Two Dynasty basketball clients, Royce Parran and V’Angelo Smith, have signed with CBA teams. Royce signed with the Minot Skyrockets and V’Angelo signed with the Lawton Fort Sill Cavalry.

Parran played ball at Chicago State, where he finished as the Cougars’ all-time Division I leading scorer with 1,510 points. The 5′9 guard finished 3rd overall at the 2007 NCAA Slam Dunk Contest. Parran was honorable mention All-Independent Team as a senior, 2nd Team All-Mid-Continent as a junior, and Mid-Continent 6th Man of the Year as a freshman. Royce will be going to Minot, North Dakota to join the Skyrockets. They will embrace his scoring ability as well as his infectious personality.

Smith played at Arkansas Pine-Bluff, where he was an integral part of the team’s success. He was named to SWAC All-Defensive team and finished fourth on the team in scoring. Smith is also very aggressive on the backboards and is a good mid-range shooter. V’Angelo will be staying a bit warmer than Royce. He’ll be heading to Lawton, Oklahoma to play for the Cavalry, also of the CBA. Smith is an amazing slasher; he can get to the hole at will. He’ll give the Cavalry a constant threat in the lane, not to mention a solid defensive stopper.

12/6/08

Marquette (Scott Monarch) (7-1) vs. Wisconsin

Wisconsin (No. 22 ESPN/USA Today, unranked AP) likes a slow-tempo game, and Marquette (unranked, No. 25) loves to run. So it stood to reason that a game played in the 50s and 60s would go the Badgers’ way. But Wisconsin couldn’t stop Jerel McNeal, who scored 19 of his 26 points in the second half to power Marquette to a 61-58 comeback victory over its in-state rival Saturday night.

NCCU (Henry Dickerson) (0-8) vs. Drake

Drake soared to an 89-46 men’s basketball win over winless North Carolina Central on Saturday. The Eagles were led by Vincent Davis’ 24 points. He was the only N.C. Central player in double figures. The Eagles led 14-13 after Davis’ 3-pointer with 11:00 to play in the first half. But Drake 34-11 run to take a 47-25 halftime lead.

UIC (Tracy Dildy) (5-2) vs. Loyola

Josh Mayo had 22 points, including five 3-pointers and a perfect 3-3 from the foul line, to lead Illinois-Chicago to a 83-69 victory over Loyola of Chicago on Saturday. Scott VanderMeer added 18 points for Illinois-Chicago (5-2, 1-0 Horizon) and Robo Kreps had 11 points. The Flames led by as many as 14 points with 17 seconds left in the game.

Tennessee Tech (Scott Payne) (5-2) vs. Jacksonville State

Jacksonville State beat Tennessee Tech 82-66 in both team’s conference opener on Saturday night. Tennessee Tech (5-2, 0-1 Ohio Valley Conference) committed 25 fouls to send the Gamecocks (6-1, 1-1) to the free-throw line 31 times, making 18 of their attempts.

SE Missouri State (Rodney Hamilton) (2-6) vs. Tennessee State

Tennessee State got a 83-72 win over Southeast Missouri on Saturday. Johnny Hill led Southeast Missouri (2-6, 0-2) with a career-high 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting. Calvin Williams scored 17, Jaycen Herring had 15 and Jajuan Maxwell added 12 for the Redhawks. The Redhawks went on a 12-2 run in the first half and led 29-27 at halftime. But Tennessee State exploded to a 62-50 lead with 8 minutes left after Smith scored 10 straight points, including a four-point play.

Arkansas State (Elwyn McRoy) (6-2) vs. Missouri State

Missouri State got a 52-47 win over Arkansas State on Saturday night. Donald Boone led Arkansas State with 20 points and McKinney added 11.

Savannah State (Horace Broadnax) (5-3) vs. St. Louis

St. Louis beat Savannah State 55-37 on Saturday night.

Savannah State (5-2) scored two quick baskets to open the second half and cut the deficit to 10, but Lisch answered with seven consecutive points to push the Billikens’ lead back to 17. Saint Louis led by as many as 31 in the second half on the strength of a 13-0 run that included five points from Lisch. Raye Bailey led Savannah State with 17 points, including 14 in the second half.

If you want to know who each team allocated, has returning, or is accepting based on a local tryout, click here.  You’ll notice one name unfortunately missing on the Bakersfield Jam list.  Dynasty’s Royce Parran.  Even though he impressed all in their open tryout, he will be added to the NBDL free-agent pool along with a couple of other Dynasty clients.  Our one client in the actual draft is Phillip Hillstock.  We are rooting for you, Phillip.

In order to become eligible to be drafted into the NBDL, you must be pre-approved by the league office and offered a contract.  The draft order is listed here.

Beyond tracking Hillstock, keep a close eye on the Utah Flash.  Since reading a story on its owner, Brandt Andersen, I have been a big fan of the team.  Here is a guy who had more than enough money to by an NBA franchise, but was denied access and told to jump in line (apparently a long one).  Instead of getting angry and calling quits on his desire to own a professional team, he went to the D-League and bought the then expansion team, Utah Flash.  Since that point, Andersen has struck many innovative deals and continues to have fresh ideas for expanding the worth of his club.  Included in those ideas is to build a small city around a new arena.  Yes, I said building a small city.  And this new arena would increase the capacity of the existing one, even though the current stadium does not sell-out home games.  You have never heard of Andersen, but he is worth multi-millions and is a young, entrepreneurial owner in the NBDL.  I would not mind having one of my clients play for such an interesting and passionate owner.

Feel free to discuss the draft as it happens or at its conclusion in the comments below.

Last weekend, Brian Graves tried out for the Vermont Frost Heaves, the 2007 and 2008 ABA Champions who are now a part of the Premier Basketball League.  Flights at the last minute from Norfolk, Virgina to Burlington, Vermont are quite expensive, but nothing like a flight from Chicago to Bakersfield, CA.  I just booked Royce Parran out to Cali for about $900 round-trip.  And we are experiencing economic problems?  But the worst experience of all relates to the NBDL’s antiquated procedures relating to payment for tryouts.  With Royce, I had to go to Publix (a Southeastern supermarket) to purchase a money order and send it to Bakersfield.  It wasn’t all that bad, but did you notice that I said money order?  I have a business AMEX card, check card, etc.  Why a money order?  The NBDL requires its member organizations to accept only cashier’s checks or money orders for all free agent tryouts.  That fact made yesterday real interesting.

After three hours of temple and after over twenty hours of no food or drink, I was running around trying to figure out how we would get payment in to the Erie BayHawks for one of our clients, Aaron Nichols.  He has a tryout in Cleveland this weekend and the team needed the payment by today.  Western Union was no fun.  They could not write the order out to the Erie team.  Believe me that it took about forty-five minutes before we could settle the entire thing.

Anyway, I now have a full stomach, but a more empty wallet.  I am investing in my clients because I believe in them.  Let’s hope that they make the Dynasty family proud.

A couple of weeks ago, I claimed

The Magic’s payroll is about $65 million and they apparently are butting up against a budget. They will look to sign a point guard through free agency for the minimum, acquire one in a trade or create more cap room with a deal. Nelson is the lone point guard on the roster.

Anyone want to help me spread the word to GM Otis Smith about a guy named Royce Parran?  He is not tall, but is definitely not short on passion, leadership, and ability to hold his own on the court.  Give the former Gary Steelhead a shot!

Okay, back to Redick.  The Orlando Magic now have four shooting guards: Redick, Keith Bogans, Courtney Lee, and Mickael Pietrus.  Redick is probably positioned in the far back of the pack at the moment.  I know that in the past Otis Smith had said, We’re not looking to move J.J. If it doesn’t make sense, we’re not going to move him just to move him.  At this point, doesn’t it make sense?

Some interesting information revealed by Parran includes the fact that he is lactose intolerant (in jest, he claims that it may be the reason that he is able to dunk) and is a former tap dancer but can still throw it down on the dance floor.  The hosts of the show note that Parran is a Chicago kid, tough, great smile, full of energy, spark plug, it’s all positive.  Sounds like the type of guy that would fit right into Dynasty.  More about that in the near future!

Check out Royce Parran’s interview along with my own interview (occurs in the last segment of the .mp3) by clicking here.

And tune in this Thursday for a repeat appearance by yours truly, streaming live at 7 p.m. EST by going to: http://www.heyregion.com/