Over the next month, The Post will bring you into the world of South Shore/New Heights point guard Terrence Samuel as he travels from Indiana to Reading, Pa., to King of Prussia, Pa., Las Vegas and back to Reading during the live recruiting period. This is entry No. 2 of 5, as told to The Post’s Zach Braziller, that will appear over the next four weeks. The rest are slated for July 16, July 26 and August 1.
READING, Pa. – It’s Terrence again — this was a busy week. It started Wednesday as me and my teammate at South Shore, Shamiek [Sheppard], won the Adidas Invitational [in 16U division] in Indianapolis. We were the first New Heights team to win a national title. So that’s history. We lost our first game because we didn’t come ready to play.
We took nothing for granted after that. We played hard every game from the jump. We went to sleep early every night, by 11 p.m. It was just dedication. Our coaches gave us a big speech about when Jayvaughn Pinkston (Tennessee) and Corey Edwards (George Mason) had a big win over this team with Tristan Thompson (who is now in the NBA with the Cleveland Cavaliers) and how they stayed out, lost their next game, but really lost it by staying up late.
I dunked on someone from Urban DFW Elite (Texas). I was on the fastbreak, a kid was running by my side and I dunked it on him. It felt good – like I had bunnies. That’s bounce. That was the first time I dunked on someone in a real game. I told everybody I was gonna do it.
During the tournament I played in front of a lot of good colleges, like Duke, Iowa State, Louisville, Cincinnati, Drexel, Xavier, Pittsburgh and Kentucky. I saw Cincinnati’s Mick Cronin, Iowa State’s Fred Hoiberg, Rick Pitino [of Louisville] and Mike Krzyzewski of Duke.
After the tournament, we took a flight to Philadelphia and headed to Hoop Group Team Camp to play with my high school team, South Shore. When I got there, my team was down 20 with nine minutes left and we battled back and got the win. But [during the team camp], we didn’t play how we usually play, we didn’t play to our full potential. I played 11 games since Wednesday, but I’m young so it’s OK.
We have another tournament starting on Monday we hope to win, it’s the Summer Classic East near Philadelphia. I want to win another championship and get more offers so I have a lot of choices.