As we walked through the halls of Nuemann-Goretti, his former high school, Scoop and I talked about his high school days, his career at Syracuse, and what is next for the blazing hot point guard. Scoop, who has both charm and energy for days, had just come from a workout at St. Joe’s University before making the trip back to his south Philly Alma mater.

In town for a try-out with the Philadelphia 76ers, Scoop described his plans to train with the Detroit Pistons, Memphis Grizzlies, and the Washington Wizards in the coming weeks. When I asked him about his hometown tryout, Scoop said “I played really well,” and described how refreshing it was to train and talk with a staff who had watched him come up as a young player, and who really knew both him and his game. The tryout was a “great opportunity and something I always wished for growing up.” According to Scoop it was blessing to be back home in Philly, but with less than 20 days until the draft the trip was strictly busienss; and his AAU coach and current trainer, Aaron Abbott, was by his side to make sure of that. Abbott said it was great to be back training with Scoop, “like old times when he was first starting out.”

When I asked Scoop what parts of his game he was focusing on, he said he was just trying to get into the best shape he can, “sometimes we will go hard the whole practice, other times we will pick one shot, or one move, and just focus on that.” The day we met, Scoop was working on one particular shot, he had seen it executed by Kevin Darant, and had decided he wanted to put into his game. While Scoop’s professional future is still up in the air, it is only a matter of time before we will know if the Philadelphia native will return to play ball in his hometown. Stay tuned…

Written By: Sara Cahill