Guard Taj Regans (No. 11) of two-time defending CIF state champ Encino Crespi breaks into the 2018 Cal-Hi Sports Hot 100, while backcourt mate Brandon Williams (No. 2) has played himself into a McDonald’s All-American candidate. Photo: Andrew Drennen
Our boys basketball coverage for Gold Club VIPs continues with a look at the state’s top college prospects in each class. Yesterday we published our 2017 Hot 100 for seniors and today we take a look at the Hot 100 juniors (2018). Our post-summer Cal-Hi Sports Hot 100 will be updated at least once during the season and we’ll come back and publish our final rankings for 2016-17 in early summer 2017.
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The first 2018 Cal-Hi Sports Hot 100 for the 2016-17 school year is based on evaluations from this past summer’s NCAA viewing periods and non-viewing showcases since June. These rankings are based on college potential, not high school performance, although the baseline of where we begin with each prospect begins with high school basketball.
We’ll follow this report with our post-summer player rankings for the 2019 class (Top 65) and introduce the Class of 2020 (Top 25). In the coming months, we’ll continue publishing our archived Hot 100s as part of the most comprehensive California state player rankings you’ll find on the Internet that you can sort through using the easy-to-use dropdown menu below.
The previous rankings in the 2018 post-summer Hot 100 refers to the player’s position in the previous list we published in July 2016 right before the beginning of the summer viewing period in conjunction with the Hoop Scoop, our partner for boys basketball national player rankings.
There are eight newcomers among the top 65 of the Class of 2018 and 35 more players to round out the first Hot 100 for this class. We expand from 65 to 100 players when sophomores enter their junior season and expand from 25 to 65 when freshmen enter 10th grade.
Leading the way among the newcomers is big man Fred Odhiambo from Alemany of Mission Hills, who checks in at No. 16. The recent transfer from Church Farms (Exton, Pa.) via Kenya is a mid-major plus prospect, according to Alemany coach Tray Meeks. He’ll fit nicely into a perimeter-oriented team looking to capture its third consecutive Mission League title this year.
