Aces Coca Cola Nationals Recap: Top Finishers

Bruce Williams June 25, 2021 @ 07:43 PM

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The Coca Cola Nationals took place June 18th – 20th in Garden Grove California. The event featured nearly 500 youth teams ranging from 2nd grade all the way to the 11th. This huge tournament-style event featured 5 competitive divisions for each age group. Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Invite, which was the top division. I spent most of the weekend evaluating talent in the Invite division, which featured several players with advanced finishing ability. In this article, we take a look at the top Finishers from the event.

Gavin Sykes 5’11 SG Sacramento Soldiers 2025 – Sykes’ main skill is his ability to get deep into the lane off penetration. What makes this so important is that he has terrific finishing ability. Sykes finished when he got all the way to the rim, using the glass and angles, to ward off defenders.

Latrell Almond 6’4 PF Heights 2026 (featured image) – Almond played up this weekend. You wouldn’t be able to tell based on his physicality and finishing ability. Almond is a long, athletic, physical specimen, in fact, the class of 2026 forward, was one of the most impressive players at finishing through contact. He had a ton of buckets right around the rim, surrounded by bodies.

Chase Wallin 6’0 C WOGO 2027 – Wallin is definitely a player, I plan on keeping my eye on. He was good at scoring around the rim. The 6’0 5 man has underrated hands, allowing him to rebound and catch tough interior passes. Once he secured the ball, the lefty was efficient completing plays around the rim.

Jaizahn Lewis 5’5 PG G-Elite 2027 – Lewis was one of the top scorers for G-ELite. The speedy PG had several transition finishes, racing down the floor past everyone for layups. He did a good job of attacking the rim, in the games I watched. He scored a 3rd of G-ELites 36 points in their game against Seattle Rotary

Raymond Whitley 6’0 SG Vegas Elite 2025 – Vegas Elite won the 13U title, so I obviously saw quite a bit of Whitley. However, he was almost more impressive in the games I didn’t watch. Every time I turned around, I would see Whitley getting out and scoring in transition. He managed to score through contact and was good at finishing strong drives to the basket.

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