NIKE Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL) Session #2 in Hampton VA @ Boo Williams April 27 – 29

NIKE Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL) Session #3 in San Francisco, CA Memorial Day Weekend May 25 – 28.

Last year’s Each 1 Teach 1 team featured the nation’s best boys high school basketball player in Austin Rivers. That AAU squad won the national championship. First year head coach Edward Francis says this year’s team is athletic enough to do it again.

“They’re young guys but hard working guys,” he said. “They listen. I can put stuff and actually we haven’t had practice yet and we’ve been playing on the fly. I can draw stuff up and the kids just take on well.”

“We get out and run, playing defense. We play real good defense,” Jones High guard DeMarcus Croaker added.

Croaker joined forces with his Class 3A district 7 rival, Lake Highland Prep’s Jay Berry, to create a suffocating backcourt. The Highlanders sophomore is putting in extra time to be successful with his AAU squad but also to give Croaker and his Tigers, who were state runners-up, a little payback during the regular season.

“Trying to be more of a leader on my team since our two seniors left and we have a lot of young guys come up on our high school team,” the Highlanders sophomore point guard said.

Francis says he wants Berry to step up for this year’s AAU nationals and continue to assert himself as the strong, slashing scoring point guard he is now.

“I told him you’re roles gonna be, where you handle the ball but you gotta learn how to get everybody involved and still do what you do at the same time and I think he’s handling it well.”

Berry’s impressive play has put him on the radar of several college programs including UF, UCF, Miami and Providence.