Photo courtesy of David Cordova/Dave’s Joint.
By David Cordova
Now that the high school season has ended, the attention has turned to the AAU season. The month of April is the time where players who have a year or two or three of remaining eligibility of high school or seniors trying to get a look by a college are all putting their skills on display.
It is also a period of time where players are featured on social media pages from the most prominent mixtape entities to the small or up & coming content creators on Instagram, Twitter/X and even TikTok.
And then you’ve got the streamers and the media companies that have been making their presence felt on the teenagers in various cities and states that have had a monopoly on the hoops scene.
Towards the latter weeks of April, there were two events where these influencers held court and were the main attraction throughout the East Coast.
It’s Saturday, April 18th, and the Hoop Group Pitt Jam Fest is taking place at the David Lawrence Convention Center in the downtown area of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This is one of the weekends where AAU teams throughout the East Coast from several states, such as Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Delaware and even on down to Maryland have all descended on the Steel City as a prelude to what they can expect on their individual circuits.
There are teams from the Hoop Group Showcase League, and also teams from Adidas’ 3 Stripes Select Basketball circuit (3SSB), the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL), and even the Under Armour Next circuit.
But there was one game that had the attention of the general public that day on Court 15. It would be the late afternoon matchup between the New York Rens, the finalists of the Nike EYBL Peach Jam last year, against All Hail, comprised of a group of a dozen players from the Pittsburgh area.
But first, let us break down what All Hail really is all about.
All Hail, a media company run by Cullen Honohan, its founder, who is a content creator & a former football player at the College of the Holy Cross, an elite academic university in Worcester, Massachusetts, has been a force since its inception on 2022 and has over a million followers on TikTok and more than 300,000 subscribers on their YouTube page.
All Hail has featured some of the nation’s finest players on their platform, as they did features on national powerhouses such as Archbishop Stepinac High School out of White Plains, New York, and also programs such as Seattle’s own Rainier Beach High School, which featured the No. 1 high school prospect in the class of 2026 in Tyran Stokes, who is currently signed to the University of Kansas, and also J.J. Crawford, who is a promising prospect in the class of 2029, who was recently named to the MaxPreps All-Freshman team, and is also the son of former NBA star and Rainier Beach alumnus Jamal Crawford.
All Hail has also appeared on the campuses of prep school powerhouses such as Arizona Compass Prep, Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, VA), Spire Academy (Geneva, OH) and Iowa United, all of whom competed in the Nike EYBL Scholastic League this past season.
Honohan also does plenty of content online dedicated to college sports and pro sports and has definitely has given the youth plenty of entertainment to watch.
For the last two years, he has brought in some teams to play at the Pitt Jam Fest. In 2024, All Hail played two games against TLBA and Wildcat Select. In the epic game against TLBA, they played against the dynamic duo of the Ellis brothers, which were Eli, who just finished his freshman season at South Carolina and will be transferring to the College of Charleston, and Isaac, who just finished his junior season at Moravian Prep and is verbally committed to the University of Louisville. For All Hail, they countered with Dellquan Warren, who just finished his sophomore season at Mississippi State and will be transferring to McNeese State and Jayden Zimmerman, who was a standout at Quinnipiac University and is transferring to Grand Canyon University.
The game was one for the ages, as both teams battled it out to the wire. But TLBA went on to win, 71-62. Despite not having the intended outcome in the showcase game, the footage went viral on social media and on various YouTube channels.
The following year, they would come back to the Hoop Group Jam Fest and would play TLBA once again, and this time would come out on the winning end, edging the North Carolina-based squad, 73-72.
This year, they would have a solid squad full of players, most of them are seniors such as Knoch guard Teegan Finucan, Lincoln Park guard and Columbia University signee Josh Pratt, South Park forward Luke Scarff, Penn Hills guard and Slippery Rock University signee Amon Hawthorne, Montour guard and Waynesburg University signee Mark Carter, McKeesport guard and Allegany College of Maryland signee Lamont Perkins, Central Catholic guard and West Liberty University signee Lorenzo “Enzo” Khalil.
The underclassmen on this team that were highly heralded were junior forward Aaron Webb out of Indiana High School, who was an explosive player with plenty of size and length with a great motor, and also Luca Federico, a sophomore guard from Chartiers Valley High School, who was a promising player that has a chance to crack the top 100 in the national rankings.
In his videos, Honohan spoke about the latter and had plans to help him go from an unranked player to a nationally-ranked prospect. As of this writing, Federico is making a name for himself on the Adidas 3SSB Circuit, playing on the 16U level for the Ohio-based Wildcat Select.
Webb plays on the independent basketball circuit with My Basketball Academy on the MADE Hoops circuit, which has gained plenty of traction within the past couple of years and has provided plenty of results against teams in exhibition games against teams from the major circuits.
Unfortunately, due to an injury sustained prior to the big matchup, Webb would not be able to participate. But then All Hail soldiered on against the Rens.
Based out of The Bronx, New York, the Rens had some special talent of their own, starting with two players that played for the Cold Hearts squad from the Overtime Elite League in Anderson Diaz, a five-star point guard and a top-20 recruit in the class of 2027 and Caleb Ourigou, who is a top-50 recruit in the class of 2027.
Other supporting cast members for the Young Rens Nation are William Brunson, a sophomore forward out of Rutgers Prep in Somerset County, New Jersey, Joshua Rivera, a junior forward out of the nationally-ranked Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York, Jelani Middleton, a junior guard out of St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island, Tyler Newsome, a junior forward out of St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, Connecticut, and Javan Webb, a senior forward out of Monsignor Scanlan High School in The Bronx, New York, who is leaning towards doing a postgraduate year at a prep school.
At approximately 5 PM on Court 15, every corner of the gym was packed for the anticipated matchup. There were so many people present even before the game that if you weren’t there early, you would miss out on a good spot and thus the action.
When tip-off started, the energy was electric, as both teams held their own. But at some point in the game, the Rens showed their dominance, stifling their counterparts with hard-nosed defense and and some great inside scoring, as well as long-range shooting and the All Hail crew showed plenty of jitters. So much so, that at the half, the Rens were up by a double-digit lead. In the second half, the All Hail crew stepped it up and made some baskets and tried to make it a competitive, respectable affair.
However, the Rens would never relinquish the lead and would go on to win by the score of 57-45.
Although things didn’t go the way they were intended to go, the boys from Western Pennsylvania made their presence felt and represented their region well against high-caliber talent despite the loss. Although most of them will be playing collegiate basketball next season, with a couple of them still having high school eligibility left for a year or two, it was definitely something special to play on a grand stage like the Pitt Jam Fest.
As for Honohan, it was great for him to showcase these youths, some of whom may have always been yearning for a chance to play against high-level competition for awhile and now they got the opportunity. About a week after the game, everything leading up to the game and the matchup itself was featured in a mini-doc, which is currently on YouTube now.
The video was titled, “0 Stars vs. 5 Stars AAU Team, Who Will Win?” and it has since gotten over 89,000 views since its release.
Next year, there’s a chance that All Hail will be back at the David Lawrence Convention Center. And next time, there’s a chance that they will come back better and stronger and walk out of there with a win. But, all will be in due time.
The following week, April 25th, the scene is set at Basketball City, the prestigious basketball gym in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, as MADE Hoops put together their NYC Clash event.
Many teams came from Florida to Massachusetts to play some great competition. Teams like Team New England, Crown, New Heights, Riverside Hawks, Rising Stars and the GB Blue Devils all came out to ball.
But there were two squads that were the feature attraction for the weekend.
Drifty Elite Cold Hearts, a squad run by influencer Jordan Lewis, better known to his supporters as “Drifty Jayy,” has been an influential crew that has been barnstorming at tournaments throughout the last couple of years.
For this stop at Basketball City, they had players such as Diamant Blazi, a player well known for playing in the Overtime Elite league that is known for his athletic leaping ability. Then there was also Siena signee Parrish Edmond, another athletic player from Norwalk, Connecticut, then there is also New Jersey’s very own Peyton Miller, another Cold Hearts player from the Overtime Elite league, who is signed to George Mason. Alan Shi, a native of Brookline, Massachusetts and another Cold Hearts player from OTE, has signed to the University of New Orleans.
However, the biggest name on their squad was none other than Bryson Howard, a four-star recruit from Frisco, Texas that was rated as the No. 27 prospect in the class of 2026 by Sportscaster Next and is going to Duke next season.
For The Leaf, a squad put together by famous streamer Tylil James, most commonly known as, “The Tylil Show,” there was a bevy of talented players on hand.
There were city players such as Brooklyn’s own Jah’da Swann, a former standout at Thomas Jefferson Campus and a recent graduate of the new St. James Performance Academy in Springfield, Virginia, then there is Harlem’s own Denim Trotman, a senior guard at the Eagle Academy for Young Men in The Bronx, whom he helped lead to this year’s PSAL championship. Also, there’s Hassan Koureissi, another Harlemite and a signee of Fordham University that played his high school basketball in Westchester County at Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York and helped the nationally-ranked powerhouse become the first team in the CHSAA to win four consecutive championships.
Two other notables from the five boroughs of New York City that also played for The Leaf was Thomas Jefferson Campus senior guard Richard Jackson, Jr., one of the best guards in the PSAL and also Achievement First Brooklyn junior guard Tyler Romeo, who helped the charter school win their second consecutive PSAL championship this past season.
And last, but certainly not least, there was a special talent who’s name will ring bells in the future. Amare Almodovar, a Harlem native and one of the city’s finest middle school prospects in the class of 2030, was a part of the squad, ready to take on some older competition before he heads to Monsignor Scanlan High School in the fall.
When it comes to games played in New York City, there will always be what are edconsidered to be “guests.” These “guests,” are usually players from outside the area, visiting from different states.
Three “guests” that played for The Leaf were Julius Avent, whom helped lead Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell, New Jersey to two consecutive New Jersey Non-Public state championships and will be heading to Michigan State University this coming season. Then there was another Jersey native in Richie Rosa, a solid guard out of St. Peter’s Prep, the Hudson County powerhouse, who will be heading down the turnpike to Rider University. And lastly, another player, who is out of the tri-state area on I-95 south is none other than Prince Alexander-Moody, a guard out of District Heights, Maryland, which is located less than 10 miles from Washington, D.C., and played his high school basketball at Bishop McNamara High School and will be playing next season at Indiana University.
Throughout the game, there was plenty of action, as both teams stayed close from beginning to end. When it was all said and done, Drifty Elite emerged victorious, 77-76.
It was a great affair for both teams, as some of the city’s finest and players from other parts of the country got to ball out one of New York City’s most prominent hoops cathedrals. As for both teams, the Drifty Elite squad would go winless throughout the rest of the weekend, losing to Team New England’s Pro 16 squad and one of the most talented teams in the MADE Hoops Circuit in NYC Honor. The Leaf would go undefeated the rest of the way, as they knocked off Crown Basketball MHA and Level Up.
When these types of teams hit the court, it brings plenty of excitement to the events, as there are content creators on the court and highlights make platforms like YouTube, Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), and lastly, TikTok.
It’s safe to say, when grassroots season is on pause, you can expect to see these barnstorming teams with many of the nation’s best players in action at a gym near you, no matter what city you’re in. It’s going to be jam-packed and always exciting.
Dave's JOINT 
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