Owyhee boys basketball receives national invite to face LeBron James' son
With multiple all-state and future NCAA Division I players on the roster, there’s no telling just how good the Owyhee High School boys basketball team will be for the upcoming season.
But the state, and the rest of the country for that matter, will get a sneak peek in a few short weeks.
The Storm will play in the fourth annual Geico Top Flight Invite. The three-day tournament will run Oct. 13-15 at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, and will be nationally televised on the ESPN networks.
Owyhee will for sure face Notre Dame High School (Calif.), which has Bryce James - the son of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James - on its roster.
“We’re not going to see better athletes than what we’re going to see,” Owyhee coach Andy Harrington said. “The goal is just to play against the best, and I do think we’re going to play against some of the very best programs in the country. I’m just thrilled that our kids get the opportunity and hopefully we can showcase what we’re about and how good we can be.”
This is going to be the Storm’s second go-around in the event after a 2-2 showing last year. They knocked off Corner Canyon (Utah) and Mater Dei (Calif.), which went on to win state and sectional championships, respectively.
So it was only natural that Jeff Kaufman, the director of the tournament and the head coach at Air Nado (NV), wanted them back again. Especially with USC commit Liam Campbell, the 76th-ranked 2024 recruit in the country, according to ESPN, back for his senior year. Kaufman just had to wait for ESPN to sign off on it. The network officially did on Friday and put out the announcement on social media Tuesday.
“He’s told us that they’ve really liked what they’ve seen from our program over the last few years,” Harrington said. “A lot of people don’t know about Idaho. So this was the perfect opportunity to kind of put an Idaho team on the map that can definitely compete with a high-level player.”
In just two years of existence, the Storm have gone 45-9 and won a state title. They only have four losses to teams from Idaho. But this might be Owyhee's best team to date.
Campbell led the 5A in scoring at 20.1 points per game on his way to a second consecutive all-state selection last season.
Logan Haustveit transferred in from Mountain View where he made the all-state squad as a ninth grader.
Junior Jackson Rasmussen is another returning all-state player and holds offers from the likes of Washington State University. And three other players, including Jayce Allen, who has an offer from Carroll College, are back in the fold after earning all-league honors a year ago.
Since Idaho high school teams are prohibited from playing in preseason tournaments, this will technically be the club team in action. So Owyhee will go by its club name, Storm Hoopers. But all of the players participating, will be on the high school roster this season, said Harrington.
Also, because of Idaho High School Activities Association’s "Rule of 2," Harrington and his staff won’t be able to coach the team there. The regulation prevents high school coaches from partaking in any out of season event.
So the Storm will be coached by former Boise State coach Greg Graham and Dan Muscatell, who was the head coach at Sacramento State and an assistant at Oregon. Graham’s son, Marcus, is on Harrington’s staff at Owyhee.
“While they won’t be playing for us, they will definitely be playing for some guys that know a lot about basketball,” Harrington said.
