If you’re going to play in the Bass Pro Tournament of Champions, you might as well do it up right. Republic will meet one of the nation’s best teams, with the nation’s top-rated junior recruit, in their first-round game at 6:30 on January 12.
The Tigers will play the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers (Chatsworth, Cal.) in the opening round. The Trailblazers last week were ranked #1 in the US by Prep Nation, #2 by USA Today, #3 by MaxPreps.
That was before they suffered their first loss of the season to Nathan Hale (Seattle, #7 MaxPreps) last Friday. Michael Porter, Jr., formerly of Columbia’s Bishop Tolton High School, scored 27 points and pulled down 15 rebounds in that game for Nathan Hale to lead his team to the upset. Bishop Tolton had previously been scheduled to play in the Tournament of Champions–before Porter’s family moved to Washington.
The Trailblazers already have wins over several of the country’s top teams. That includes a win over Oak Hill Academy of Virginia two weeks ago. Oak Hill was ranked as high as #1 in the country at the time, and had beaten Sierra Canyon twice in a row — including in the championship game of last year’s Tournament of Champions.
Sierra Canyon features 6’11” junior forward Marvin Bagley III, rated as the top recruit in the country in the 2018 graduating class. The ESPN scouting report on Bagley calls him “one of the best prospects to come around in quite a while. Even as a young player he has every tool.” He has offers from Duke, Kentucky, and UCLA, among others.
Senior forward Cody Riley (6’8″) also plays a big role for Sierra Canyon. He has signed with UCLA, spurning offers from Connecticut, Kansas, Oklahoma, and USC. He is a three-time winner of the John Wooden Award as one of the top players in California high school basketball.
Here’s the schedule for the opening round:
Findlay Prep (Las Vegas, NV) vs Madison Prep (Baton Rouge, LA) 5 pm
Republic vs Sierra Canyon 6:30 pm
Kickapoo vs Montverde (FL) 8 pm
Memphis East vs Greenforest (Decatur, GA) 9:30 pm
