USA TODAY High School Sports is unveiling the 2015-16 American Family Insurance ALL-USA Boys Basketball Teams as selected by Jim Halley with input from USA TODAY Sports’ Jason Jordan, high school coaches and recruiting experts.
FIRST TEAM: Honoring the top players
VIDEO: Our breakdown of the first team
COACH OF THE YEAR: Steve Baik, Chino Hills (Calif.)
SECOND TEAM: See who made the second team
THIRD TEAM: See who made the third team
PLAYER PROFILE:
Name: DeAndre Ayton
School: Hillcrest Prep (Phoenix)
Position: Center
Height: 7-1
College: Uncommitted
Details: The junior, a native of Nassau, The Bahamas, is averaging 29.2 points, 16.7 rebounds, and 3.8 blocks.
Second-best athlete in the family: My baby sister, Serenity, who is in track and field. She runs for days.
First car I drove: Honda Accord.
Season highlight: A dunk against Orangeville Prep (Toronto). My teammate, Channel Banks, threw me an alley-oop all the way from halfcourt. I just hung on the rim and everyone thought I was going to break it. It changed the whole momentum of the game and we started leading the way for the win.
Favorite musician: Jay-Z
Hidden talent: I used to draw a lot. I don’t know if I’m still good at it. Me and my older brother would compete, or at least I would compete against him. I don’t know if he wanted to compete. We would make good drawings of classmates. Then I started taking up architecture, but then I realized it’s really hard and I started focusing a lot of my time on basketball.
Dream car and color: Range Rover, black-on-black.
First job: I used to go around and mow neighbors’ lawns, just cleaning up around the neighborhood.
Most embarrassing favorite song: Lean on Me.
Funniest trash talker: Josh Jackson. You have to know him. He’ll talk about stuff off the court, bring up stuff about the past.
Second-favorite sport: Soccer.
People confuse me with: Thon Maker.
Biggest deal on my phone: I don’t have any big-time people on my phone because I don’t give out my number.
Basketball influences: Everybody who has been in my life since I came over here, to be honest. All the coaches who have been in my life and my mom and my stuff like that. Working hard, watching a lot of NBA games. Listening to everybody’s advice, taking everybody’s wisdom.