Stars Aren’t Enough for Team L.A. : Basketball: Despite a lineup that includes Stais Boseman and Cameron Murray, they lose in Slam-n-Jam quarterfinal.

Having a team loaded with all-stars doesn’t guarantee victory. Keith Young, coach of Team Los Angeles in the Slam-n-Jam high school basketball tournament, can attest to that.

After finishing as runner-up last year and featuring a team led by All-Southern Section players Stais Boseman of Inglewood Morningside and Cameron Murray of Glendora, Team Los Angeles started this week’s tournament seeded third, behind all-star squads from New Orleans and New York.

Most local basketball fans expected Team Los Angeles to be in tonight’s final at Cal State Long Beach. But that will not be the case, as Young and his team found out Wednesday afternoon.

After Team Los Angeles had breezed to four victories in qualifying play, reality hit home in an 87-79 quarterfinal loss to ARC I, a team made up of less-publicized local players.

“Sometimes, (coaching all-star teams) is rewarding and then, sometimes it’s frustrating,” said Young, an assistant coach at City powerhouse Fremont. “Usually, I try to coach teams made up of kids from the inner city who are talented but don’t get much exposure.

“I knew that when people found out that we have Boseman and Murray on the same team, along with these other guys . . . they expected us to win.”

Not only did Team Los Angeles have Boseman, who led Morningside to the State Division III title last spring, and Murray, who led Glendora to the Southern Section Division II-AA title, it also included 6-foot-8 Daryl Johnson of Compton, Corey Saffold of Morningside, Markee Brown of Woodland Hills El Camino, and guards Tommie Davis and Ricky Brown of Fremont.

On reputation and potential, Team Los Angeles was a team to be respected. But ARC I wasnot intimidated. With Jelani Gardner of Downey St. John Bosco and Damon Ollie of North Hollywood leading the way, ARC I avenged two earlier summer tournament losses to Team Los Angeles.

“This hurts because you want to get to the championship game so badly,” said Boseman, who averaged 18 points per game last season as a 6-4 guard for Morningside. “You want to win and do well because you know so many scouts are here watching you play.”

In its ninth year, the Slam-n-Jam attracts the top scouts from around the country. Lute Olson of Arizona and Rollie Massimino of Nevada Las Vegas were just two of the many college coaches there during the week.

For Young, who has been a coach on the prep basketball off-season circuit for six years and has worked with such notable players as Shawn Kemp of the Seattle SuperSonics and UCLA’s Don MacLean, the attention means added problems.

“You get players on the team (who) are used to being the man ,” Young said. “They figure that they have to get so many shots and minutes per game or they are just going to pout.

“Sometimes, they just lack discipline and fundamentals, like boxing out and posting up. But you can’t tell them anything in the summer. How can you say anything to them when, after they play badly, they have a college coach telling them that they played well? They just say, ‘You’re just an all-star coach and he’s a college coach.’ When they are this good, they take constructive criticism as a negative.”

Team Los Angeles had no opportunity to practice before the tournament and had no plays going in. It sometimes had problems fielding a complete team for some games.

Before its second game Tuesday, Young only had six players in uniform at game time.

“Basically, we were at a disadvantage because we didn’t have much time together beforehand, but it’s not an excuse,” said Young, who has coached Team Los Angeles into the final round of eight the last four years, including last year’s final. “Teams that come in from out of town are more focused to play and have a chance to practice.”

Boseman agreed.

“Because we’ve never played together nor practiced before, we just free-lanced a lot out there and that finally got to us,” he said. “We took some bad shots and played flat and that cost us.”

For Murray, the brother of UCLA and the Portland Trail Blazers’ Tracy Murray, the Slam-n-Jam is one of many tournaments and camps he will play in this off-season.

The 6-foot junior scored 16 points, well under his 22-point regular-season average, against ARC I, but looked at his play as a learning experience.

“Playing on teams like this teaches you how to adjust and play with all-stars,” he said. “You notice things in your play that you have to work on that you don’t notice during the school year.”