MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The third annual American Homes Holiday Classic will feature seven teams and a number of future Division I college basketball players with major offers from Power 5 schools.
“For lack of a better word, there’s some studs coming to Morgantown to play basketball over the next couple of days,” Morgantown Head Coach Dave Tallman said Wednesday on Morgantown AM.
Tallman’s Mohigans (3-1) will face Fairmont Senior on Thursday and Shroder Paidea (Cincinnti, Ohio) on Friday. The tournament also features Rock Creek Christian (Upper Marlboro, Maryland), Kennedy Catholic (Washington, Pennsylvania), in-state Woodrow Wilson High School, and Lee High School (Huntsville, Alabama). Lee features one of the tournament’s top draws.
“They have a kid named Kobe Brown,” Tallman said. “He’s 6’7”, about 240 pound guard who you can imagine everybody in the country is recruiting. He’s an ESPN Top 60 kid. West Virginia is on him pretty hard.”
Brown, a junior, has received offers inside the SEC, Big 12, ACC, Big East, and Big 10. He’s also received offers from schools in the American, A-10, and Ohio Valley Conference. Brown will be joined by a number of in-state headliners, including three Fairmont Senior players being heavily recruited, led by Zyon Dobbs.
“We don’t have as much probably as a lot of states, but the ones that we do send out are pretty good,” Tallman said. “And I think they play at a pretty good level once they get onto the college scene.”
Tallman said a number of businesses have teamed up to help make the third annual classic a reality — giving Morgantown and other in-state schools major exposure to some of the nation’s top high school basketball programs. It doesn’t hurt either, Tallman said, that it lets the Mohigans stay a little closer to home.
“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Tallman said. “We’re trying to bring in some great teams that can come to our court. Gives us a couple more home games instead of having to travel three hours to play a holiday classic — we’ll host our own.”
Broadcasts of Morgantown’s games can be heard Thursday and Friday on WAJR.