There is always excitement at the Pangos All-South Frosh/Soph Camp and this year’s edition closed with a strong Cream of the Crop Top 30 Game. When the dust settled, the camp’s Most Outstanding Player went to sophomore guard Reese “Lil Skip” Alston of Second Baptist in Houston. The son of former NBA guard Rafer Alston wasn’t the only standout guard, and there was a nice set of bigs who shined.
The Cream of the Crop Top 30 All-Star Game, reserved for the top participants at the Pangos All-South Frosh/Soph Camp, usually is a quality game and the separator of the two-day event. The past two years, the camp’s final games have told the tale and been quality games and there year was so different. The players chosen were indeed the camp’s elite among the 230 plus campers from 17 different states who called the Duncanville Fieldhouse home over the weekend and the player who took home the camp’s Most Outstanding Player honors clearly showed why in the Cream of the Crop Top 30 Game.
Reese Alston, a bouncy 6-foot-1 sophomore (2027) point guard from Second Baptist (Houston, Texas) with an advanced game and an incredible pedigree, controlled the action with his outstanding point guard abilities, whether having the ball on a string, seeing the entire floor one step ahead, getting quality paint touches or stopping on a dime to pull up for a shot or a whip to pass to a teammate. Alston’s impact was quite evident from the start and he helped his Black jersey-wearing club jump out to an early lead on the White jersey-wearing club by hitting a couple of rhythm 3-pointers and dishing off some nifty assists. Even more than Alston’s numbers, his command of the game is something you don’t often see from rising sophomores.
Alston, the son of former NBA point guard Rafer Alston, then closed out the game strong on his final line shift and helped the black seal its 83-71 victory over the white. Alston finished with 13 points and eight assists in 16 minutes of play. He could easily have also bagged Top 30 Game MVP honors, but long-time event director Dinos Trigonis traditionally spreads the love around when it comes to individuals honors.
Alston is primed for a big sophomore campaign with his high school team, as he led Cooz Elite to the 15U circuit title on the Pro16 Circuit and followed up his terrific summer with a show-stopping performance on the Pangos Frosh-Soph circuit. Alston is known as “Lil Skip”, a play on his father’s nickname “Skip To My Lou”, or Skip for short, that he earned while growing up in Bayside, Queens, New York and drawing crowds on the blacktop even before he was a teenager attending PS40 Elementary School and IS-8 Middle School.
“I don’t know, it’s just putting in the work and wanting to showing everyone what I bring,” Alston said about the motivation behind his camp performance.
