Here are some random thoughts I had while watching the 2013 event:

-I thought when Aaron Gordon said he was going to commit at the event, he meant the game. But since the McDonald’s All-American showcase last four days with the practices, hospital visit, dunk contest, and game, Gordon snuck in his announcement on Tuesday. He chose Arizona.

-Early on we saw Kentucky’s Andrew Harrison feed Kentucky’s Aaron Harrison on an alley-oop dunk. I have a feeling these two will be assisting on each other’s baskets a lot next year. There’s nothing like the chemistry two twins can build with one another. It is particularly amusing to see such highly ranked twin guards. Many of the recent twins in basketball have been forwards or centers. (See Brook and Robin Lopez in the NBA and David and Travis Wear at UCLA.)

-I don’t dislike Jalen Rose or Jay Williams, but they were a terrible choice to announce this game. They talked about Mike Rice Jr. They compared LeBron James to Michael Jordan. They talked about the one-and-done rule. They talked about whether players should be paid. And they barely talked at all about the players on the court. Look, I’m not saying they have to be diagraming plays here. This is an all-star game. This is pretty much mindless entertainment. But the main audience of this game is fans of the various schools. Don’t you think the Indiana fans would like you to point out when Noah Vonleh actually got in the game. And what about telling some nice anecdotes about these players. No one knows anything about these guys right now.

-I found this particularly irritating when combined with the new jerseys the players were wearing. These were the jerseys with the dark on dark numbers. Sometimes you could see the numbers clearly, but often you couldn’t. So basically you have players that the viewers are not familiar with, the announcers are not calling their names out, and you cannot identify them by their jerseys. Nice.

-At 10:37 in the first half, one of the players took a brutal off-balance three pointer from way beyond the NBA line. I laughed and wondered who it was, but couldn’t figure it out. But if there was any question about my sanity, I can tell you from reading the play-by-play data the next day, that it was Aaron Harrison.

-The announcers do finally give us a factoid. They note that Kansas commit Wayne Selden wins by dominating other guards physically, but that he needs to work on his jump shot. Ouch, that comment hurts. But I do see it. With 3:42 left in the second half, he is left unguarded, stands for three seconds, before finally taking an NBA three. It doesn’t even hit the rim.

-At 6:49 of the first half, Aaron Gordon blows an under-the-leg dunk, then gets the ball back and puts in a floater. Later Jalen Rose praises Gordon for even trying that crazy dunk. Gordon will go on to get 8-9 dunks in the game and win the MVP. Amazingly, it seemed like just about all of Gordon’s points came on plays where he was unguarded. It wasn’t that he had great dribble-drives or post-moves. Gordon simply hustled more than anyone else on the floor. He was always the first one down the court. He was usually the first one back on defense. He was often the only won fighting for the offensive rebound. And as the announcers noted, he even asked for more practice time before the game so he could practice his free throws. Gordon might not be the best athlete in this game. But he might be the hardest working player, and that will be huge for Sean Miller at Arizona.

-Now it is time to talk about the major uncommitted recruit, Andrew Wiggins. It seems like he might go to Florida St. because both his parents went there. But they also say that Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky are in the running. While there is some scary part of me that wants to see him go to Kentucky just to see what happens when you have seven super recruits on the same team, I have to admit that they look overloaded at this point. And North Carolina has too many wings and off-guards too. I just don’t see how he fits in with the Tar Heels.

-With 12 seconds left in the first half we get my absolute favorite play of the game. Kentucky’s Julius Randle pulls off a ridiculous alley-oop reverse dunk in traffic.  That play was worth the price of admission.

-I love Jay Williams. When asked who impressed him at half-time he said, “No one.” Look, you didn’t bother to call any of the action. How could you have possibly been excited by what any player was doing?

-I have an answer. My new favorite player is Washington commit Nigel Williams-Goss. At 17:45 left in the second half, Williams-Goss dove on the floor to take a loose ball from the other side. Who dives on the floor in an all-star game? Then with 15:30 left in the second half he blocked a shot on the perimeter. You only do that by paying attention defensively. You might block a shot by the basket based on athleticism, but you block shots on the perimeter by caring about defense. Then with 2:30 left in the game he was called for a hard foul on Wayne Selden, trying to prevent a lay-up. Nigel Williams-Goss is a competitor. He also led all players with 6 assists in the game. Williams-Goss has a 4.0 GPA too. Lorenzo Romar should be very excited.

-Just after the 15 minute mark in the second half, #1 recruit Andrew Wiggins busts out a beautiful spin move and banked floater to beat #2 recruit Jabari Parker. (Parker is committed to Duke by the way.) Finally Jay Williams has some real praise. He notes that Wiggins doesn’t have a lot of wasted motion. What makes him special is that he doesn’t dribble around for 30 seconds. To paraphrase, “At the higher levels of basketball, you have to make quick moves and quick decisions. Wiggins does that.”

-At the 13 minute mark, Kentucky’s Julius Randle goes coast-to-coast for a dunk. The other side tries to beat him back by cherry-picking a full-court basket. The strategy works. But notably, Randle is the only player to run from end to end to try to contest the shot. Nice hustle. Ignoring the obvious skill of Kentucky’s Harrison Twins, I was very impressed with the skill level of both Randle and James Young in this game. Both seemed to have fantastic body-control. If Kentucky gets the fast-break going this year, this team is going to be ridiculously scary.

-And with 2:30 to go we get the hard foul by Williams-Goss. Wayne Selden sells it with a few extra barrel rolls on the floor, to give us one more laugh on the evening.