Locust Grove Tournament Friday-Night Favorites

<strong>Montay Davis</strong> | 2024 Tulsa Central CG I was impressed by the natural scoring capabilities of Davis, who scored 14 of Tulsa Central’s first 16 points against Neosho, MO. She has a good handle, though she may be a bit upright at times, but I was quite impressed by her ability to slash and finish runner with a couple dribbles. Davis was very sharp, and was high-clip when it came to baseline floaters, especially. Also handling some on-ball responsibilities for the Braves, she passed the rock well to her teammates and distributed as defenses collapsed onto her. Defensively, Davis set the tone early for Central in that she took for granted few opportunities to jam a casual ball-handler and snag the ball. <b>[player_tooltip player_id="151322" first="Mariah" last="Curley"]</b> | 2021 OKC Storm G A high-iQ player, Curley was the engine for Storm in a tight match with Locust Grove, finishing the game with 12 points on hard-nosed offensive buckets. Curley was able to score face-up, while her defensive game stood out, as well. She gathered steals and was in the middle of numerous disruptions. As far as playing the one-spot goes, she was one of Storm’s primary facilitators. <b>Madison Smith</b> | 2021 Locust Grove G Smith was absolutely unstoppable knocking down shots from the arch against Storm. It was Smith, in fact, who drove the Lady Pirates for most of the game, as she was ultimately the catalyst for Locust Grove scoring 23 of the Lady Pirates’ 47 total points. She knocked down six triples during that match and only missed one free-throw attempt, and a pair of fourth-quarter shots outpaced Storm in its attempt to keep it. <b>Daisy LaPat </b>| 2021 OKC Storm C One of the most powerful players at the tournament, 6-foot-3-inch LaPat was productive in more ways than one against Locust Grove. She scored the basketball, yes, and did so fervently while netting 6 points; but it was the effect of her presence that was most valuable for<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> Storm, perhaps only second to the ways in which she capitalized from her size advantage. Defenders crashed, collapsed on her each time she had the ball in her hands, leaving fellow shooters and scorers wide-open. Her intuition to pass to those players, as well as the skill necessary to do so were both impressive to watch.