From: Rene Pulley

Where do I begin to talk about the final weeks of our fantastic summer for all the Howard Pulley teams.  The ups and downs, laughing, crying during the season with all the highs and lows but in the end we can say it was a good time and can't wait to do it again.  As usual we will start at the top and work down with the 17U EYBL team,  we had a very outstanding Nike Peach Jam without advancing and winning the trophy.  But we played very well in 4 of the 5 games to finish 3-2 against America's best players, with big wins vs Las Vegas Prospects, King James, Team Takeover and Championship/Playoff type game against Peach Jam Champs - MO-KAN which was decided in the final seconds with a Technical Foul during a jump ball tie up, really.  But Congrats to MO-KAN who I think proved to be the best team in America in 2017 with MVP's Trae Young and Mike Porter, kudos to them, they deserve it.

The 17U Harris/Jenkins team finished 8-1 (w/o Gary Trent) in the NY2LA Classic after playing a couple of Showcase games vs some very good teams MeanStreets (were shorthanded with 6 top layers missing) and MBA Mississippi, then started playoffs Saturday but without Theo John who sprained his ankle on Friday so we played the final 7 games with six (6) players.  Hats off to Playground Elite for winning the Championship and the MVP - Jordan Poole, who was outstanding and will attend the U/Michigan.  Kudos to Dedrick Jenkins who had to coach the 17 & 16 teams and did a great job, he will also coach the team in Las Vegas Classic July 20-24 and Showcase game in NY2LA event July 21.  GO  PANTHERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The 16U Walker/Braziel team had alot of talented players with D1 potential but lacked consistency, but late in the season I had alot to do with it when I moved 3 top players up to fill in for the 17U teams due to injuries.  And it is hard to win when you lose key pieces to your team, so I congratulate them for giving everything they had in many great wins along with a Semi Final finish in the Chicago Summer Jam and quarter final finish in NY2LA.  So hats of to a strong group of soldiers who found ways to wins when the deck was stacked against them, I'm so proud of the job they did and how they represented the Pulley family.  I will be following each of them closely this winter season with their High Schools.

The 15U Washington/Shelton team had an outstanding year with Championships in Spring Tuneup-IA, NY2LA-MN and Runnerup/Second Place in Jayhawk Invitational (KC Run/GMC), Howard Pulley Invitational (KC Run/GMC), NY2LA-Milwaukee (Curon Butler) and NY2LA-Showcase (Dream Vision).  What else can I say when you get it done like they did this summer vs outstanding teams across the country.  Great year and real proud of the body of work they put in with injuries, etc.  Please work very hard to improve your skills so we can maybe do this again in 2017.  Oh yea, one more thing, grow taller, LOL.

The 15U Maxey had a very good and over achieving spring/summer being undersized and injury prone while losing one player (Ian Lim) for entire season and another for majority of the season (Omar Brown).  They started very strong with Championships at Spring Jam-Iowa, Tim Williams Spring Jam-MN and Semi Finals in NY2LA-WI (May) and NY2LA Showcase-WI (July).  I can't say enough regarding the job Ken Maxey does each year with less talent on the 15U level but seems to continue to playing for the money in out of state tournaments just like it's counter part, truly amazing.  Keep it up Ken.

The 14U Wade/Robinson team won Championships in Tim Williams Spring Jam-MN, MN Suns-MN and Runnerup/Second Place in Spring Tuneup-IA and JayHawk Invitational-KS.  We didn't know what to expect or who to expect to join the Pulley family in March when we got started but was surprised with the group of talented young men that came which made us decide to have two (2) teams instead of one (1).  Even though the second team 15U Taylor was very small it played with heart and won their fair share of games during the season and we lost several players due to personal functions, injuries, etc we were forced to merge them together to finish the season with one team.  So I'm looking forward to see how they progress, grow and skills develop as they move to High School programs.  Hats off to Percy Wade, Tony Taylor and George Robinson who volunteer their time and continue to do a great job each year for the Pulley program to guide these young men and introduce them to Elite basketball.