The 2016 DeKalb County Senior All-Star basketball games are set for Thursday, March 24, 2016.
Sixty of the top DeKalb County senior basketball players are set to face off in a pair of games at Miller Grove High School. The girls’ game starts at 6:00 pm and the boys follow at 7:30 pm.
The games showcase seniors playing their final high school games with and against some of the top players in the state.
DeKalb County extended its consecutive season with at least one state championship to 13 as Miller Grove (7th in 8 seasons) won the Class 5A boys’ title over previously undefeated Allatoona and Southwest DeKalb (5th in 9 seasons) won the Class 5A girls’ championship for the sweep.
It was the seventh DeKalb County sweep of the second largest classification in Georgia since the 2008 season.
The Tucker Lady Tigers finished as the Class 6A runners-up to three-time state champ McEachern.
Coach Sheila Asher’s (Lakeside) All-Star girls’ squad includes Daisa Alexander and Cori Bostic from the Class 5A state champion Southwest squad and four members of the Tucker stat runner-up team including Kelly Johnson-Graham, Najla Shamsid-Deen, Mariyah Trimble and Jayla Morrow.
The other girls’ All-Star team coached by Columbia’s Curtis Gilleylen counters with the county’s leading scorer Kyann Perry of Stone Mountain, the county’s top rebounder Chrystal Ezechukwu and one of the top all-around players in Redan’s Taylor Tucker.
Arabia Mountain’s Samantha Pringle to helped the Lady Rams to their first ever Elite 8 finish and Stephenson’s Miracle Gray who was part of the Lady Jaguars 2015 Class 5A state champion will also help Gilleylen counter Asher’s state championship participants.
Coach Dennis Alexander’s (Lakeside) boys’ All-Star team features Makale Carter and Antonio Reeves from Cedar Grove’s Class 3A Final Four squad along with the Lithonia trio of Jacara Cross, Tyheem Freeman and Rodney Chatman who helped lead the Bulldogs to the Class 4A Final Four this past season.
Stone Mountain’s Tony Stroud sends out the trio of versatile Keith Gilmore, big post player TiQuan Lewis and talented guard Nate Ambersley from Southwest DeKalb’s Elite 8 team to match up with Alexander’s team.
One of the most overlooked players of 2016 is Martin Luther King’s Jaquan Jones (20.7 ppg, 9.1 rpg) whose team finished with just three wins on the season joins the Southwest trio with some fire power. Columbia’s Justin Longstreet, a big outside threat, along with Stone Mountain’s Muhammad Dent (14.0 ppg) and Michael Graham (12.2 ppg, 7.3 rpg) are other go to players for Stroud.
The cost for all fans is $5.