Oak Hill Academy vs Montrose Christian (March 6)

ESPN2 is planning to show another high profile high-school game on March 6, at 7pm eastern (4pm pacific). The game will feature the "high school team" of the college-star-factory Oak Hill Academy visiting Montrose Christian of Bethesda (Maryland, not Israel).

The stars colliding in these game are two Villanova forwards, Isaiah Armwood and Mouphtaou Yarou, going up against Stephen Smith's crew, which is headlined by Keith Gallon who is planning to go to Oklahoma.

This is also a good way to scout future stars, so you can be the first to know in your sports bar or blog when people hear their names next year!

Classic High School games on ESPN Classic

There are two classic high-school basketball games scheduled to be shown on ESPN Classic in the next few days, so set up your VCRs and VCRs!

First up, tomorrow, Sunday February 22nd, at 11am eastern, you can watch a one-and-a-half hour edit of the classic 1954 game of Milan vs Muncie, a true Hoosiers story. That's right, the game is from 1954. Don't expect the footage to shine on your 50" HDTV, but you are watching living history!

Next up, a much more modern game, from 2002, LeBron James goes up against the Oak Hill Academy. This game will be shown on ESPN Classic at 1:30pm eastern time on March 6.

ESPN Classic has a live feed like ESPN and ESPN2, so there is no east/west-coast time like cable channels that offer "canned" shows.

McDonalds all-American selection show recap on ESPN2

Tonight, well actually, Thursday very early in the morning, ESPN2 will be showing a 30-minute recap of the 2009 McDonalds All-American selection show. The show will air (obviously tape-delayed) at 4:30am (Thursday) on ESPN2.

We do not have access to ESPNU, so we don't know if there is a longer special or a live special there. Sadly ESPN and Comcast continue their petty squabble and until they behave like grown-ups and FIX IT (to quote the guy from "SNL") we are boycotting ESPNU listings.

T-Mobile Showcase 2009 highlights on CSTV (CBS College Sports)

If you missed the 2009 version of the T-Mobile Showcase (Invitational) that aired on CBS College Sports (CSTV) during the holiday season, fear not!

CBS-CS has created a one-hour highlights special and it is showing it multiple times on CSTV. Check CSTV.com or your local tv listings for the exact dates and times. Or if you have a localized edition of CSTV, eg "the Mtn".

There were four men teams and four women teams, including Lawrence North (without Greg Oden!), South Atlanta, Duncanville and Garfield featuring some of the top recruits of 2009 and beyond. This please note was a high-school tournament, not an "all-star" type of game, so you don't get all the recruits in one place.

But a number of people think the high-school games can be more informative since you can see the recruits in a regular team environment where wins and losses actually matter and count.

Teamate star-wings end up being over-rated?m

We have seen this theme in the last few years. Look at Henderson and Ellington. They are nowhere near as good as their hype coming out of high-school.

And ask the Oregon and Kentucky fans about Hairston and Crawford, not exactly the players that were supposed to be when they were playing together in HS.

We are only talking about two wings on the same team, not any two teammates; for example, Oden and Conley continued to be awesome and awesome-r later on in college!

A Yankee Kansas in the rotation (most unusual recruit of the year)

This story broke in the summer, but it wasn't really that big so you may have missed it. The Memphis Tigers have another player on their roaster who we have yet to see play this year. The player is CJ Henry.

The name sounds familiar, because, i) he is the brother of touted recruit Xavier Henry and ii) yes, he was a walk-on in 2005 for Kansas

He is currently nursing injuries but eventually he should be able to contribute. How much we don't know, but at 6'3" he has a slight advantage in that there are no "shorties" in the Memphis rotation, other than Willie Kemp, so that may give him a leg up when Calipari wants a more traditional back-court.

For more on how this came to be, be sure to check this Commercial Appeal article from late August 2008.

Calipari strikes gold once again

After a series of major NBA disappointments way back in the era of high-school freshmen being allowed to go directly to the NBA, John "used car salesman" Calipari has managed to string a trio of lottery pick recruits. The one that started it all was Derrick Rose, and he led the Tigers to being the co-champions of 2008. Next up was Tyreke Evans, who may end up being more of an OJ-Mayo type, meaning he would be more effective in the NBA-game than the college game.

And fast-forward to today, the Memphis Tigers have picked up a huge commit for next season, highly-touted Xavier Henry, and ironically perhaps, the battle for Xavier was a rematch of the 2008 NCAA tournament championship. And Memphis won again :-)