Blue Devil Nation continues its season long coverage of high school basketball with updates on Austin Rivers, Josh Hairston, Tyler Thornton, J.P. Tokoto, Trey Zeigler, and Marshall Plumlee. The High School Hoops articles will be a weekly feature at Blue Devil Nation as they were the past two years; Edition No. 4 is being posted just four days after Edition No. 3 due to a significant volume of activity taking place on the hardwood these past few nights. Blue Devil Nation encourages everyone to check back late Sunday evening for High School Hoops 2010 Edition No. 5. [private]

Austin Rivers earned MVP honors at the Rotary Tip-Off Classic as Winter Park HS won the championship. Rivers scored 20 points, in the championship game, as Winter Park defeated Winter Springs 59 – 32. In the semi-finals, Winter Park defeated Oak Ridge 71 – 57. The Orlando Sentinel has a video recap posted. Rivers scored 28 points and drained seven 3-point shots in a 70 – 43 opening round victory over Lake Brantley.

In his next game, on Tuesday (Dec 8), Rivers scored 21 points in a 75 – 34 victory over Colonial.

Josh Hairston played his debut game at Montrose Christian in the Caron Butler Invitational in Washington D.C. Hairston scored 26 points as Montrose defeated Theodore Roosevelt HS 63 – 47. Theodore Roosevelt was 2 – 0 coming into the game. Montrose Christian and Hairston’s next game is on Friday night.

Tyler Thornton drew an offensive foul with 28 seconds remaining to seal Gonzaga's 64 - 59 victory over Carroll High. Thornton scored 16 points, including going 6-6 from the charity stripe, and delivered four assists in the game. He is shooting 90.9 percent from the free throw line through three games. Gonzaga and Thornton will be back in action on Thursday evening.

J.P. Tokoto scored 19 points as Menomonee Falls defeated Milwaukee Marquette 56 – 36. Menomonee Falls and Tokoto will be back in action on Friday night.

Trey Zeigler was the leader in scoring and rebounding with 30 and 13 as Mt Pleasant defeated Midland 69 – 46. He also dished out seven assists. In this article, from The Morning Sun, Mt Pleasant Coach Sam Taylor states, “Trey was solid. But it won’t be his best game of the season I can tell you that.” Duke University representatives attended the game to scout Zeigler (I heard through the grapevine it was Nate James, but I cannot confirm who was in attendance). Here is another recap of the action.

Marshall Plumlee grabbed nine rebounds to go along with four points as Christ School opened conference play with an 80 – 67 win over Rabun Gap. Plumlee is averaging 7.6 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 2.2 blocks per game through the first nine games of his junior season.

In case any of our faithful readers have not already seen this article with two embedded videos, here is a Kyrie Irving preview from MassLive.com. [/private]