Jalil Bethea’s East squad wins McDonald’s All American Game

HOUSTON — Archbishop Wood senior Jalil Bethea has racked up plenty of accolades this season. Now, he can add McDonald’s All American Game champion to his resumé.

Bethea’s East squad rallied from a 17-point first-half deficit to beat the West, 88-86, on Tuesday night at the Toyota Center.

Bethea, the nation’s No. 6 recruit who’s committed to Miami, added yet another piece of hardware about 24 hours before tipoff winning the event’s dunk contest on Monday night. He sealed the victory with a windmilling slam above two brave bystanders, and with his dunk contest win, he adds to a trophy case that includes back-to-back Catholic League co-MVPs, a Naismith second-team All-American nod, and Gatorade Pennsylvania boys’ basketball player of the year.

Bethea started in Tuesday night’s game and hit a three-pointer to snap an early 10-0 run by the West and assisted a Derik Queen bucket to sandwich a bucket by West star Dylan Harper. The three marked Bethea’s only points of the game, but he added four rebounds and two assists in 14 minutes, 52 seconds.

“Jalil’s had a great week; he’s been working hard,” said East coach Sharman White. “He didn’t have his greatest game, but he still played hard, and he was a great teammate. So I’m just glad that he got a chance to be able to do this, and he capped it off with a slam dunk championship. So I think he had a pretty good week, and I think he’s going to have a really good career at Miami.”

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The undersized East struggled to find an offensive rhythm and had little answer for Harper early on. The Rutgers pledge, who finished with 22 points, helped power a 14-0 West run that stretched to the 6-minute, 41-second mark of the second quarter. The West, which finished with 10 blocks, had seven in the first half.

West’s lead grew to 17 with 4:05 to go in the first half, but the East, led by Queen and Boogie Fland, cut the deficit with a 10-0 run and went into halftime down, 44-37. Queen (Maryland) and Fland (Kentucky) finished with 23 and 17 points, respectively. Queen, who added eight rebounds was co-MVP with Harper, and Fland was the sportsmanship award winner. Ian Jackson added 21 points for the East.

“You’ve got to be able to adjust to who you’re playing with,” Fland said. “We know when to take over, and we know when to share the ball, so I feel like just going out here, playing within ourselves, and playing within our team, I feel like that’s what stood out the most for us.”

The East’s momentum carried into the third quarter, as Duke commit Cooper Flagg, the nation’s No. 1 recruit, caps a string of three straight emphatic dunks to give his squad its first lead since the game’s opening minute. That advantage lasted mere seconds, but the East remained within striking distance for the rest of the game, with Fland’s putback sealing the win with less than a minute remaining.

“The thing about this class is that we compete,” Fland said. “We weren’t just going to come out here and just score 100 and put on a show. We were going to come out here and show them that we’re the real deal. We’ve got talent in this class.”

Joyce Edwards scored a game-high 19 points, and the East team beat the West, 98-74, in the girls’ edition of the McDonald’s All-American Game.

Edwards, who’s from South Carolina and will play for Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks next season, hit 8 of 11 shots and earned co-MVP honors alongside North Carolina native Sarah Strong (uncommitted). Strong finished with 11 points and a game-high 12 rebounds.

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The East never trailed and led, 32-19, after one period, thanks largely to an 11-0 run. Allie Ziebell, a UConn commit from Wisconsin helped whittle the West deficit to single digits, which forced a timeout. But the East regrouped, led, 50-34, by halftime, and extended its advantage to as many as 28 points.

Kennedy Smith, a California native who’s committed to Southern Cal, led the West with 15 points.

The East squad was coached by Westtown’s Fran Burbidge as well as Kylynn McNichol and Franny Burbidge of Springfield (Delco).