Dino Gaudio watching Deuce Bello from the front row

The coach of Numero Uno, Dino Gaudio, was sitting in front row at the Greesboro Coliseum Special Events Center on Monday evening as Ragsdale battled Westchester in the Josh Howard Foundation/MLK Day basketball challenge.

Gaudio has his Wake Forest Demon Deacons ranked first in the country and he is out scouting for future WFU talents. I had not seen Deuce Bello before Monday night, and on first impression, I would say this kid is good and could be very good down the road. That’s what Gaudio and other recruiters will be banking, down the road improvement.

Bello, only a sophomore, had 27 on Monday and many of those came on a variety of dunks. Several of those slams came after Ragsdale coach Craig Shoemaker had sent his starters to the bench, but Coach Shoemaker didn’t hesitate to bring his regulars back when Westchester made a run on a barage of dunks by Bello and Ike Nwamu. Nwamu will also get recruiting attention, since he, like Bello, is only a sophomore.

High Point University coach Bart Lundy was in the house keeping an eye on his prize recruit, Jay Canty, who had 22 for Ragsdale. The Tigers got a team-leading 25 from Tyquan Roberts and 18 out of guard Wally Jones.

Duke-bound Ryan Kelly had the day’s biggest numbers as he put in 47 points in a losing cause for Ravenscroft. Kelly’s coach is former Duke Blue Devil Kevin Billerman who has a son Sean on his Ravens’ bench and the bench got hot in the game against Northern receiving two technicals and Billerman, the coach/dad, got tossed….

Northern Guilford had balanced scoring in their win over Ravenscroft with Jacob Lawson having a fine day with 29 points and a number of rebounds and blocks, while Chris McCain put in 16, Jon Frye 13 and Asad Lamont 13 for NG. Julius Brooks led Page in the Pirates’ victory over Forsyth Country Day. Julius had 21 points, AJ Finney 16 and Mitchell Oates 10 for the Pirates. The word in the stands was that AJ Finney did a super job defensively on Tyler Lewis in the second half. Most of the scoring for Lewis, the super freshman, who people have been talking about since he was in eighth grade, came in the first half. Lewis finished with 28.

Greensboro Day’s top man in the Bengals win over Glenn was Pizza Hut Invitational MVP, Jay Lewis. Lewis had 24 points for GDS, while Lucas Weavil and his outside shooting stroke gave the Bengals 11 points.

We will talk more about the Oak Hill-Christ School game in the afternoon.