Frustrated? Yes E-Woods is. I’m supposed to be covering Women’s Drew League in Compton this summer but the league is paused, delayed because Covid-19 has shut down all public school gyms.
Women’s Drew and Basketball Beauties are the most elite hoop leagues for women besides the Air West Pro Runs played near USC.
That’s why these G2 Elite games are important, unfolding in a gym this summer called The Go Get It Done Arena in Corona, run by the great owner Marlon Lewis.
I hope reading and seeing the vid (linked at end of this story) of these ladies playing truly inspires others to keep playing and playing safely. Are these games deep proof of a woman’s heart to play? It can’t stop, won’t stop.100.
It’s July 2, 2020 and very sharp players fall into this great Go Get It gym as they safely share dap, dap hugs with lots of space between bodies. Pulses quicken and it’s time to get down. Will last week’s team go unbeaten again?
5 teams. 5 players per squad, 1 goal in cranium: Win, impose your will, show what you got, never let em catch you acting bootsie, rep for the culture, no 1/2 stepping is allowed, ever!
My goal in this story? Give a lil breakdown, show that these 25 women deserve to be spoken into existence, WOMEN COUNT!
Me, E-Woods, I prepped my own eyeballs, prepped the orbs to see fye games
I want to say big ups to the team that couldn’t be beat the previous week. It was led by Londynn Jones and Asia Avinger, no team names assigned, just chest out, rep for yo 5 is all the team you need to be called.
A-Avinger was a straight up force of nature like she always is, her squad seemed impossible to beat. Anything prep soph Londynn Jones plays is generational fye ALL DAY LONG. Londeeezy is going to attend Corona Centennial High next year and is UNSTOPPABLE.
I have a special place in my heart for Londeeezy, always want to give her smoke, that challenge she can rise up to. Maybe offer a lil talk trash to get her fired up somehow because I care. These games she played in confirm that there’s no prep comp that can touch her game. Very few college players can either.
L-Jones plays like AI, with the power of LeBron as well. She has no holes in her game so I’ll try to find some WNBA or NBA player to ball her up, then I’ll try to talk a bit of smoke to get her fired up on 10. L-Jones is the epitome of branding.
# L-Jones is the truth
I’m proud to have watched these runs but there is so much detail I won’t be able to unpack. So saying the ladies absolutely killed it? Understatement.
Jayda Curry showed a dazzling game as usual. It must be said that J-Curry reps class as she helped her older cuz Gerald Williams contact players, handle the invite list, and get these games going to help her prepare for elite college competition after prep.
I saw J-Curry holding a clipboard in hand, acting like a GM, which is no fun but these pressure experiences turn girls into women. Salute, salute J-Curry.
This story will focus on other lesser known dope girls and women that are breaking out to establish their rep, and also on Gerald Williams II of the Inland Empire who starred at Tennessee St and recently killed it for my guy Rock Johnson on the I-Can squad in Men’s Drew League.
What should people know about Gerald? He’s big bro to a bunch of little sis’s in the IE, they all seem to love and appreciate Gerald. Girls put their arm around him, feel comfortable around him and say thanks to him because he’s good people.
Who else really needs to be known?
I’m excited to say that these games are drawing mad attention and burn for others to join in. I heard in the streets that Charisma Osborne might play and confirmed that a recently graduated University of Kentucky guard Jaida Roper is flying into Corona to partake this week. She just ave 8 ppg for the Wildcats.
Now do you see people? This is big!
Another prep baller who has been a part of these runs is Chloe Briggs, phenom of Ontario Christian who averaged nearly 40 ppg as a freshman. I heard she shot her shot at the runs, made defenders pay for hand down, yo woman down!
Noemi Yim came in with blazing speed, crazy handle, swag to spare, efficient. This soph at LMU was just relentless all day. She impressed so much along with junior Alyssa Frescas of Mater Dei. A-Frescas was bang-bang, pop-pop with that J, and so was Trinity San Antonio,
It’s hard to single out just a few players since so many were inspiring in their play. I really liked watching Ashlee Lewis of Long Beach Poly. Her tall and ultra strong frame will do her well at CS-Fullerton because she just couldn’t be stopped down low, windex clean on the boards.
It was super dope to see this one particular girl have that break out moment to show she could belong and even thrive vs. more veteran players. Who E-Woods? Layla Curry, a prep soph who played like a soph in college. She did her thing, made long, long 3 point killa daggers at the buzzer to win games.
My feeling watching that? Priceless.
I took L-Curry off to the side, reminded her that I know of great dude, Russ Westbrook, when he played up vs. tougher players in the famed Rico Hines runs at UCLA. That’s where Russ turned the corner. I looked Layla in the eye and said, “I feel like you’re turning the corner into a big-time prospect, because all eyez on you Layla!”
My point of this whole article is that it presents an opportunity for girls to step it up in games for and against each other, to earn that respect.
I noticed 4-5 women who were starting to get cooking, not in the kitchen silly rabbit, I’m not sexist, on the court. When I say a player is cooking, that’s the ultimate sign of respect. If you start to cook at these G2 Elite runs, (short for Gerald Williams II Elite runs), that’s what’s up!
I was also very high on 8th grader Destiny Agubata. At 5-11 this future guard reminds me in personality, fierce mentality, and built-frame wise in a lot of ways like a young Kennedy Burke, a great friend of mine who plays in the WNBA.
I call Destiny “D-Money” out of respect to her. She was attack, attack, attack all day, fighting for every loose ball. It’s so, so important to realize when you have an 8th grader that could be great, playing vs. established ballers is quintessential.
Destiny was the only 8th grader playing this day but Brooklyn Shamblin, who already holds offers from D1 programs since 7th and 8th grade, will be ballin’ at these runs soon. That anticipation of how she will process vs. elite comp? To me E-Woods, that’s what it’s all about!
I was very high on U of Riverside junior Keilani Cooper, like all the rest of the women this day she played classy and had a pop to her game in transition. She averaged 11 ppg in the Big West, but everyone could go in these games.
It was this girls’ joyful expression, those grunts to try to get it done, all the smiles of the ladies that lit up my day. Because there is no AAU for them to get down with, I saw people in the gym wearing masks, oftentimes going to the bathroom to wash hands, play for fun, and try to stay safe.
This was the ladies’ movement, you could see it in all their eyes having the time of their lives this day. This needed to happen and G-Williams II and his lil cuz Jayda, they got it crackin fosho!
I won’t soon forget Mina Guevara-Goss zipping up and down the court, super athletic. She plays at Mt. Sac junior college but this day she just belonged to the game of basketball and she dominated, she smiled.
When I asked Mina which college she hoped to transfer to, she said “Whichever one will play me and offer me a scholarship”. These games are helping her grind to help keep those scholly dreams alive, she can’t be denied that dream.
Mina’s average of 11 ppg at Mt Sac had her prepare for this day, but nothing could prepare me to see the souls of all these ladies shine through their hearts and onto the court. I was flush with emotion because E-Woods, like the ladies, misses being around hoop.
We’ve all been starved of b-ball. We ate hoop together in unison all day, we drank in the day, it replenished us all. It’s just like Langston Hughes proclaims in his thesis:
“What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?”
How can we as a society take away a woman’s dream in sports to feel special and deserving of attention? These games had to be played.
These women were displaying some of their feelings through their clothes. Some wore profound shirts that said, I Can’t Breath, as an obvious tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement, which I hope we all could celebrate and come together for.
These awesome, awesome women would’ve made proud the epic writer Lorraine Hansberry, who in 1964 wrote this beyond fye book with these impassioned words below that I dedicate to the players this day:
“I wanted to be able to come here and speak with you on this occasion because you are young, gifted, and black...I, for one, can think of no more dynamic combination that a person might be... And that is why I say to you that, though it be a thrilling and marvelous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so, doubly dynamic—to be young, gifted, and black.”
#Black pride, honor all life
How do I explain what this day meant to me? Just being a part of this lit my soul on fire because I got to meet the ever dope Dalis and Paris Jones, and their fantastic mom Elise. That mos def made my month!
What else was remarkable? I met cool people, like a girl named Remarkable. She plays for LA Trade Tech. I saw her grind, as she played with all she had.
How much did it take out of me getting to Corona? Everything, I’m not complaining but with traffic it takes 3 hours for me to drive one way to the gym. If the games were closer, I’d go every Tuesday and Thursday because I hear Queen Ruffin is supposed to play, along with Windward’s Ju Ju Watkins as well.
All the match ups I’ve seen thus far had E-Woods enjoying the day. If you had been there with me, you’d have seen great play, laughs, sisterhood, a return to full hoop joy, and that’s been missing for quite some time.
Ok people, less E-Woods and more peep the action for yourself. Click the link, buckle up, and enjoy the show.
I kept this a short story, celebrated where I could, to honor these ladies play. Watch and feel the Games! 100.
Ok people, less E-Woods and more peep the action for yourself. Click the link, buckle up, and enjoy the show.
