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Championship, Memories From The MVP Trip

Championship, Memories From The MVP Trip

The 14U basketball team won a title in Spain and also saw amazing sites along the way
By David Driver, MVP Communications

The MVP International basketball team won the 14U title in Spain last month, beating a French club team for the title.

 

WASHINGTON – Yes, winning a championship against teams from other countries was really cool.

But for Liso Conley, a member of the 14U MVP International basketball team, there was more to that during a recent 10-day trip to Spain last month. That included a visit to a monastery.

“I have never seen anything like that before. It was just an amazing view,” he said this month.

“It was unbelievable,” said Jason Conley, the father of Liso and one of the MVP coaches.

“Off the court may have been the best experience of the trips,” said Richard Little, the lead coach for MVP. “The tours were amazing; that was the best part of the trip.”

At least one parent of all 11 players made the trip to Spain and three had siblings who also went along. There were also at least one grandparent along, and two MVP staffers.

“It was nice to meet parents from different areas of the country,” noted Little, a former standout at VMI in Lexington, Virginia.

On the court, MVP opened play with wins on the same day against teams from Greece and France.

That allowed the American squad a day off as the only team to win its first two games.

MVP International then beat another team from France in the semifinals and then knocked off yet another French club squad 85-55 for the championship.

In that game, the Americans trailed by seven points early on and by one after the first quarter. But the well-balanced squad outscored the French side 33-20 in the second quarter and 21-8 in the third stanza to win going away.

“That last game definitely shook us at first,” Conley said. “We had to come back and get the win.”

The roster of the MVP team was Virginia residents NaVorro Bowman and Dhruv Iyer; Maryland residents KJ Little, Nigel Gbekie, Liso Conley, James Biosi, and AJ Lacey; Aiden Friend and Coley Riley of Washington, D.C.; Xavier Skipworth of Pennsylvania; and Noah Westberg of California.

All 11 players scored in every game, according to assistant coach Jason Conley, while Skipworth was the MVP of the tournament as he averaged 10 points per game.

Bowman had a team-high 20 points in the title game.

“He just went to work in the last game; he balled out,” said coach Conley, who was teammates at VMI with Little and Radee Skipworth, another coach on the Spain trip.

Riley will be a freshman in the fall at Maret School in Washington, D.C.; Friend is headed to St. Albans School, also in D.C.; Gbekie will be a freshman at Thomas Wootton in Rockville, Maryland; and Biosi is headed to the Bullis School in Potomac, Maryland.

“We were so balanced. It was a completely balanced team,” coach Conley noted.

Coach Conley had planned to have his team practice outside once they arrived in Spain. But during a team bonding event, the MVP party happened to meet the son of the man who is the director of the basketball federation in Spain.

 

The MVP International coaches for the trip to Spain were, from left: Richard Little, Jason Conley and Radee Skipworth.

 

“Within 10 minutes, we had a great gym to practice in; we took thousands of pictures, of course,” the elder Conley noted. “Things went well for us on the entire trip. Then from there, we went to Costa Bravo, where the tournament was.”

After the tournament, the team visited Barcelona and did bike and walking tours. “It was so much fun,” said coach Conley, who is part of the basketball coaching and training staff at Bullis.

The MVP team had to adjust to a few new rules in Europe, such as 10-minute quarters. But Coach Little was impressed with how the team molded.

“Many of them don’t play together or against each other,” he noted. “We had one guy from California; just the fact they came in and everyone was able to contribute and play as a team was the best part.  It is not easy to bring kids 13 and 14 together without a lot of preparation. You couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Editor’s note: David Driver is the former sports editor of papers in Arlington and Harrisonburg in Virginia and Laurel and Baltimore in Maryland. His book, “Hoop Dreams In Europe: Americans Basketball Players Building Careers Overseas,” was published in March and is available on Amazon.

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