New Zealand to Japan...teams travel to OC for the Fall Kickoff

Grassroots 365 kicked off the 2023-24 basketball season with the 11th Annual Fall Kickoff at Open Gym
Premier in Anaheim. This tournament serviced Orange County youth basketball, foreshadowing all of the great tournaments and events to follow this season. The event hosted 120+ Boys and Girls teams from as far New Zealand and Japan with many of the teams expected to be in contention for a G365 Top 25 ranking as well as compete for a Championship at the G365 Championship event taking place April 2024, a signature event and a can’t miss youth basketball event for all of Orange County.

The OGP environment, coaches and players has given our players some physical, visual, mental context – to what it takes and what one has to do, to perform at a high level…they now understand what I really mean about hard work and what hard work really looks like – they now know what game intelligence is and the skill set that is required now.
Papa Mel & Mama Del from Ngapuhi (NZ)

Some of the Top Performing teams included:

IE Sixers 8U – made their debut by winning the 9U division.
Signet Royalty 10U went 4-0 and are expected to make their debut in the early season G365
Top 25.
The IE Sixers 13U went 4-1 and avenged their only loss in beating a Top 10 Creators Elect
team.
Branch West 14U went 5-0 and defeated #10 IE Sixers 59-49 in the Championship game.
In the Girls division, OCR 8th Grade went 4-0 with an average margin of victory of 17.3 points
per game.

Top Player Performances:

Charlie Adams (Branch West 14U) earned MVP honors after averaging 17.4 PPG, 3.4 RPG, 2.2
APG, 1.8 SPG, and 1.8 3PT FG per game. Charlie had 17 Points and 4 assists in the Championship game against the IE Sixers.
Honor Tyler (Inglewood Guard Dawgs 11U) earned MVP honors playing up in the 12U Gold
Division after averaging 20.2 PPG, 7.4 RPG, 3.8 APG, 4 SPG. In the Championship game
against Procademy, Honor had 21 Points, 5 Steals and 3 3 Pointers to seal the victory.
Jaiden Giarrizzo (Creators Elect 13U) continues to shine as one of the Top Players in the
county. He kicked off the season by averaging 21.2 PPG, 8.4 RPG, 2.8 APG, and 2 SPG.
Micah Johnson (IE Sixers 13U) earned MVP honors for the 13U division by averaging 14.8
PPG including scoring 20 points in the Championship game against Creators Elect.