Chicago Jaguars Shine at Five-Star Classic

WeAreDePaul.com’s Dan Stack followed the Chicago Jaguars AAU team while in action at the Five-Star Classic in New York City this weekend.

With the Chicago Jaguars coming in as defending champions of the Five-Star & New Heights Basketball City Classic, a lot of eyes were placed on them to see if they can duplicate their run from last year, but alas their run ended on Sunday losing a tough one to Team Odom 83-76 in the preliminary round of the playoffs.

The Jaguars have an elite core of Division I prospects and while they fell short of their goal in going back-to-back, they did not disappoint. On Friday night against Harlem's Pride, DePaul recruit Nyal "Mac" Koshwal was a one man wrecking crew. He was dominant in taking the ball to the hoop. He is like a bull in a china shop, as he is not afraid of contact. He dazzled the crowd with many rim rocking dunks.

Another DePaul recruit Thijin Moses, one of the better Jaguars was a little off his game on Friday, missing many outside shots. Also playing a role with the Jaguars is DePaul recruit Angel Garcia. The native Puerto Rican demonstrated some nice moves along the baseline to go with his nice touch from the outside.

On Sunday, the Jaguars just snuck in the preliminary round as the 12th seed (out of 12) and were faced up against the five seed Team Odom. They got off to a great start getting ahead 8-0. But Team Odom remained poised and got on a run of their own and took the air out the Jaguars. In fact the Jaguars were forced to play catch-up most of the second half, being down as many as 12. The Jaguars got it down to two with about a minute left but they ran out of steam eventually losing by seven.

However, even in defeat Class of 2006 prospect Thijin Moses had a great showing. He went inside and drew contact for a couple of one-and-one plays. He also nailed down some trifectas. In the loss he tallied 20 points. Koshwal chipped in with 17 points and he also knocked down some jumpers to go with his already dominant inside game. Garcia came to play on Sunday too, tallying 13.

Look for the Jaguars to rebound and play in the Bob Gibbons Tournament of Champions this Memorial Day weekend.