Latest news with #Montverde
Washington Post
31-03-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Steve Turner leaves Gonzaga for Florida basketball power Montverde
Steve Turner likes mementos. The longtime Gonzaga basketball coach has collected plenty in his years on Eye Street, stockpiling trophies, jerseys, basketballs — anything to remind him of good times past. He even makes scrapbooks for each season, knowing that the press clippings and photos can transport him back to those winters whenever he likes. Now, after 26 years at Gonzaga — 21 as head coach — Turner will pack those memories away and bring them with him to Florida. After spending nearly half his life at the Northwest Washington private school, Turner, 53, is leaving for Montverde Academy, a Florida program considered one of the best in the country. 'I never really thought this day would come. I've always felt that I have the best job in the country here at Gonzaga,' Turner said. 'Being a part of this community, knowing these kids and this staff — this was home.' Turner said the opportunity came together quickly over the past two weeks. He recently flew to Florida for a visit and came away impressed at the school's operation beyond basketball. 'I've always been at a place where the whole school mattered,' Turner said. 'And if I was ever going to leave Gonzaga, it would have to be for a place like that. Once I was able to get that feeling from the community down there, it pulled me. … And I figured it's time for me to go out and do something I've always told my kids to do: be comfortable being uncomfortable.' The school recently announced that coach Kevin Boyle was leaving for Ohio's Spire Academy after 14 years at the helm. Boyle won eight of the past 12 national high school championships with Montverde, coaching NBA-bound stars such as Joel Embiid, Cade Cunningham and Cooper Flagg. '[Turner's] deep appreciation for the value of a college preparatory school environment and his commitment to nurturing student-athletes makes him a perfect fit for Montverde Academy,' Montverde Head of School Jon Hopman said in a statement. 'Coach Turner is what we call a transformational coach and mentor — one that will have a positive influence on his players … and the broader school community.' Turner took over Gonzaga's varsity team in 2004, inheriting a proud and successful program from longtime coach Dick Myers. Under Turner's leadership, the Eagles garnered national acclaim. But the coach, a Blair alum, always cared most about winning in his hometown. A fiery competitor, he relished the intensity of the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference, one of the country's most talented and competitive high school basketball leagues. 'There is nothing like the rivalries of the WCAC,' Turner said. 'Unless you're a part of it you won't understand it. I'll miss those packed houses and those teams. Fans going at me. I loved it.' He won the first of his four WCAC titles in 2008. He was named Gatorade's national coach of the year in 2016 and The Washington Post's All-Met Coach of the Year in 2019. He leaves Gonzaga with a record of 497-176 and a broad network of alumni playing across all levels of basketball. 'He's been one of the staples of the basketball scene in the DMV,' said Sidwell Friends Coach Eric Singletary, who previously served as an assistant under Turner. 'It's hard to think of Gonzaga without thinking of Steve Turner.' As his own program climbed the local and national ladders over the past decade, Singletary has had to face his former boss in several high-stakes meetings. A few weeks ago, Gonzaga topped Sidwell to win the D.C. State Athletic Association championship and snap the Quakers' streak of three straight titles. The win was Turner's third and final D.C. state crown. 'When you play a Steve Turner team, you know that because of his competitiveness his team is going to be competitive and well prepared,' Singletary said. 'You're going to face a team with an unbelievable tradition, so they believe they should win every time they play. You have to beat them because they're not going to beat themselves.' Turner produced a steady stream of Division I players over the years, molding All-Met talents Tyler Thornton (Duke), Kris Jenkins (Villanova) and Chris Lykes (Miami). 'He's a legend,' said Terrance Williams II, who played for Gonzaga from 2016 to 2020 and is now at USC. 'He leaves a legacy at Gonzaga. … I think when people talk about his teams, they'll say we were disciplined. We stayed within a system, and it worked.' This season, the Eagles were led by a starting lineup of five Division I-bound seniors. The Eagles (29-5) finished as D.C. state champions, WCAC runners-up and the No. 2 team in The Washington Post's local rankings. Turner was named WCAC coach of the year for a sixth time. 'Outside of all the accolades, his teams always stayed together and played gritty basketball,' senior Nyk Lewis said. 'You always knew we were going to want it more than the other team.' Turner said he will finish out the school year at Gonzaga before heading south. 'I'm looking forward to really saying goodbye to people, not just packing up and leaving,' Turner said. 'That way I can make it clear to them that I'm gone but I'm not. I'm just a phone call away.'
USA Today
28-03-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
2023-24 Montverde team sees strong presence in March Madness including Cooper Flagg, Derik Queen
2023-24 Montverde team sees strong presence in March Madness including Cooper Flagg, Derik Queen Show Caption Hide Caption Cooper Flagg's mom on her son's journey with the Duke Blue Devil's Duke star Cooper Flagg has led the Blue Devils to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and his mom explains what the journey has been like. Sports Seriously Cooper Flagg, Derik Queen, Liam McNeeley and Asa Newell all led their teams to the men's NCAA Tournament in 2025, with Flagg and Queen still alive as the Sweet 16 gets underway. The group of true freshmen were some of the best players of the 2024-25 college basketball season and are all projected first-round picks as one-and-done prospects. Fans might be wondering why those are four being grouped together. Well, they were all teammates at one point in time. REQUIRED READING: Cooper Flagg's mom and Duke superfan offers tips for sports parents And that was only a year ago. Flagg, Queen, McNeeley and Newell — all five-star prospects and freshmen studs this season — played at Montverde Academy last season, a prep school in Montverde, Florida. As expected, they dominated their competition, finishing the 2023-24 season with a 33-0 record, winning all but three games by double-digits. Here's a look back at the NCAA Tournament participants' time as teammates at Montverde, with Flagg and Queen hoping to lead Duke and Maryland, respectively, to the Elite Eight: 2023-24 Montverde roster, revisited Flagg, Queen, McNeeley and Newell were all rated as five-star recruits, all ranked inside the top 20 of 247Sports' Composite rankings. Fans know Flagg as the projected No. 1 pick in the upcoming NBA draft and potential player of the year candidate at Duke, who's leading the Blue Devils against Arizona on Thursday in the Sweet 16. Queen, a 6-foot-10 forward, made a fadeaway game-winning shot at the buzzer in Maryland's second-round win over Colorado State. McNeeley and UConn fell to 1-seed Florida in the second round and Newell and Georgia lost to Gonzaga in the first round. Put those four on the same roster, and you have one of the best high school teams ever assembled. Of course, Montverde is known for producing high-end NBA talent, as players like No. 1 picks Cade Cunningham and Ben Simmons, and Joel Embiid, R.J. Barrett, D'Angelo Russell and Scottie Barnes, to name a few, attended the prep school. Flagg led the team averaging 16.5 points per game last season at Montverde, with Queen right behind at 16.4 points. McNeeley and Newell averaged 12.5 and 11.4 points per game, respectively, as well. Baylor guard Robert Wright, who scored 19 points in the Bears' first-round win over Mississippi State, also played at Montverde last season, although he's not yet at the same level of NBA projection as his four former teammates yet. LSU guard Curtis Givens also played at Montverde during the 2023-24 season. "They would have been the modern-day Fab Five," Arizona Compass Prep coach Pete Kaffey told Yahoo Sports earlier this season. Those four players were all stars in their first college season and yet had to fight for shots last season for a high school program. 2023-24 Montverde roster college stats Here are the college stats of each member of Montverde's big four from this season:
Washington Post
18-03-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Coach of suspended sprinter faces punishment following investigation
Track and field's global anti-doping body suspended a high-profile American high school coach Tuesday after alleging he possessed a banned substance that three of his athletes — including suspended record-breaking sprint phenom Issam Asinga — tested positive for within a 13-month span. After an investigation alongside the United States Anti-Doping Agency, the Athletics Integrity Unit handed Monteverde Academy Coach Gerald Phiri a provisional suspension. The AIU alleged Phiri possessed multiple banned drugs that modulate metabolism and failed to 'cooperate with the investigation by providing false and inaccurate information.' The AIU said it opened an investigation after three of Phiri's athletes tested positive for GW1516 — a drug, known as cardarine, that alters how the body metabolizes fat — between July 2023 and August 2024. The AIU alleged that Phiri, a former Zambian Olympian, possessed GW1516 as an athlete in 2018 and 2019 and possessed meldonium, another banned metabolism drug, in 2024. Phiri plans to appeal the suspension, Montverde Sports Information Manager Michael Damon said in an emailed statement. In July 2023, when he was a sprinter at Montverde, Asinga tested positive for GW1516, which nullified his under-20 world record in the 100 meters and cost him a chance to compete at last year's Paris Olympics for Suriname, his father's native country and the flag he chose to compete under. World Athletics suspended Asinga in May last year. Asinga's final appeal will be heard later this year at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland. The case is expected to be heard in April, according to public filings. Asinga sued Gatorade last summer, claiming he had ingested GW1516 through a contaminated package of energy gummies given to him at a Gatorade awards ceremony. (A lab tested the gummies and informed the AIU that they returned positive for GW1516.) Asinga also claimed the gummies were labeled falsely as certifiably tested and that Gatorade delayed in providing Asinga materials he could have used to prove his innocence. Gatorade called the claims 'false.' The lawsuit remains ongoing in the Southern District of New York. Gatorade filed a motion to dismiss the suit in early January. Asinga's lawyers responded in filings that the motion should be denied and 'Issam's claims should move to discovery, where he can begin to learn more about how and why his life became derailed by Gatorade's dangerous product.' Phiri joined Montverde Academy, a Florida prep school known for its elite athletic program, as an assistant coach in 2018 and became the head track and field coach in 2021. Phiri ran collegiately for Texas A&M and represented Zambia at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. 'As this is an ongoing investigation, we have not been provided with any substantive details at this time,' Damon said in the statement. 'In compliance with the suspension, Coach Phiri will also be suspended from Montverde Academy and will not have any personal contact with our student-athletes pending the outcome of the investigation.' GW1516 is illegal for use in food or medication in the United States. According to USADA, it was pulled from clinical trials after it caused cancer when tested on animals.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
How good would Cooper Flagg's prep team have been if it stayed together in college? 'Modern-day Fab Five'
How good would Cooper Flagg's prep team have been if it stayed together in college? 'Modern-day Fab Five' They joked about it on and off throughout their march to an undefeated season. 'What if we all played together in college?' Montverde Academy's six prized seniors would say to each other last year as they mowed through fellow prep school powerhouses on their way to being crowned the nation's best high school basketball team. It wasn't even just the Montverde 6 who daydreamed about that tantalizing yet impractical possibility. Players recall Montverde coach Kevin Boyle bringing up the idea in jest 13 months ago when the team traveled to Maine for a pair of games. Advertisement 'Imagine if you guys all went to the University of Maine together,' Boyle told them. 'You could take Maine to the NCAA tournament.' If only those Montverde seniors weren't so deep into the recruiting process already. If only that talk had been more than just idle chatter. Because the core of that Montverde team banding together in college and trying to make a Final Four would have been absolutely riveting. The seniors on last year's Montverde team have been some of this college basketball season's most productive freshmen. All six are starting as freshmen for high-major teams. Five average at least 12 points per game. Four are projected first-round picks in the 2025 NBA Draft. One is a near-lock to go No. 1 overall. Advertisement Of course, the headliner is Cooper Flagg, the breathlessly hyped Duke freshman who if anything has exceeded expectations this season. The national player of the year favorite averages 19.7 points and is the leader in every major statistical category for a Duke team on track to earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Montverde High School went undefeated last season with a rotating cast of star players. (Bruno Rouby/Yahoo Sports) Skilled, versatile center Derik Queen averages 16.1 points and 8.8 rebounds as the interior focal point of 20th-ranked Maryland's efficient attack. Productive power forward Asa Newell has racked up six double-doubles to keep Georgia in contention for an NCAA bid. Sweet-shooting wing Liam McNeeley leads UConn in scoring at 15.4 points per game and has increased that average to 21.8 since returning from an ankle injury. Guards Robert Wright III of Baylor and Curtis Givens of LSU aren't potential 2025 lottery picks like their former high school teammates, but they too have hope of playing in the NBA someday. Wright recently torched Kansas for 24 points and 6 assists. Givens has flashed playmaking and defensive talent as a part-time starter. Advertisement How competitive could the Montverde 6 be if they had united once more at the college level rather than scattering to different power-conference programs? 'I feel like we would have been top 25,' Queen told Yahoo Sports. 'I definitely think we could make it to at least the Sweet 16,' Wright echoed. Those predictions are too conservative, Arizona Compass Prep coach Pete Kaffey told Yahoo Sports. Kaffey, whose team lost twice to Montverde last season, argued that last year's Montverde players could have formed 'one of the top teams in college basketball' had they stayed together one more season. 'They would have been the modern-day Fab Five,' Kaffey said. How Montverde 6 ended up at prolific NBA pipeline There was a mantra that Cooper Flagg's parents adopted years ago even before they realized that they were raising a basketball phenom. Advertisement 'We would always say that if Cooper's the best player in a gym, we've gotta go find another gym for him to get into,' mom Kelly Flagg told Yahoo Sports earlier this season. At first, that meant challenging Cooper to play against kids two and three years older than him. Then the Flaggs helped form a club program that traveled to out-of-state tournaments in search of more competition and exposure than their native Maine could provide. By the time Cooper coasted to a state title as a freshman at Nokomis High, the Flaggs realized that he and twin brother Ace needed to leave Maine altogether to maximize their potential. The search for a more challenging environment led the Flaggs to send their sons to Montverde. The Orlando-area K-through-12 boarding school had become a magnet for top-tier basketball talent from all over the world by pouring millions of dollars into its athletic facilities, hiring renowned coaches and aligning with Nike. Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Cade Cunningham all passed through Montverde on their way to NBA riches. The school put 16 alums on NBA opening day rosters this season, more than the likes of UCLA, Kansas, Indiana and North Carolina. The story of how the rest of last year's seniors landed at Montverde isn't all that different from how the basketball powerhouse attracted Flagg. Queen was the first to join Montverde after leading St. Frances Academy in Baltimore to an undefeated regular season as a ninth grader. A Montverde assistant coach scouted Queen and eagerly extended an invitation to the MaxPreps national freshman of the year before the 2021-22 school year. McNeeley, Newell, Givens and Flagg all joined Montverde the following year. Like Flagg, the other three came in search of elite coaching and stronger competition. Advertisement 'Everybody knows Montverde — it's a pipeline,' said Newell, a native of Athens, Georgia, to Yahoo Sports. 'I wouldn't say it was an easy decision leaving my hometown and moving down to the Orlando area, but I knew if I'm playing for someone like Coach Boyle and playing against the best players in practice, it would definitely mold me into a better player.' The experience of leaving friends and family behind and moving to an unfamiliar city made the Montverde players more tight-knit than the average high school team. So did enduring Boyle's famously intense practices and conditioning sessions together. As Newell points out, 'When you first get there, you don't know anyone else. Your only true friends are really the basketball team.' Endless hours in the gym helped Montverde earn the No. 1 seed at Geico Nationals in 2023, but a stunning quarterfinal loss against eighth-seeded Sunrise Christian shattered the Eagles' hopes of capturing a championship. They blew a six-point lead in the final minute of a painful 46-45 loss. A four-point play from Matas Buzelis and a right-wing transition 3-pointer from Scotty Middleton propelled Sunrise Christian into the lead. Montverde had one final chance but Queen's heavily contested driving layup caromed hard off the backboard and didn't fall, nor did Flagg's rushed but wide-open put-back attempt at the buzzer. Advertisement The memory of that upset loss fueled Montverde the following season. 'We couldn't lose back-to-back years,' Queen said. 'We had to come back and learn from our mistakes.' Capping off an undefeated run with a title To Arizona Compass Prep coach Pete Kaffey, superior talent alone didn't make Montverde unbeatable last season. Kaffey also points to the fact that so many key players were in their second or third season in Boyle's system. 'Whenever you get super-talented guys for more than a year in our world, the prep world, that makes a huge difference,' Kaffey said. The Montverde coaches only recruited one key player to join last season's returning quintet of Flagg, Queen, McNeeley, Newell and Givens. They persuaded Wright to come try to win at the highest level of high school basketball after the Philadelphia product earned Pennsylvania state player of the year honors as a junior. Advertisement The addition of Wright gave Montverde a second playmaking guard who could attack the rim and produce open looks for himself or others. Wright essentially became the team's sixth starter, meaning that on any given night a different member of the Montverde 6 — yes, even Flagg — would come off the bench. 'Everybody sacrificed,' Newell said. 'We all knew that going in, but we all wanted to be part of something great.' The team that Boyle put on the floor last season might only be rivaled in prep basketball history by Montverde's famed 2019-20 team. That team featured future No. 1 overall draft pick Cade Cunningham and fellow future NBA players Scottie Barnes, Moses Moody, Day'Ron Sharpe and Dariq Whitehead. Montverde was a dominant 25-0 that year before the COVID-19 pandemic halted the season early. By comparison, last year's Montverde team won all 33 games it played by an average of nearly 30 points apiece. Only 10 of Montverde's victories were by fewer than 20 points. Only three were by single digits. Advertisement In the title game at nationals, Montverde's hero was the least heralded member of its six-man rotation. Givens hit six 3-pointers and erupted for a game-high 24 points off the bench to help the Eagles complete an undefeated season and capture the championship that had eluded them the previous year. 'That was a really good day,' Queen said. 'It was like, 'bout time. We worked hard for it. We talked about it every day nonstop. When the time came, we all did what we had to do.' That may be the last time that the Montverde 6 played for the same team, but the bonds they built remain strong. As college freshmen, they watch as many of each other's games as they can and check box scores whenever they miss one. They text or Facetime regularly and comment on each other's social media pages. 'We were the only people we had down there at Montverde, so we did everything together,' Wright said. 'It definitely brought us closer together. It made us all brothers.' Advertisement We'll never know what that group could have accomplished playing together for one season in college, but now Queen has a different goal. Next month, he wants to gain NCAA tournament bragging rights over as many of his former high school teammates as possible. Said Queen with a laugh, 'I want to play all of them.'
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Montverde overwhelms Windermere prep in tourney opener 81-41
MONTVERDE — Coach Brian Hoff and his Windermere Prep boys basketball players are used to winning games. The Lakers have won 20 games in each of the past three seasons and even played for the Class 3A state championship the past two years, losing both times to Miami Riviera Prep. But sometimes, Hoff understands, there are realistic expectations to consider. One of those times was Thursday night in the first round of the Montverde Academy Invitational Tournament. Facing the nationally-ranked home team, Windermere Prep was outmanned in every phase of the game and was overwhelmed in an 81-41 shellacking that prompted a running clock in the fourth quarter. 'Well it's easy for a game to get away from you here, especially playing in the MAIT,' Hoff said. 'Montverde is always tough, especially when they are playing here on their home court, so give credit to them. They'll have a chance to win a national championship this year.' WPS went through an early drought in the first quarter that saw the Lakers fail to score on five straight possessions, and while Montverde's Dante Allen, a Villanova commit, was burying 3-pointers, WPS found itself in a 19-4 hole and that was about it. The Lakers (16-6) did start to chip away at the lead, starting the second quarter with an 8-2 spurt that cut the lead to 24-15, but that was as close as they would get. 'I was proud of the guys for their fight,' Hoff said, 'and I'm happy with how we played in spurts tonight.' WPS was led Brandon Bass Jr., who had 16 points and Malachi Martis added 11. There wasn't really much that Montverde did wrong. The Eagles, ranked No. 5 in the country by ESPN, hit a blistering 64% of their floor shots, including half of their 26 3-point attempts. Allen, who is from Miami, was 6-of-6 shooting, with five 3-pointers and led the way with 18 points. Indiana commit Trent Sisley, of Santa Claus, Ind., was 5-of-5 shooting with a 3-pointer for 13 points, and Creighton commit Hudson Greer, of Lakeway, Texas, added 12 points. Montverde forced 23 WPS turnovers and outrebounded the smaller Lakers 25-17. The shortest Montverde starter was 6-foot-4, and the Eagles went 6-8, 6-6, 6-6 across the front line, while the tallest WPS player was 6-6. The Eagles will now face Fort Lauderdale Calvary Christian in the MAIT semifinals on Friday at 8 p.m. Calvary defeated No. 19-ranked AZ Compass, of Chandler, Ariz., 58-49 in one quarterfinal, while CIA-Bella Vista, of Scottsdale, Ariz., defeated Riviera Prep 72-43 and No. 7 Utah Prep defeated Weston Sagemont Prep 82-79. Montverde coach Kevin Boyle was happy to see his team snap out of a two-game skid, the first time the Eagles had lost two straight games since 2012. Montverde lost AZ Compass 45-41 and Miami Columbus 79-59. 'It's a long time since that happened,' Boyle said of the two-game skid. 'We were showing a lot of improvement, but then we kinda got upset by Arizona Compass, which is a good team, and then obviously Columbus really outplayed us and we kinda go overwhelmed down there. 'In this level of high school, you don't play a lot of real road games with intense crowds. Columbus had one in a small gym and for our kids it was kinda like playing at Duke. … They kinda got stage fright and froze a little bit.' Boyle knows the rest of the weekend won't be as easy as was Thursday night's victory. 'Obviously we had better athletes and guys who are a little more experienced players,' Boyle said. 'We also had a lot of good looks and we're not going to get those type of looks against bigger, more athletic guys. So we're not gonna shoot those kinds of shots.' The Montverde girls, who are ranked No. 2 in the nation by ESPN, rolled past Fort Erie International of Ontario, Canada, on Thursday 73-55. Saniyah Hall had 22 points, 6 assists, 5 steals and 5 rebounds in the game, while Lourdes Da Silva Costa added 19 points. '
