We already know that if you want to see yesterday's Syracuse stars of tomorrow who never were, you can check them out in Utica's King of Kings Summer Basketball League. But now you'll get the chance to see tomorrow's Syracuse stars of...tomorrow, um, tomorrow if you like. The KOK League has been granted the right to play current D-1 players and Syracuse University is taking the opportunity to work out some of it's newbies:
In addition to local talent like Holland Patent's/SUNYIT's Dave Golembiowski, Whitesboro's/Utica's Pat Goodman and Notre Dame's/Ithaca's Sean Burton, three Syracuse University-bound freshman will play this year: Brandon Triche, who Jim Boeheim says will be the Orange's starting point guard this season, Mookie Jones and James Southerland. Sophomore Scoop Jardine, who sat out last season due to injury, will also play.
See, the KOK gets it. Load up on name-brand local talent and that's a product I'm interested in. Take heed, ShockWave.
The league finally has a website too. It's got team listings, their mission and even some very tough-but-fair rules:
Any attempted or landed punches will result in immediate ejection from the game and suspension from the league. (NO discussions.)
So keep it clean cause just like with Boeheim, there's no talkback!
Looks like it will feature eight squads, one of which is the Prestige Elite team which will feature all four of the Orange players. They won it all two years ago and were runner-up last season. Apparently, Prestige Elite is the Yankees of the KOK League, they just keep reloading.
But fear not, some of your old favorites(?) will be playing this season as well. Call of the search for Billy Edelin! Found him! He's playing for Greater Grace this season. Oh and he'll be defending his scoring title this year. You can't stop Billy Edelin, you can only hope to contain him.
Remember DeAndre Preaster? He was the Utica two-sport standout committed to play football for the Orange in February of last year before heading to D-III Morrisville College when he couldn't qualify academically. Well DeAndre is spending his summer playing for Da Bombers.
Didn't see any official word that former SU players Josh Wright, Laz Sims or DaShaun Wright are still in the league, but fingers are crossed.