Dylan Petersen
The Twin Cities Pro-Am was a movie on Monday night, all of the stars were out to play in the country’s hottest Pro-Am league. Jalen Suggs, an NBA player for the Orlando Magic, decided to suit up for Team Strictly BBall and he matched up against Washington Wizards point guard Tyus Jones. Both of the teams were also coached by two Minnesota female hoops legends: Amaya Battle and Paige Bueckers. These two ladies dominated at Hopkins and now they are now succeeding at the NCAA level. As coaches they helped up draw up some fantastic plays for these star players at the Twin Cities Pro-Am.
Game Recap
The Minnehaha gym was packed on Monday night as everyone was hyped to see Coach Paige Bueckers go against Tyus Jones. Jalen Suggs also started off as an assistant coach as well. The beginning of the big matchup was your typical Pro-Am start, each pro player was showcasing why they belonged in the league. It was a very fast pasted game and each team was trading buckets. Players like Tyus Jones, Daniel Freitag, Booker Coplin, and Sean Sutherlin were all scoring in bunches for each team. After the first quarter Team Strictly BBall was up 28-23.
Between quarters Jalen Suggs decided to go to the locker room and change into a Strictly BBall uniform, and there was no looking back after that moment. Now the storyline became crazy Jalen Suggs versus Tyus Jones with Paige Bueckers coaching. Now this was showtime.
Suggs started off a little bit of a slow start because he did not have any time to warmup so Team Tyus took advantage. Tyus Jones and Daniel Oturu were dominating in the pick and roll game and Booker Coplin continued to show why he is one of the best shooters at the Twin Cities Pro-Am. Team Tyus was taking momentum. Coach Paige Bueckers decided Team Strictly BBall needed a timeout, during this timeout she drew up an alley-oop play for Jalen Suggs to get going. This alley-oop play worked to perfection as Meechie “bald headed” Terry threw a back door alley-oop pass to Suggs and he finished the dunk with ease. After the dunk, players and the crowd started to heat up and Team Strictly BBall ended the half strong and took a 55-54 lead heading into the half.
The second half was no slouch either as each team started off firing on all cylinders. Team Strictly BBall and Team Tyus were trading buckets back and fourth. Everyone was dunking during the third quarter. Team Tyus big man, Daniel Oturu was taking full advantage of his mismatches and he was making it look easy to start off the half. Then Booker Coplin made the gym go crazy after he rose up for a poster dunk on former Gophers center Reggie Lynch. But Jalen Suggs answered back on the next play with a windmill dunk, and now the gym was buzzing.
The fourth quarter ended up becoming Tyus time. Tyus Jones would go on to takeover the fourth quarter as he showed his wide array of shot-creating skills and he led Team Tyus to 116-109 win over Jalen Suggs and Team Strictly BBall.
This game ended up all over social media, and people were loving the Coach Paige content and the Tyus Jones versus Jalen Suggs matchup. The video of Coach Paige drawing up a play for Jalen Suggs went viral on all social media platforms and fans got to see how knowladgeble Bueckers truly was. This night will never be forgotten as it helped put the Twin Cities Pro-Am on the map and it helped bring tons of star players back together to put on a show for Minnesota basketball fans.
Whose next for the Twin Cities Pro-Am? Chet Holmgren? Anthony Edwards? Zeke Nnaji?
Other Notable Players/Coaches
- Amaya Battle; Sophomore guard for the Minnesota Gophers
- Mara Braun; Sophomore guard for the Minnesota Gophers
- Jackson McAndrew; Senior Forward for the Wayzata Trojans
- Daniel Frietag; Senior forward for Souther California Academy
- Daniel Oturu; Former player for the Gophers
- Sean Sutherlin; Former player for the Gophers
- Reggie Lynch; Former player for the Gophers
- Meechie Terry; Former college basketball player and now basketball content creator
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