Top High School Basketball Talent On Display This Weekend During Annual Nike Hoop Summit, Northwest Shootout — Sport Oregon Voices
Annual high school all-star events to take place Saturday and Sunday while celebrating milestone anniversaries
Area basketball fans are in for a treat this weekend, as the Nike Hoop Summit takes place at Moda Center on Saturday, April 13, and the Northwest Shootout is played at Portland Community College (Cascade Campus gym) on Sunday, April 14. Both of the annual events feature many of the top boys and girls high school basketball players, and both are celebrating milestone anniversaries this year.
The Nike Hoop Summit once again pits the top boys and girls high school seniors in the United States against the best players from around the world age 19 and younger. The girls game is scheduled for a 4:30 p.m. tip at Moda Center, while the 25th anniversary of the boys game will tip off at 7 p.m.
The Northwest Shootout, which marks its 30th anniversary this year, annually features the best Oregon and Washington boys and girls senior basketball players with state bragging rights on the line. This year, the games will be played at Portland Community College. The girls game is slated for 1 p.m., while the boys game is scheduled for 3 p.m.
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Any way you look it, it’s a bonanza of top-level prep talent on display in Portland on Saturday and Sunday.
“Portland is going to be the center of high school basketball this weekend, not only locally and regionally, but nationally and globally,” said Clark Chen, founder of the apparel company Shirts & Skins and the event director of this year’s Northwest Shootout.
The Nike Hoop Summit has a long history of bringing soon-to-be NBA stars to Portland, including six NBA MVPs and 38 NBA All-Stars. The list of players to play in the annual boys game to go on to have standout professional careers is long and distinguished, including eventual NBA MVPs Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid. The game also has featured notable players like Zion Williamson, Ben Simmons, Kyrie Irving and top local talents like Kevin Love, Payton Pritchard and Jackson Shelstad, who played in last year’s game.
John McCallum, founder and president of Prime Time Sports, has been involved with the Nike Hoop Summit since it came to Portland. His company promotes the all-star event in partnership with Nike and USA Basketball, and says Portland fans are in for a treat once again.
“It’s very exciting to be celebrating our 25th anniversary this year, and to host the top players in the world once again,” said McCallum.
The event has grown into a who’s-who of the next generation of top college basketball players and future NBA and WNBA draft picks. Last year’s USA rosters featured a number of notable high school recruits, including Bronny James and JuJu Watkins, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and Associated Press All-America selection who helped lead USC to the Elite 8 in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament this year.
This year’s Nike Hoop Summit will feature the top boys and top girls players in the country, according to ESPN rankings. The USA boys team includes ESPN’s No. 1 player, Cooper Flagg out of Montverde Academy in Newport, Maine. On the girls side, the USA team features ESPN’s No. 1 player, Sarah Strong from Grace Christian Sanford in Fiquay-Varina, N.C.
A total of 18 countries are represented between the boys and girls World Select teams, including The Bahamas, Cameroon, Canada, China, Croatia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, Germany, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Qatar, Slovenia, South Sudan and Ukraine.
While there have been many standout Oregon players to feature in the Nike Hoop Summit in the past, there are no players from the state competing in the event this year. But, area college and prep coaching fixture Marshall Cho is the head coach of the World Select team, returning for a second year after serving as the team’s assistant coach in 2023.
As the region’s only interstate high school all-star basketball game, the Northwest Shootout annually has showcased the best boys and girls senior players from both Oregon and Washington. On the boys side, Washington has won each of the last three meetings against Oregon. In last year’s girls game, Oregon defeated Washington, 93-80, to end a three-game losing streak to its neighbors to the north.
Chen says this year’s event has some new attractions, including a hoop con for fans to celebrate all things basketball and sneaker culture during a buy, sell and trade event on gameday. Additionally, the Northwest Shootout once again is donating a portion of the proceeds from the event to Camps for Kids, a local non-profit that provides need-based scholarship opportunities for local students who would like to attend established athletics academies, sports camps or other activity of choice, including dance schools, art academies and summer schools.
For his part, Chen has been involved with the Northwest Shootout since its inception in 1994, starting out as a merchandise vendor with this company and eventually become a sponsor and annual supporter of the event through Shirts & Skins. Now as the event director, he says it’s special to continue making the annual event a success.
“I’ve got a special place in my heart for it,” Chen said.
For more information on the Nike Hoop Summit
Check out the Nike Hoop Summit website for a host of information and history on the event. Fans can use the promo code “PST” through Friday to receive 20 percent off tickets purchased online at the site.
For more information on the Northwest Shootout
Additional details on this year’s Northwest Shootout can be found on the event’s website. Organizers are encouraging attendees to purchase tickets in advance for this year’s event due to smaller venue capacity.