By Dan Weber NKyTribune sports reporter
Yamil Rondon could well be the poster boy for the Griffin Elite Basketball Classic. The Cooper junior guard is exactly where the focus here is.
Ask him and he’ll tell you he’s “five-11 or 6-foot” when you ask. “Say six-foot,” he’s told. “Six-foot it is,” he responds with a smile. “Yes, sir.”
“I love coaching the kid,” Cooper’s Tim Sullivan says. “He’s such a competitor. He won’t stop. He’s one of those rare birds who hates to lose more than he loves to win.”
Although winning wasn’t in the cards at Sunday’s Griffin Elite Classic game against Legacy Charter Early Learning Academy out of Greenville, S.C. With players like T.J. Copeland, a 6-foot-7, 245-pound NFL tight-end-lookalike out of New Jersey’s Bergen Catholic with scholarship offers to Clemson, Texas A&M, Michigan State and Seton Hall just one of a number of Division I prospects at the basketball prep program. A Cooper team without all its parts wasn’t going to win this one.
“But we competed,” Sullivan said as he anticipates the Monday return of 6-6 Shaun Pouncey from a knee injury and then next month, Cooper could get 6-4 junior guard Andy Johnson, who was averaging 25.0 points a game the two games before he fractured his wrist, back.
“We won’t recognize ourselves in January,” Sullivan says. But like everyone around the Cooper program, as well as Griffin Elite Basketball Classic organizer Jordan Simmon, the hope is folks start recognizing Rondon’s talent.
“He showed today he can play at a high level,” Sullivan said of Rondon’s strong early effort with five quick points to start and an eight-point first half limited a bit by his third foul – questionable – rebounding in the final minute before intermission.
Those three fouls shortened his playing time in this game by eight minutes — and a final one in the last minute of the game – cut into his 10-point effort.
“For 32 minutes our kids competed,” Sullivan said. Even after Yandon got his fifth foul for elbowing a defender to get him off him after he’d been riding him – illegally — down the floor. But a tough call for the high school officials in a game that was played with the physicality and athleticism of a high-level college game.
As the player with the most passion doing the most things in this game – from dribble-driving between his legs against two defenders to blind passes into the corner around defenders under the basket to rebounding in traffic – you couldn’t miss Yamil. Even on a court where the other team has 10 players who expect to play college basketball.
“It’s hard for him,” Sullivan says of reining in that drive, that motor, “it’s frustrating . . . but another point where he can learn.”
“My coach talks to me about dealing with adversity,” Rondon says. He’s working on it.
And working on where this Cooper team will be in February after giving up an eight-point run to fall behind, 17-10, at the end of the first quarter and never catching back up after a 13-4 run in the third.
Although that was with Rondon – coaching and encouraging with all his might on the bench — for too long in a 63-40 loss.
“I think we’ll put the pieces together,” Yamil says. Junior Jaiden Combs scored 11 points and competed on the boards against a team that went 6-9, 6-7, 6-5 up front. And junior Chris Rodriguez looks like a ballhandler who can play against pressure and knock down an occasional three.
“We needed to make our threes against a team like this,” Sullivan said. But they didn’t, playing faster than they’ll have to play in most Ninth Region games.
As for Rondon’s college exposure, well, he’s working on it. That he has to is something of a surprise considering how well Yamil did this summer playing for the Puerto Rican National Team in the Under-17 FIBA Tournament of the Americas.
“I don’t have a lot of college interest,” Yamil says. Not yet, anyway. And it doesn’t upset him all that much. “I like it when people look at me as an underdog.”
But he does think about where he might land someday for college basketball. It’s really quite simple.
“Anyone that’s willing to give a 5-11 – uh 6-foot – guard like me a chance,” he says, “I’ll be there.”
SCORE BY QUARTERS
COOPER 12 5 10 10—40
LEGACY CHARTER 17 13 15 18—63
LEGACY CHARTER: Shackleton 1 0 2 2, Bryson 7 3 2 19, Copeland 3 0 1 7, Rembert 0 0 0 0, Hansen 3 2 2 10, Grant 2 0 0 4, K. King 3 2 3 11, Magee 0 0 0 0, Christian 3 0 1 7: TOTALS: 22-8-11-63.
COOPER: Blackburn 0 0 1 1, Brown 0 0 2 2, Combs 3 0 5 11, Rodriguez 3 1 0 7, Murphy 1 0 0 2, Johnson 2 0 0 4, Rondon 4 1 1 10, Austin 1 0 0 2, TOTALS: 14-2-10–40.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.