning their focus to the next level.
Saturday’s game was much more competitive than the 28 point blowout the West team dealt to the East in Chicago earlier in the week. The Black squad, led by team MVP Tyler Scaife, held the lead the majority of the contest and withstood the Purple’s aggressive efforts down the stretch to extend a four point halftime lead into a 74 – 70 win. Scaife, a dynamic 5-8 Rutgers signee, demonstrated the strong individual skills that make her one of the toughest defensive assignments in the 2013 class and continued the impressive play she offered up in Chicago. Her 17 point performance was the result of an 8 of 14 effort from the floor and some deft ballhandling that kept defenders off balance time and again. Kaela Davis, a future Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket, added 17 points of her own in the win while Washington signee Kelsey Plum chipped in 14 more on 6 of 8 shooting.
The Purple team was paced by Jessica Jackson’s diverse 15 point production. The Arkansas verbal commit was 5 of 8 from the field, 2 for 4 from behind the arch and converted all 3 of her free throw attempts. For good measure she added 7 rebounds and 2 blocks to the cause. Jackson got help from team MVP Nia Coffey, who’s headed to Northwestern next fall, by way of her 12 points on 5 for 9 shooting.
The Black squad lit things up from the floor finishing at a 47 percent clip that included a 13 for 24/54 percent second half. The Purple could only connect on 34 percent of their attempts but did win the battle on the boards 50 – 41 which included 23 offensive boards. The Black squad had the edge in turnovers committing just 16 to the 20 miscues by the Purple.
Jackson, Stanford signee Karlie Samuelson and UConn bound Saniya Chong joined 16 participants from the McDonald’s game to make up the two ten member rosters. The missing roster member (do the math) was Rebecca Greenwell who injured the same knee Wednesday night she previously had repaired. According to Greenwell she’s scheduled for surgery this Tuesday to address the unspecified issue. Another two game participant, Diamond DeShields, was limited to just ten minutes of play Saturday and left the arena on crutches and in a boot, the result of an ongoing “stress fracture issue. The future Tar Heel said she had been playing with the pain but it became too much and she cut her day short in New Orleans.
As we did with the McDonald’s game, here’s a quick look at each of the participants (minus DeShields) and their stats from the WBCA game.
