The Greentree Summer League is now complete and three Panthers made the All-League team: Ashton Gibbs, Dante Taylor, and J.J. Moore. The latter two are expected to take big steps in contributing to the 2011-12 team and it's nice to see they played well over the summer.
Also, in case you hadn't heard, for the first time a team with no Pitt players won the championship. So what can we take away from this?
Absolutely nothing.
Okay, maybe 'absolutely nothing' is a bit of an overstatement, but the games should be kept in proper perspective.
The league, while competitive, still features teams which consist of a hodgepodge of random players. The players involved also have different purposes in participating. Established players like Ashton Gibbs come in hoping to hone their skills and work on things to increase their draft stock and get better for the upcoming season. Younger players want to gain experience playing against top competition. Professional players like Gilbert Brown and Gary McGhee are hoping to stay in shape.
These games are great and I particularly like to see how Pitt's incoming freshmen fare. But realistically, it's virtually impossible to take much value away from the league in terms of trying to determine what types of seasons the players will have.
Regardless, it's still an incredible opportunity to see local players in the offseason and the league is definitely creating its own niche in the region.