Meriden Native Coaching His Way Through Summer
by Zach Smart
Perhaps Jason Riccitelli should consider changing his cell phone number. This is because his minutes have been murdered, his messages flooded by a plethora of Division I basketball coaches these past few weeks.
Riccitelli, the founder and spearhead of Connecticut Young Gunz AAU program, has done more than just establish a perennial hotbed for the Constitution State’s top-shelf ballers. He’s essentially morphed the program into a launching pad for college scholarships.
For four straight summers, Riccitelli has taken elite players and quickly converted them into Division I prospects.
“From the class of 2003 through the class of 2006, all my kids (in the program) go to college,” Riccitelli said. “Whether it’s Division I, II, or III, I want to see them in a four-year school to get a four-year college degree. That’s our emphasis.
This summer, Riccitelli and the Young Gunz have traveled through the country, leaving many coaches drooling in the process.
“I’m pretty happy with how these kids are doing,” said Riccitelli, fresh off a smooth road swing that featured successful stops in New Jersey, California, and West Virginia. “I must have fielded 50-60 phone calls from Division I schools in the last four days. I’ve been trying to get these kids as much exposure. The status of our Division I prospects in the program is looking pretty good.”
Three of his teams competed at Las Vegas, and teams playing in both the Adidas and Reebok tournament in Vegas and Los Angeles, respectively.
In late June, he coached and scrutinized young talent at the Adidas all-america camp in San Diego. He brought three players out of the Young Gunz program there, all of whom turned many heads.
The class of 2009’s Darrel McCoy, a 6-foot-9 center who’s headed to Master’s Preparatory in West Simsbury (where Riccitelli is presently coaching), Tyrone Gardner, a 6-foot-1 sophomore floor general from Hartford, and Dominic Farmer, who’s headed to the prestigious South Kent Prep, all made names for themselves while representing Connecticut at the camp.
Riccitelli feels that the most promising young player in the state is Kevin Brown, a swift lefty point guard who’s heading into his sophomore season at the baller-breeding Hillhouse high school in New Haven. Brown will appear at Five Star basketball camp come August.
The bullet-quick Sherroy Bentley of Bridgeport (Class of 2007) is one of the program’s most prized players. Riccitelli got Bentley in the ABCD All-America camp, which took place earlier this month. “(Sherroy) was the only player in Connecticut selected,” Riccitelli said. The Harding High stud and coach’s son will undoubtedly be the player to watch next season. Bentley has received interest from a number of Division I programs: Rutgers, Rhode Island, UNLV, and Xavier, to name a few.
He also explained that the class of 2008 is the best class in Connecticut for basketball, bar none.
“That’s the hot spot for Connecticut,” Riccitelli explained. “A lot of high major kids. Out of the top 25 players in the state for 2008, 23 of them play in our program. We had three 16-and-under teams this year.”
Riccitelli jump-started the program in 2003, while he was coaching at Platt high school. He starred at the school and had a scholarship to Eastern Connecticut State at the conclusion of his senior year. However, he was academically ineligible, explaining that he let “too much freedom” get the best of him.
“We wanted the program to get as many kids that played at Platt involved in AAU in the off-season. The guy that we were going to be working with had some kids out of New Haven, from Hillhouse and Hyde. Going into the second year, we got more talent from various cities like New Britain. We reached out to Bridgeport, Bloomfield, and Waterbury. Now, there’s not a city in Connecticut where if a kid could play at the highest level of basketball, whether he’s in eighth grade or twelfth grade, we’d like him to compete in our program. Our process is to help them; academically, we offer SAT prep classes for free. Our main emphasis is ‘student-athlete,’ you gotta be a student before you can be an athlete.”
He continued, “We play all over the country. We play in Texas, North Carolina, California, Las Vegas, Arkansas. This year, we ended up picking up a sponsorship with Reebok.”
Riccitelli has one clear-cut message for these kids: stay focused. Since his days at ECSU, he has been a boy wonder amongst Connecticut coaches since then, landing his first gig at 19.
With the establishment of the CT Young Gunz, he’s formed the state’s primary AAU program.
