Thursday, March 19th, 2009 at 11:25 am  |  9 responses

Xavier Henry Will Be Televised

Our Diary Keeper gets some network shine

by Ryan Jones

Our current Basketball Diary writer, Xavier Henry of Putnam City HS in Oklahoma City, wrapped up a state championship over the weekend — you can read more about that in the next issue of the magazine. Assuming you’re one of those people who actually does follow the Diary, you’ll appreciate some footage of Xavier that turned up in the past week or two: This all-access feature from The Oklahoman, OKC’s daily newspaper, breaks down Putnam City’s state title win over Jenks HS of Tulsa. Top-three highlights?

1) Xavier’s drive and dunk around 3:10.

2) Xavier fouling out with the game in hand so he could get an ovation (we see you player).

3) My man Brandon Chatman’s voice on the narration. Gus Johnson needs to watch his back.

I’ll also take this opportunity to shout out Jenks’ senior Bryson Pope, a University of Tulsa signee who, from the look of things here, is pretty nice.

And then I just stumbled across this (hat tip to Google News Alerts!): The local Fox affiliate in Memphis did a feature on Xavier for a recent broadcast (I couldn’t get it to embed, but it’s the video on the left). It’s a little bit dated but gives a decent sense of Xavier’s story to date. Plus, it’s got an Auto-Tune soundtrack, so you really can’t lose.


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  • http://www.slamonline.com Justin Walsh

    haha he goes “and it’s a pass of the backboard to Henry…Eeeexcellent.”

  • http://www.slamonline.com Ryan Jones

    Needless to say, you’ll also be able to catch Xavier during the McDonald’s All-American game in a couple weeks.

  • http://where-basketball-b-longs.blogspot.com B. Long

    Is Tyreke staying in school or is leaving even an option for him right now. I don’t think it should be. Evans and Henry would be narsty together.

  • http://www.slamonline.com Ryan Jones

    I don’t know what Reke is doing, but I don’t think there’s any question that leaving is an option, B. Dude’s got a pretty good shot at the first round, particularly if he has a strong tourney run. Maybe the next three weeks will decide it for him.
    As for him and Henry, they’d be SCARY together, though I’d worry about having enough balls to go around. Given the other guys they’ve got coming in next year, it could be too many dudes used to having the ball in their hands.

  • http://slamonline.com Ben Osborne

    Yeah, Xavier. I think Reke is definitely turning pro. Memphis will be just fine with X, Cousins and maybe John Wall…Ryan, did you go to the big Penn State-Rhody game tonight?

  • Quail

    i dont think John Wall will sign with Memphis if Reke stays.

  • http://www.slamonline.com Ryan Jones

    Ben: Yes. We played without our co-best player and still won by 11. NIT Fever? Oh, I’ve caught it.

  • http://slamonline.com Jedi Knight

    Hey out there does any body know where the memphis recriuts going, are they still going to memphis?

  • http://www.slamonline.com Ryan Jones

    Nobody knows yet, Jedi, but you can probably safely assume that they’re not going to Memphis.

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