707 Premier Basketball growing the game, strengthening bonds between local athletes in Napa and surrounding communities
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
If there’s one sport where playing year-round is essential, it’s basketball. If anyone’s ever played, they know that getting back in shape is one of the worst experiences. The only issue is that sometimes traveling far away to practice isn’t practical. This is the case for most families regarding travel sports, which are off-season teams that local athletes play on when they’re not in their high school season. After all, staying local is cost-effective and means less strain on players and coaches.
So for the longest time, Napa basketball players have had to go elsewhere for practices and games. Thanks to Tony Prescott, George Nessman, and Dave Granucci, Napa now has its own travel basketball AAU team and player development program for local athletes and others from around the area called 707 Premier. The trio has led the program to plenty of growth in just two short years.
“We want kids in Napa playing basketball,” Prescott explained. “That was our goal all along, is to get as many kids in Napa excited about the game and growing the game. I mean, that’s really what it’s all about. And then we want to try to get other communities involved, too. We want to reach out and get Sonoma and American Canyon and some of these other areas nearby, we want them excited about basketball and playing basketball, too.”
With the high school season in the books, it is becoming a hub for high school basketball players in Napa to get their off-season reps in. 707 also has its teams participate in tournaments where they can get exposed to college coaches.
707 Premier is in the middle of the spring season. Their teams are loaded with local high school talent as well. The goal of this is to bring the community together.
“It’s been huge man,” Prescott added. “It’s grown the game, but it’s also brought our community together. If you look at it, other things there, it’s still pretty segregated between the schools, right? But this is about trying to bring our community together, and getting kids from Napa and Vintage, Justin and Sonoma and these other areas to work together to grow the game. It’s great when they have their rivalry with their high school. We love it when kids we’ve coached play from Napa played kids from Vintage and they’re going at it and they’re battling. But then when that season’s over, it’s time to come together and you know, be a part of something that brings us together.”
They will also offer a season in the fall. Everyone is placed on a team after player evaluations to gauge talent level and who should go on what team. When the players are placed on a team, they get a pair of 90-minute practices with a coach a week before participating in tournaments over the weekend.
There is also a variety of different age groups for local student-athletes to play on. The ages groups from 10U to 17U, with each team having practice during the week and then playing in a minimum of four tournaments. The teams also have a head coach with a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 12 players on the roster so that each player can get the opportunity to grow in an organized and structured team setting. This is all part of the $900 payment for that particular season which includes a jersey, tournaments, and the 90-minute practice during the week for a total of 22 to 24 practices. If the $900 is a stretch for a family, the program also offers scholarships and has other ways to help so that certain athletes in a money situation can play for the program.
“That’s kind of standard, with the idea being that at least half of your practice is skill development,” Prescott said of how everything works perfectly into the cost and the importance of the skills that are being taught. So you’re teaching skills that no matter what high school you go to the high school coaches want them to be able to do that. Whether it’s shooting or passing or any of that stuff, defense, all that. So we want what we teach, we try to apply that applies to every program they’ll play for – defense, offense, skill work, all that stuff.”
For example, Miles MacPherson, Si Sabbagha, and Grayson Wyman of Vintage are on the 17 U showcase team with Christian Williams of Napa, Jaden Washington from Justin-Siena, and American Canyon’s Noah Budu and Jack Turner. On the 15U boys showcase team, Asa Hightower of Justin-Siena is joined by Napa’s Will Flynn and American Canyon’s Jonah Budu. All of these players were on their respective varsity squads in the winter.
On the girls’ side, Lauren Keller, Jordan Washington, Taylor Stoppello, Sophia Dominici, Neveena Jackson of Justin-Siena, and Cienna Alvarez from Vintage are the varsity representatives. There is a bunch of other players from the lower levels of local schools that are on 707 teams as well.
On top of that, the organization has a plethora of local coaches helping to coach all these teams. Nick Guillory is the head of the Sonoma County side of things. He has a good relationship with Nessman and Granucci, given that he’s been an assistant coach to both at Justin-Siena. Guillory will be getting a change of scenery next high school season after taking over the head coaching spot at Casa Grande in Petaluma.
“Nick is a young, bright, hard-working person, coach and he is all about the right stuff,” Granucci said of the importance of Guillory to leading the Sonoma County side. “He’s about wanting to help young people. That’s his only mission and he loves basketball. So the best way for him to do that is through the game.”
Besides Guillory, some of the top high school coaches are helping with the organization as well. Napa High has a trio helping out with the head boys basketball coach Carson Caratinni, his head JV coach Michael Sedgely, and athletic director Darci Ward. Justin-Siena has head girls JV coach John Fall and varsity assistants Megan Dominici, Tanner Thomas, and Makayla Balmaceda. American Canyon head coach Scott Hayburn and his head JV coach Dave Farley are there along with Prescott who is the lead assistant at Napa Valley College. Zack Cook is also a coach in the program as well. Cook has a wealth of experience in Napa as the lead assistant at Napa Valley College for the women, the head coach at Vintage, and the head boys coach at Napa.
For some of the younger, up-and-coming coaches this is more of a place to get their feet wet coaching and learn as well.
The overall goal is to teach skills that will help no matter what defense or offensive system is being run during the high school season.
“I think it’s invaluable to have a different voice during the spring season,” Granucci said of having different coaches leading teams with players from other schools and its impact on the players. “Just got done with a long season with your high school team. As long as we’re teaching the right things, I know we are and that’s what we pride ourselves on. We’re teaching the right things that ultimately will carry over to their high school teams. So it’s only going to make them better. We’re doing skill development work, we’re doing decision-making work, you know, how to read defenses, how to read plays, and actions that ultimately come up, no matter what kind of system you run, on top of the skill work.”
With Nessman being the athletic director and head coach at Justin-Siena and Prescott being the lead assistant coach at Napa Valley College, plenty of facilities are also available for all the teams.
The program also has access to local schools like Harvest and Redwood as well as Napa High in an effort to show their players’ different places and campuses around town.
If the teams weren’t enough in the way of player development, 707 Premier also offers a variety of training options with their coaches.
To find out more about 707 Premier, you can go to their website.
All-Star Games with Dunk Contest on Saturday night at Napa Valley College
If you’re looking to see some of the top seniors from Napa and Solano Counties play one more time, you’re in luck.
On Saturday afternoon in Storm Gym, 707 Premier in coordination with Simply Basketball and Signal the Light Basketball will host a first-of-its-kind all-star game. The high school game will take place at 4:30 pm, with the game featuring a Solano vs Napa County format.
“George has just a huge network of connections that he can draw from and he was able to kind of get the ball rolling,” Prescott said of the event on Saturday. “I think it’s gonna be something that our basketball that our town hasn’t seen basketball-wise. To have an event this big, and with this kind of focus is just gonna be huge for the town and be able to get it off the ground. It was a lot of work, but we were able to do it.”
Some of the top graduating seniors from the Vine Valley Athletic League will be playing in the game as well.
VVAL player of the year and Chico State signee Travis Hightower from Justin-Siena and VVAL defensive player of the year Ben Jackson of Vintage will be on the Napa County team. Others from the VVAL champion Braves squad include Vince Jackson, Asher Cleary, and Ma’el Blunt. Napa High is represented by Jared Martinez.
Following the high school game, there will be a dunk contest at 6 pm. The finale of the night will see the junior college all-star game that will start at 7 pm. The JC game will feature NorCal Elite vs NorCal Finest.
