Arizona Basketball: BallisLife All-American Game 2016
By Ryan Reyes
Arizona Basketball was on full display this last weekend at the Ballislife All-American Game, two five-star Wildcats stole the show.
The 6th annual 2016 Ball is Life All-American Game presented by Eastbay on a sunny Saturday afternoon down at Long Beach City College, home of the Vikings. Throughout the afternoon media, fans, and other celebrities such as ex-Wildcat SF Stanley Johnson, made an inconspicuous appearance during the days festivities.
Sponsors, Eastbay, gave tribute to the 90’s Orlando Magic with the 2016 BallIsLife All-American game jerseys. The thought was to capture Shaq’s early years, or in other words, “The ShawShaq Redemption! It is what 90s Orlando Magic commentators Jack Givens and Chip Carrey would yell when Brian Shaw would throw an alley-oop to Shaquille O’Neal.”
Two future Wildcats participated in this exhibition to show off their three-point shooting, dunking and team chemistry during the exhibition game. Two of Arizona’s five-star commits Rawle Alkins (pronounced Rawlee) a 6 5″ SF from Brooklyn, New York and Terrance Ferguson, a 6 7″ SG from Dallas, Texas became the main attraction.
Alkins showed off his three-point shooting skills by setting the bar for other All-Americans with 13 three-pointers made in the first round. Even though he fell short of winning the three-point shooting contest, Alkins showed Wildcat fans that there will be multiple threats from beyond the perimeter than Allonzo Trier.
Terrance Ferguson was no slouch from beyond the perimeter either. But his attributes were on full display in the most anticipated event of the afternoon, the slam dunk contest.
Ferguson’s windmill dunk from the free-throw line brought down the house and sealed his fate as the 2016 Ball is Life All-American Dunk Champion. Ferguson also showed us his dancing skills, which were commendable.
In the actual exhibition game, which was mostly an all-offensive game, Rawle Alkins was a definite highlight in his silky smooth all-around play. He rebounded, assisted, dunked and even got a couple of steals to help Team Future to a 152-134 victory. Ferguson played few minutes in the first half of the game but was not seen on the floor in the second half.
After the game our very own ZonaZealot editor in chief, Shereen Rayan sat down with both All-Americans for a quick interview. The interview will be available later on this week. Both have big personalities that Wildcats fans will come to enjoy.
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Ferguson and Alkins played along with three future UCLA Bruins; former Arizona commit, T.J. Leaf, Lonzo Ball, and Ike Anigbogu. Watching our Cats play these future Bruins gave us a glimpse of the future, the Pac-12 is going to be extremely competitive.
It was exuberating to see two future Arizona Wildcats battle it out in NBA fashion in a thrilling Dunk Championship. For ZonaZealots, the wait and anticipation was finally over, we were able to see these two highly skilled and fun to watch ballers play the sport they love. Soon they will be playing on the same team on the same court in Tucson, with all their Wildcats fans in attendance to cheer them to victory after victory.
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The basketball team will be in very good hands with these two All-Americans on the squad. Kudos to the both of you and welcome to the Wildcat Family! BEARDOWN!!!