MESA — Going 1-3 last weekend during the EYBL’s first weekend stop put Paul George Elite U17 quickly behind the race for a Peach Jam championship berth, so Jamari Phillips wasted no time this weekend.
In his first Mesa EBYL game on Friday afternoon, the Arizona commit poured in 30 points while hitting 6 of 9 3-pointers to lead Paul George Elite to a 75-55 win over Arizona Unity at Legacy Park. He shot 11 for 17 overall from the field.
“A guy like Jamari, when he gets hot, he gets hot,” teammate and fellow UA commit Carter Bryant said Friday. “So we have to keep finding him, and he kind of led us to victory today. We did a great job of finding him, and the best thing about it is he’s a guy who doesn’t go chase the ball.
“He just takes what the defense gives him, and if the defense commits, he’s willing to get off the ball. I just think we did a great job as a team not being selfish today, moving the ball, and I think that’s why we’re successful.”
On Saturday morning in PG Elite’s 93-49 destruction of The Skill Factory, Phillips added another 23 points on 9-for-15 shooting while playing just 16 of 32 possible minutes. Over his first two weekend games, Phillips, who plays high school ball at nearby AZ Compass Prep, shot a combined 61.1% from 3-point range.
“The first session (in Georgia), we kind of had a little struggle,” Philips said after Friday’s game. “I’m really trying to get my teammates going, and my teammates are starting to find me, so my shots are coming easier to me.
“We were just all talking, reading the floor and just playing our hearts out, boxing out, trying our best to get this win because we really needed it.”
Bryant collected six points and eight rebounds Friday, then had an efficient but limited effort Saturday morning, when he took just two shots over 15 minutes of PG Elite’s blowout win. Bryant finished with eight rebounds and four points, having made both free throws he took.
Arizona guard Courtney Ramey) gestures to the crowd after hitting a 3-pointer against UCLA at McKale Center on Jan. 21, 2023.
New ‘coach’ for Team Ramey
Departing UA guard Courtney Ramey made a coaching debut of sorts, helping his father, Terrell Ramey, lead the appropriately titled Team Ramey to a 77-46 win over Soldiers ECYL in an EYCL (alternate league) victory on Friday.
“I talked to them (the players) before the game,” Courtney Ramey said. “My dad asked me to help come coach, and this is probably the last time I can do it.”
Ramey said he has finished his UA coursework this semester and was planning to pack up his Tucson home this weekend and travel to Dallas on Sunday to begin pre-draft preparation work. He said he is hoping to pick up an NBA Summer League spot or European opportunity this summer.
Ramey said he has signed with Young Money Sports, a firm co-founded by rapper Lil Wayne.
“I’m a professional athlete now, so my mindset (this spring) was to find what agency I wanted to sign with, and that took a little minute because I wanted to sign with somebody who I feel could help me get my career started,” Ramey said. “Once I was able to find my agent, I was kind of thrilled to be starting the process.”
Caffeinated
Considering that Benin native Tounde Yessoufou is a five-star forward in the class of 2025 who has already picked up a scholarship offer from Arizona, maybe it was no surprise that in Team Why Not’s 67-53 win over Proskills on Saturday that he had 19 points and four steals, shot 50% from the field and hit all seven free throws he took
Except that he did it all of that in a game that started at 8 a.m.
“It’s amazing,” Yessoufou said. “I wake up early anyway to work out, so they wake you up and you are able to go harder.”
Yessoufou, a 6-6 wing now playing for St. Joseph High School in Santa Maria, California, said he has been waking up at 5:15 a.m. during the club season and starting his day with yoga.
“During the school year, I work out at 7 a.m., 6:30,” Yessoufou said. “So yeah, this is pretty usual.”
