Now or Never to Show Your Stuff

It might as well be called “The Last Chance,” because that’s what it is to the athletes playing.

The last chance to impress a college coach. The last chance to show their cross-over dribble, their nifty move to the left, their one-handed reverse jam.

“I want to show people that I’m not just an average player,” said Jeremiah Turner, a four-year starter at Sylmar High.

Turner is one of more than 400 unsigned senior basketball players expected to play in the Pump Discovery Shootout this weekend at Cal State Dominguez Hills in front of more than 100 college coaches.

Devin Montgomery of Alemany and Kent Dennis of Cleveland are among the region’s dozen or so players expected to participate.

But these players aren’t playing for fun. They’re playing for the exposure in the 11th hour.

“I want to put myself out there to let coaches know I haven’t signed [a letter of intent] yet,” said Turner, a 6-foot-6, 195-pound forward.

Players from all over the West will pack the Dominguez Hills gymnasium, where one-hour games will be played on four courts from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and Sunday.

It’s David and Dana Pump’s version of a farmer’s market, where a college coach knows to a great extent who or what he’s looking at but hopes to find something more.

“Every now and then you can see a guy and say, ‘Wow, he’s better than I thought,’ ” said John Wheeler, assistant coach at UC Santa Barbara.

Although NCAA restrictions forbid college coaches to speak to the players now, grade-point averages, SAT scores and home phone numbers are posted, giving coaches the information they need to make recruiting decisions and future contact.

While all coaches dream of finding a blue-chip player they’ve never heard about, they certainly don’t expect to.

“The chances of that happening at this time of year are slim, because we’ve seen a lot of guys and we feel we know who’s out there,” said Todd Johnson, assistant coach at Cal State Fullerton.

“Even if we did, so would 200 or so other coaches who would be seeing him too.”

Dana Pump, who with his twin David founded Doublepump Inc. more than 15 years ago, estimates nearly 10% of the players will get a scholarship offer.

“There’s been many success stories,” Dana Pump said.

Andre Chevalier counts himself among them.

Chevalier, a guard at Cleveland High in the late 1980s, received little interest from college coaches until he played in the Pumps’ shootout nine years ago.

“It was a great opportunity to show my talents in front of other Division I coaches,” he said.

Afterward, Chevalier had interest from Fullerton, Long Beach State and Cal State Northridge.

He settled on the Matadors because it provided him an opportunity to play close to home.

“David Pump always tells the story that he made me [and that] he got me my scholarship,” Chevalier said.

After college, Chevalier coached two seasons at Cleveland and is an assistant coach at Northridge.

He hopes to find some sleepers for the Matadors.

“We’re trying to find diamonds in the rough,” Chevalier said. “We’re going to see if we missed anything. We think we know the area pretty well, but . . . we might have missed something.”

Wheeler, in his third season as an assistant at Santa Barbara, said he will be at Dominguez Hills with a list of 10 to 12 players in hand.

“We’ve ended up losing some guys at these things,” Wheeler said.

Such could be the case this weekend for University of Missouri at Kansas City coaches, who contacted Turner the morning after Sylmar lost to Crenshaw by one point in the quarterfinals of the City Championships.

According to Turner, Missouri is courting him, but he is open to other offers should he receive any after this weekend.

Nothing is cast in stone until a player signs a letter of intent, so it works both ways.