Summer Spotlight: M-Basketball’s Eugene Phelps

Eugene Phelps looking to pass the ball during the Green Bay game.

A couple of Novembers ago, I remember how excited the Long Beach State athletic community was with the signing of Eugene Phelps. Coach Dan Monson inked a player that had off the charts athletic ability, and played for a power house of a team in Taft High School. Everyone envisioned an instant starter, and the power forward of the future.

Fast forward a year from that signing. Eugene was now a member of a team, and of a freshman class, that had an enormous amount of young talent. Minutes were not going to be found as easily as all of us thought, even for a player of Phelps’s caliber. During the season he did indeed battled for minutes, but still put up some respectable numbers for a freshman. Eugene ended the season averaging 14 minutes, 2.6 rebounds, and 3.7 points per game.

Now fast forward again, but this time to this past July. As I made my way to my summer home, the Say No Classic, I was looking forward to watching some of the LBSU players in action. I was told that Eugene was playing for the Sinclair Bruins, a team loaded with young and talented UCLA players. Knowing how this team is ran, I thought Phelps might be a starter, but more likely coming off the bench with the majority of the minutes going to the UCLA kids. However, I could not have been more wrong.

If I had to sum up Eugene’s play this summer in one word – MONSTER. Man, I could not believe my own eyes. I was watching this player and saying to myself, “could this be Long Beach’s Eugene Phelps”. This young man was full of confidence, and took everything hard to the hole. He knew he was the MAN on this team, and so did his teammates. This was not the same player I watched just a few months earlier.

Game after game, I consistently watched Phelps put up 20 points and 10 rebounds. He was calling for the ball on every possession, and was receiving it more times then not. You have to remember that this was happening in a run and gun league, where the majority of shots come from the guards. On top of that, this was on the Sinclair Bruins, a team designed to give minutes and to promote UCLA players.

As the season wore on, I came to expect that Eugene Phelps would dominate games and bring on cheers from the crowd. He was now the post player we all envisioned so many months ago.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 at 11:13 pm. It is filed under Basketball, Men's Basketball, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.