Crown and Miller Named NCHBC All-Americans

***This "flashback post" was originally posted at AugustaEagles.blogspot.com (my "old" blog).  It is still there but I no longer post there.  I moved it to this blog because Matt is someone I am tracking, and pulling for.***

Matt Miller and Austin Crown: Augusta Eagles Guards

As mentioned in this article, Augusta Eagles Junior guards Austin Crown and Matt Miller were chosen as two of the 21 NCHBC All Americans.  Miller and Crown will play for the Gray team in the NCHBC Blue-Gray All American game Wednesday evening at the Missouri State University Gymnasium.  

The game, from which the Augusta Basketball Report will blog live, should be a great one.  The class of 2014's 10th best player, according to espn.com's recruiting service, Justin Jackson, a 6'6" guard who plays for the HCYA Warriors, will play.  And his HCYA teammate, Danrad Knowles, a 6'11" center who is slated to play for the University of Houston Cougars squad as a freshman next season, will be playing on the "Blue" team.  Jackson, Knowles, and Alonzo Trier, a highly regarded freshman guard who plays for the Oklahoma City Storm, are three of the many players in the game who will provide an exciting experience for fans watching in person and on line.

ABR was present for the all american awards ceremony Monday evening.  And we found Crown, Miller, and their Eagles teammates in the lobby of their hotel room after the team ate breakfast Tuesday morning.  Watch the segment above to see the duo receive word, in front of a gym full of players and fans at the tournament, that they are included in this noteworthy group, and to listen to their thoughts, and those of their teammates.

Laney Makes History

Enjoy the highlights of the Laney Wildcats making history, winning their first state title 67-53 in Macon, Georgia, last Saturday.  The Wildcats had a fast start, taking a 47-27 lead.  And the lead never got below 10 before the Wildcats hoisted the Class AA state championship trophy.

Barber Shop Talk: Augusta Basketball is Back

Today we introduce a new section to the Augusta Basketball Report:  Barber Shop Talk.  In segments like this, we will combine one quality of the Augusta Basketball Report's network of contributors - knowledge of the game, particularly as it relates to the greater Augusta, Georgia, area over the past several decades - with another... the ability, as guest Ricky Moore so accurately puts it, to "talk a little smack."

Ricky Moore

The guests on our first episode have deep roots in the Augusta area basketball scene.  Will Avery and Ricky Moore, two of the area's most accomplished players, won a state championship together before eventually competing against each other in the 1999 NCAA championship game.  Moore got the better of that match up as his UCONN Huskies defeated Avery's Duke Blue Devils, but the game's starting point guards both gave Augusta's basketball fans a great show during that game and throughout the mid to late 1990s.

The debut episode's other guests, Keenan Mann and Buck Harris, each played basketball locally in high school, Mann for Richmond Academy and Harris for Westside High School.  The two became teammates at Augusta College and led the Jaguars to many impressive seasons during that team's tenure in NCAA Division I's Big South Conference.  The Augusta raised duo also teamed up in coaching Moore, Avery, Thomson High's Vonteego Cummings (Pittsburgh University), Richmond Academy's Tyrone Shine (Seton Hall), North Augusta's Antonio Grant (South Carolina), and countless other local players who eventually played major college basketball after participating on Mann and Harris's Augusta Metros AAU spring and summer team.

Enjoy the first episode (above) as Avery makes a statement, Mann provokes a good natured argument, Harris and Moore give their opinions, and Avery wraps things up.  Does it remind you of your barber shop?