Draft Sicko Confidential: The All-American JUCO Showcase
Stephen Gillaspie gives his on-site account of the 2025 All-American JUCO Showcase.
Intro
This piece is meant to serve three purposes. For starters, I wanted to recap my time spent with the fine people of the All-American JUCO Showcase. It was a remarkable event to attend over a period of two days. I’ve watched basketball the majority of my life, but rarely do I ever learn something new while I’m watching games. I’m not talking about learning a player’s tendencies or abilities—I’m talking about how things work organizationally, that allow events like this to take place.
That brings me to the second purpose of this piece. There is still so much about the basketball world that I just don’t know. And that’s totally fine. That’s what allowed me to learn so much this weekend. I had the opportunity to meet some very knowledgeable and awesome people at the event, who helped me learn more about the world of Junior College Basketball.
I came to the showcase understanding that many successful and talented players (yes, even in the NBA) have come through the JUCO ranks, but I never really invested significant time trying to understand that side of the basketball world. I would never claim to be the foremost authority in all things basketball, but I would venture to guess that if I had a lack of perspective regarding this side of things, perhaps you do too. With that in mind, I would like to share some of what I learned from the perspectives of coaches, players, and basketball lovers I met while I was there.
Lastly, you know I’m going to bring you some names that stood out to me! As a basketball sicko with a platform, I am pleased to bring you some names that are likely not on your future boards! Again, I am not the foremost authority in terms of JUCO hoops, but the directors of this event are, and they brought me (and a few hundred college coaches) the best Junior College players in the country to watch! There were several talented young men who will be playing NCAA D-I hoops in the near future, so you might as well get to know them now!
Day One (July 12th)
To prepare for my weekend of getting more familiar with the world of JUCO basketball, I took a five-hour road trip to the Greater Atlanta region, checking into my rental apartment. After a decent night’s sleep, I checked into the reception area at Morrow High School in Ellenwood, Georgia, not knowing what to expect. One gentleman who plays a huge part in running this showcase is Brad Winton—who has been around the game of basketball for quite a while. Brad is a former college coach and agent, but he now serves as the co-owner and director of scouting for Elite Basketball Services. This organization does a great job of providing opportunities to talented individuals who may not otherwise have the chance to showcase their abilities to the basketball world. After meeting and speaking with Brad, I walked away with a greater understanding of the JUCO world—an area that has, admittedly, been an area requiring improvement. After reaching out to attend this event for No Ceilings, the basketball nerd in me just had to find some time with him to gain a greater understanding as to why an event like this exists.
“We started in 2011 in Las Vegas and Orlando, when the live periods were stretched out for about three weeks. I was a former college coach—former college player, and when I got out of college it [my calling] was coaching. I saw there was an additional need for events like this. There were some good one—Jerry Mullen did one for many years and it was good.
As a former JUCO player, it was something I was wanting to do. I understood it from the players perspective, and how rewarding it was just to help those guys. From there, we just have done it every year—and every year, it’s just grown and grown. And we starting jucorecruiting.com—the site—and the social media stuff in 2011. It wasn’t huge then, but it helped us to really grow it and cover JUCO guys nationally.
We combined these events and have one of the bigger scouting services in the country, too, covering Junior College guys, and just kind of merged all of those things and have grown it over the years.”
After the players held and completed a meeting at the beginning of the day (around 9 AM ET), college coaches and media personnel were allowed to enter the gym. If you have ever been to one of these events (Portsmouth Invitational, EYBL events, etc.), cell phone service was, of course, not optimal. Normally, this sort of thing would be annoying, but I prefer not being distracted when scouting—even if it was going to be a full eight hours of consecutive games.