“Is that the kid that stopping all the crime up in Baltimore?” one Goodman League fan asked Commissioner Miles Rawls.
The “kid” he was speaking of was the one and only Aquille Carr, aka the “Crimestopper.” Carr, a former Baltimore City high school basketball star, put on a show “Inside The Gates” on Aug. 2, helping team Hoop Culture win their final game of the regular season and defeat the Roc Boys, 89-75, in a very entertaining Sunday Night Showdown.
“Representing Baltimore drives me ten times harder than anybody from any other city,” said Carr, 21. “I come from the bottom so I have no where else to go but to the top.”
It was nice seeing Carr back on the court. The last time fans from the District were able to watch the Crimestopper play was back in 2013 for Princeton Day Academy. Since then, Carr has made a few trips overseas to play in various professional basketball leagues, most in Canada. He said he will visit with the Houston Rockets next week with hopes of making their roster.
In his Goodman League appearance, Carr scored 17 points with a couple of impressive alley-oop dimes to Derrick Cook. Cook finished with 14 points, majority of which came from above the rim. Cook will travel to Greece to play ball this upcoming season.
White Chocolate led Hoop Culture with 21 points, showing off his range by knocking down a couple of trey balls.
The game was back-and-forth early on. It wasn’t until the last two minutes of the first half that Hoop Culture began to pull away. Roc Boys had two players with 20-plus points, including DeAngelo with 24 and Tic with 22. DeAngelo was matched up with Carr for majority of the game, and the two speedy guards went bucket-for-bucket in the first half. “Lo“scored 18 points in the first half, nine of which came from behind the arc.
In other Goodman action, Team 41 and A-Team also played in a game on Aug. 2; Team 41 walked away with the victory, 43-39. Bishop McNamara guard Jamir Moultrie led all scorers with 18 points, 11 of which came in the second half.
With the playoffs approaching, this was a good win for Hoop Culture, who was without Goodman veteran D-Nice.
Aug. 9 marks the first day of the league’s single-elimination playoffs. As Rawls would say, “stay tuned!”