Looking to finish their summer travel season with good showings at their national tournaments, the South Georgia Kings basketball teams were busy washing cars Saturday to raise travel money.
The players temporarily traded in the dribbling and shooting for some scrubbing and rinsing in the parking lot of Applebee’s and, fortunately for them, the cars were steadily streaming in.
SGK co-founder Leonard Hall said all his teams, which includes grade levels fifth through high school, just returned from the Memorial Day Classic in Savannah, where each team earned a championship trophy.
The teams now will start to hit the road, with trips scheduled to North Georgia and Orlando, so the organization planned the car wash to raise funds needed to send each team to their respective national tournament.
“Our fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders will be competing in the YBOA nationals, and the eighth-graders will play in the AAU nationals,” Hall said. “Our high-school-aged teams are going to the Under Armour Showcase July 11-14 before heading down to Orlando at the end of July for the AAU national tournament.”
Among those pushing a sponge was former South Georgia King and Liberty County High School basketball standout Rion Brown. Next season, Brown will be a senior at the University of Miami, where he is considered among the Hurricanes’ best returning scorers. Since his freshman season, Brown has scored 611 points, and this past season he helped the Hurricanes win the ACC title.
Hall said it’s determined players like Brown and former SGK player Jordan McRae, who plays at the University of Tennessee, who have set the bar and have inspired a new generation of SGK players looking to make a name for themselves at the next level.
“I honestly have to say that within our sophomore-age group team, we have six legitimate (NCAA) Division I prospects,” Hall said, adding he and SGK founder Jessie Fleming take daily calls from college scouts regarding their players. “And within our junior-age group, we have some Division II ball players, and our up-and-coming freshman class is pretty talented, also.”