In the wake of the death of a close family friend last weekend, Kentucky-bound point guard Isaiah Briscoe has a huge weekend ahead.
The 6-foot-3 Briscoe from Roselle (N.J.) Catholic will play against two fellow McDonald’s All-Americans on Friday and Sunday, and will compete in a nationally televised game Sunday on Fox Sports 2 before the NBA All-Star Game that evening.
Kentucky coach John Calipari, St. John’s coach Steve Lavin and Iowa State head coach Fred Holberg and assistant Matt Abdelmassih are expected Sunday.
On Friday night, Roselle Catholic, ranked No. 1 in New Jersey by The Star-Ledger, will meet 6-10 Ben Simmons and Montverde (FL) Academy in the Metro Classic at Kean University. That game will also mark the return to New Jersey of current Montverde and former St. Patrick coach Kevin Boyle, whose team has won two ESPN national championships.
Cheick Diallo, a 6-foot-9 uncommitted senior forward, and Our Savior New American will face Linden (N.J.) in the first game at Kean.
On Sunday, Briscoe and his teammates will face Diallo and Our Savior on an LED court in the Nike Zoom Arena in lower Manhattan. The game will be shown live at 2 p.m. on Fox Sports 2 with Tarik Turner and Joe Davis on the call. The game will air later Sunday on Fox Sports 1.
St. Pat’s (N.J.) will play Brooklyn South Shore at 4 p.m., but that game will not be televised.
“These are some of the games that kids like Isaiah come to Roselle Catholic to play in,” RC coach Dave Boff told SNY.tv. “We play in these types of games as often as we can, knowing that occasionally you may lose. But these are the types of games that kids like Isaiah want to play. They want to go up against the best and challenge themselves against the best, which is also what our team wants.”
Boff added: “It’s another great step for our team and our program to get the national exposure of playing on Fox Sports.”
The games will feature three McDonald’s All-Americans projected among the Top 10 picks in the 2016 NBA Draft, according to DraftExpress.com.
The LSU-bound Simmons is the projected No. 2 pick behind Marietta (GA) Wheeler wing Jaylen Brown. Diallo, who is considering Iowa State, St. John’s, Kansas, Kentucky and Pitt, is projected as the No. 5 pick.
Briscoe is projected as the No. 10 pick in 2016.
“I think you’re going to see some really high-level, entertaining high school basketball,” Boff said. “Over a couple days, you’re going to see three of the top players in the country go head-to-head against each other. I don’t know too many opportunities that you get to see that, other than the major events like the HoopHall and stuff like that. So it’s going to be a great weekend for high school basketball in this area.”
The Montverde game will also be a stiff test for RC big men Chris Silva, a 6-9 forward signed with South Carolina, and Pierre Sarr, a 6-7 forward headed to Monmouth. Both will have their hands full with Simmons, an incredibly talented point forward from Australia.
“I mean, it’s a great challenge for them,” Boff said of his forwards. “We started talking about this week, the opportunity to go up against a kid like [Simmons] and prove to everybody that you can defend at a high level because those guys are going to be asked to do that against kids like him in the not too distant future, so Chris will go head-to-head against him hopefully in the SEC a couple times. So it’s an opportunity to show people that he can defend at a high level.”
As for the games in New York on Sunday, St. Pat’s coach Chris Chavannes, a longtime assistant under Boyle, and his team got a chance to practice on the Nike court last weekend and said it was cool.
“It was a mesmerizing and unique experience practicing there last Sunday,” he said. “I’m sure the final production will be amazing. Besides the obvious ‘cool factor’ of the LED court, it has some very positive teaching applications. Imagine being able to teach your team a new offensive set programming the action on the court for them to follow. Nike has managed to give all the players and fans another great experience.”
