Former Firebird collects AAU title

By Jim Baker     Aug 1, 2005

Kansas City Pump ‘N’ Run’s 17-under AAU basketball team capped a successful summer Sunday by winning the Price Chopper/K.C. Prep Invitational at Okun Fieldhouse in Shawnee.

Sparked by the 20-plus point performance from Free State High graduate Brady Morningstar, Pump ‘N’ Run plastered Chicago’s Mean Street Express, 79-65, in the title game.

The 6-foot-3, 170-pound Morningstar and 6-2 Roderick Pearson of Raytown (Mo.) South took turns guarding the top college prospect at the tournament, 6-3 Chicago Simeon High junior Derrick Rose.

Casey Crawford of Blue Valley North, J.D. Christie of Shawnee Mission East and Ryan Wedel of Minneapolis were other notable players on Pump ‘N’ Run’s roster.

“The kids had a nice run to close the summer season. We played well at the Jerry Mullen event (second place earlier this summer in Shawnee), reached the round of eight in Las Vegas and played well to win this tournament against good competition,” said Roger Morningstar, a Pump ‘N’ Run coach and the dad of Brady Morningstar.

Pump ‘N’ Run placed first in a field that included teams from Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis and Boston, plus teams from Arizona, Tennessee, Minnesota and Texas.

“It gives us bragging rights for Kansas City and Kansas,” Roger Morningstar said.

College coaches from Kansas, North Carolina, Michigan State, Michigan, Iowa State, Texas, Kansas State, Wichita State, Notre Dame, Georgetown, West Virginia, Creighton and other schools who scouted the tournament left impressed with Rose, who compares his style of play to former University of Illinois standout Deron Williams.

“He is just so physical for his age,” Roger Morningstar said of Rose, who has an early list of Illinois, KU, North Carolina and Arizona. “He has a great feel for the game and great quickness.”

BABC of Boston beat the Dakota Schoolers, 83-77, in the third-place game. The St. Louis Eagles beat KC Pump ‘N’ Run 16s in the fifth place game, 67-61.

The Pump ‘N’ Run 16s won tournaments in Las Vegas, Des Moines, Iowa, and Minneapolis this summer.

Leading players for the 16s are Tyrel Reed, a junior point guard from Burlington; Travis Releford, a sophomore guard from K.C. Central; and Caleb Dishman, junior forward from Topeka Hayden and the son of former KU player Jeff Dishman.

  • Cal to take tour: The University of California, which will play KU on Dec. 10 at Kemper Arena, will travel on an exhibition tour through Italy from Aug. 12-23.

The Bears, who have a former KU player on the roster in Omar Wilkes, will be playing Italian club teams in Florence, Venice and Como. The trip will mark the return of All-America power forward candidate Leon Powe, who sat out last season because of reconstructive surgery on his left knee.

Cal is coming off back-to-back losing seasons for the first time during coach Ben Braun’s nine-year stay in Berkeley. Braun recently had hip replacement surgery.

  • Green on board: The University of Oklahoma officially has tapped former KU assistant Jerry Green director of basketball operations. Green, 61, former head coach at Oregon and Tennessee, begins work on OU coach Kelvin Sampson’s staff today.

He worked for Roy Williams at KU from 1989 to ’92.

“I really had not had a great desire to get back in,” Green told the Daily Oklahoman. He last coached in 2001 at Tennessee. “At 57, we decided we’ll just sit back and relax. But after a while, boating, golfing and fishing isn’t as exciting as it used to be.”

“Roy said he knew the exact person I needed to talk to (in Sampson). Then when I talked to Kelvin, I could see they wanted to upgrade this position from a young-person deal where a guy gets an offer from somewhere like Western Kentucky and they take it. I’m not going to do that. I’m committed to being here.”

Green went 89-36 at Tennessee.

“We went to four NCAA Tournaments in a row,” Green told the Oklahoman. “When we got there, in their history they had only been to five. And they haven’t been since. It’s just one of those things where some things aren’t appreciated.”

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