Ricky Moore, Chuck Graham, Williams, Coleman, Taylor, and Collier all make this Throwback Thursday post:

One of AugBball.com’s top five all time posts is Ashley Brown’s detailing of Darius Williams and Don Coleman’s offensive exploits this season at Miami-Dade and Lawson State. More news has come about two of Augusta’s all time best bucket getters. Williams was named NJCAA’s Player of the Week after scoring 66 points in a pair of games. And Bearsinsider.com published a detailed report, which included a conversation with Coleman, of California University’s scholarship offer should Coleman transfer after this season and play three years for the Bears. (Don is a “full qualifier” who can transfer from a junior college after one year and not sit out.)

Ashley’s guest post paints the entire statistical picture early in these two dynamos’ freshman seasons. What I’ll share now are two videos I found somewhat buried in my YouTube channel that provide a great visual for their ability to score:

This video is from the most fun first quarter of high school hoops I've seen in a while during last season's region 3A opener between Butler's Coleman and Josey's Williams:



And this one is from the first solid week of basketball I ever saw from Williams. He was dynamite as a freshman guard who led Josey to a region championship:

Footage of Ricky Moore, Vonteego Cummings, Will Avery, Mike Cummings and Antrone Lee playing in the area's biggest ever high school game is a great reason for a throwback Thursday post!

I love to include my best buddy, NCAA champion player and assistant coach, and maybe Augusta’s best ever high school player Ricky Moore, in AugBball.com stories as much as possible. His UConn Huskies recently topped former Big East rival Georgetown at home to improve to 14-5 overall. The Huskies are second in the AAC and host Cincinnati at 7:00 Thursday.

But what I love about this Ricky Moore update is that I have several clips to share from the most exciting, and well attended, high school game in our area’s history. Courtesy of Kevin Faigle of News 12 WRDW, I share 1995 region tournament action involving Westside and Thomson and featuring four of the area’s best ever players. And five of my best ever friends: Ricky Moore, Vonteego Cummings, Will Avery, Mike Cummings, and Antrone Lee.

Jaylen Taylor and Aliyah Collier are playing well as freshmen

Jaylen Taylor, who pulverized area rims (see below) with his striding slams until graduating from Laney last Spring, scored 14 points and grabbed 5 rebounds Recentlu in Tampa’s recent 86-71 home win over St. Leo. And Wednesday he scored 6 points and grabbed 3 rebounds during 20 minutes of action during Tampa’s 66-60 conference win at Florida Tech.

Taylor has started 5 games during his freshman season. He made 6 of 8 field goal attempts and sank both of his free throw attempts against St. Leo. The victories put the Spartans (6-13, 2-8) in the win column in the conference standings.

Jaylen makes me think of another 2015 graduate of Laney, last season's AugBball player of the year (boys and girls included), Aliyah Collier. She is tearing apart ACC competition as a freshman Clemson Lady Tiger. Clemson's Twitter feed recently shared this photo and these facts:

Fr. Aliyah Collier had a career-high 18 pts vs. GT yesterday. She has caught fire during ACC play! #RookieReport pic.twitter.com/GVFhryoNzj

— Clemson Lady Tigers (@ClemsonWBB) January 25, 2016

Jaylen and Aliyah remind me of last season’s “Laney Rule” post (this is the “throwback Thursday” part of the Taylor/Collier update):

I rarely do throwback Thursday posts. But when I do, I want them to include my childhood hero, Chuck Graham!

Thanks to WGAC’s Ashley Brown for sharing this late 1980’s video and others of my child hood hero Chuck Graham. The video is 45 minutes long and the first 15 minutes are some of the neatest segments I could hope to find. 18 year old Chuck is interviewed. Augusta coaching legend Don Brock is interviewed. And extensive footage is shown from Richmond’s practices and their games against every Richmond County school in almost every Richmond County gym!




Keenan Mann, Buck Harris, Jamie Rigdon, Mike Stokes, and Ashley helped me identify some of the 1980's Augusta hoopers in the footage, and I know I spent much of last Sunday watching and talking about this video. 

Included in the footage are Keenan Mann, whose jersey is retired at Augusta University, Musketeer great Kenny Robinson, Butler's Duke Tranum and John Ruffin, and several others who even I can’t name. (But don’t worry, Ashley can and has on his Facebook page).

Like I said, Chuck was my hero. So it’s a good day when I can include not just Ricky, but him as well, in my throwback Thursday post!